What’s the purpose?

The first community meeting about KIPP’s proposal to expand its charter brand in Oklahoma City Public Schools was nothing short of a dog-and-pony show. This was disappointing and insulting to community members who have grave concerns about the new charter proposal. The meeting, facilitated by the nonprofit Possibilities Inc., was funded by the Inasmuch Foundation. It’s disingenuous to the northeast community for the meeting’s facilitators, who should be providing a platform for all interested parties, to have been bought and paid for by the charter proposal’s biggest sponsor.

Though meeting attendees were assured there would be equal representation of folks’ perspectives, the charter operator KIPP was given 30 minutes to sell its brand. Conversely, opponents to the proposal were given zero minutes. Possibilities Inc. thought it sufficient to give community members scraps of yellow paper onto which they could scribble their “concerns” with color markers (“hopes” were to be written on green scraps). The approach may have seemed innovative to facilitators, but the results were patronizing and juvenile.

A VICTORY FOR SCHOOLS

The Supreme Court’s 4-4 tie vote on March 29 in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association is a victory for public education, public school students and public school teachers. Without strong teacher unions our public schools, serving nearly 90 percent of our kids, would not attract good professional teachers and would deteriorate seriously.

What is needed now is more adequate and more equitably distributed funding for public schools, smaller classes, wraparound social and medical services for all kids, serious efforts to reduce the poverty that afflicts over 25 percent of our kids, and an end to the diversion of public funds to special-interest private schools.