Corporate Charter School Management Firms: "We want our pie, as well as your pie"

   Out-of-state corporate charter school companies, through the Oklahoma Public Charter School  Association (OPCSA) - are suing local taxpayers for a bigger piece of the pie (local tax dollars). The out-of-state and foreign charter organizations clamoring for more local tax dollars include 1) the Turkish based Fethullah Gulen (Muslim Clerc) chain of charter schools. Its school board members reside in Turkey. 2) Connections Academy, based out of Baltimore and the United Kingdom; 3) EPIC Virtual Charter Schools, which the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigated in 2014 for enrollment fraud (falsifying attendance records). EPIC drew the attention of the OSBI for claiming 100% student attendance. Student attendance and enrollment is how "public schools" such as EPIC receive state funding. Now, visualize EPIC's school board members running out of a dark tunnel as CO2 gas boils up under their feet as they're introduced: "JOSH MILBURG!, President, who holds a Masters in Business Administration with concentrations in Strategy and Finance from the Yale School of Management. Josh serves as the Director of Technology Strategy at Allstate Insurance; Holding a BBA degree in Finance and Business Economics from the University of Notre Dame and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School is Vice-President AARON O'DONNELL! From New Orleans, and current Chair of the Academic Committee of North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School in Chicago (the hometown of former U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan) - CARRIE STEWART! These board members really know how to swindle local taxpayers out of $millions! The local yocal taxpayers and local school board members will never see this shelacking coming!"
   I hope this post lends a degree of levity to an otherwise dire situation for our rural local schools and local taxpayers. The public school funding formula is complicated, but the board members mentioned above have figured it out, as they are very intelligent. They know, if successful in their lawsuit, they will be receiving local tax dollars that our rural public schools do not receive. This is how their "get rich quick" scheme works: Currently, our local public schools receive state aid, ad valorem (property tax), county tax, oil and gas production tax, vehicle tax, land lease tax, etc... The corporate charter school companies in our state only receive state aid. Hypothetically, if a local public school receives $100,000 in state aid, $6,000 in local ad valorem revenue, $2000 in county 4-mil, $2,000 in gross production tax, $1,000 in vehicle tax, and $1,000 in land leases - the total for our public schools would be $112,000. However, $9,000 is deducted by the legislature since these extra taxes are chargeable to state aid, leaving the school with $103,000.Charter school executives like the ones introduced earlier are suing our local taxpayers for not only their $100,000 state aid, but the additional $12,000 which our public schools DO NOT RECEIVE. They want their pie, as well as the local tax dollars, which will choke our local public schools as well as Oklahoma taxpayers! These corporate school management firms have a lot of legislative support as they've bought and paid for several state lawmakers, so they could be successful in their lawsuit... Let's hope not...