Education

Children deserve audit process beyond reproach

October 2, 2020

Staff

Jonathan Small, president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, issued the following statement today in response to the partial audit of EPIC Charter Schools released this week by the office of the State Auditor and Inspector.

“The attacks on schools of choice in Oklahoma, like EPIC, amount to torching the lifeboats for tens of thousands of families with school-age children. Across our state right now, thousands of families are pulling their hair out because the traditional public schools are just not providing what is needed or expected. No school is perfect, but thousands of parents of children all over our state are desperately searching for something that works. Any investigation of EPIC should be done with full transparency while keeping in mind that tens of thousands of students’ lives could be negatively affected if the state audit process is not beyond reproach.

“While this may baffle some status-quo defenders, the reason Epic is now officially the largest school district in our state is because the government monopoly public school system and its lack of performance has become starkly apparent during this COVID season. That’s why so many families have opted for EPIC over their local public school. And those families, as well as many other citizens, want to know why the state seems to be applying rules and restrictions to schools of choice that are seldom applied in equal measure to neighborhood public schools.”

The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs is a free-market think tank that works to advance principles and policies that support free enterprise, limited government, and individual initiative.