Voucher Wolves and the Un-level Playing Field in H.S. Athletics

   The biggest issue our public schools face today are the “voucher wolves” currently serving in our state legislature, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives. A “voucher wolf” is a state legislator who tells the general public that the only way to save our public schools is to allow the public’s tax dollars to be siphoned off by private schools and corporate charter schools. A voucher wolf tells us that this “choice” of allowing the legislature to spend tax dollars out of state on corporate charters such as the Gulen Charter Chain will increase competition among schools and make public schools better. The ONLY thing that vouchers do, however, is to take our public school students’ funding. More than $1 million tax dollars were spent by our lawmakers on vouchers last year, but they (voucher wolves) want to expand the voucher program exponentially in the years to come. They tried to expand vouchers during this year’s legislative session, but both Senate and House bills went up in smoke, much to the dismay of the two authors, both known voucher wolves. They will not give up on vouchers, though, as their next plan is to seek re-enforcements in the form of newly elected House and Senate members also in favor of vouchers.

   So how do these “voucher wolves” obtain voucher legislation to be considered by the full House and Senate? They belong to a secretive organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which provides cookie cutter legislation for state lawmakers to take back to their respective states for consideration. ALEC matches state lawmakers with corporations (privately managed corporate school chains, for example) so that the out of state education groups can have more and better access to Oklahoma students’ public school dollars. Knowledgeable citizens sometimes call this type of legislation “corporate welfare” or “crony capitalism”, because it funnels the public tax dollars directly to corporations and private schools. The legislators who belong to ALEC only pay $50 to become a member, but in return, they get an all-expense paid family vacation to resort cities such as San Diego or Las Vegas. The corporations that belong to ALEC pay much higher membership fees, often as high as $10,000 to $25,000, but get access to state lawmakers who take their bills back to the states for passage (the voucher bills are good examples).

   Voucher wolves are now working diligently on bills which will funnel state tax dollars to private schools across the state. If passed by the legislature next session, private schools will be able to offer “scholarships” to high school athletes – funded by public tax dollars at the expense of your local public school. The un-level playing field will be tilted even more, between public and private school competition, than it is now. Just think of it: a private school will be able to offer a scholarship to a public school athlete – and force the public school to pay for it. Let’s just hope the OSSAA implements field-leveling rules for private and public school competition before these new voucher laws take effect. Like I said before, though "the OSSAA will never implement any rules which adversely affect private schools, and that’s too bad…