Senate Bill 879

   State Senator Ron Sharp (R) of Shawnee is sponsoring Senate Bill 879, which will allow the rural traditional school district adversely affected by the creation of a charter school within its district boundaries... to have the final decision as to the creation of the charter school.
   Senator Sharp relates that "Oklahoma's Charter School's Act of 1999 was amended in 2015, allowing charter school districts to expand beyond the Oklahoma City and Tulsa school districts into rural areas. However, embedded within the 2015 amendment was a loophole that allows an appeal to the unelected State Board of Education to approve a charter school district after it has been twice rejected by the locally elected board." Sharp goes on to explain the public school funding formula and specifically how the State Board creation of rural charter schools adversely affects the local funding for rural traditional schools. The State Board of Education has over-ruled local boards on several occasions (with State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister also voting to approve appeals) and created rural charter schools. As an example of how State approval of rural charter schools affect Oklahoma tax-payers, Senator Sharp quotes factually that "In 2016, traditional public schools received $1,560 in per-pupil state appropriation as compared with $3,034 to a charter district... The rural districts that are the poorest and most dependent on state appropriation are the biggest losers when new charter districts are created."
   "The start-up of any new charter district must be sustained by Oklahoma taxpayers in per-pupil funding. The Legislature has been guilty of creating numerous programs without operational funding. If there is over-whelming support for new charter school districts in rural Oklahoma, as a recent Oklahoman editorial suggested, then a 75% supermajority tax increase for their financial funding should be a plausible threshold."
   Senate Bill 879 removes language from the charter school law which allows the State Board of Education (and State Superintendent) to sponsor a charter school. It also prohibits the State Board and State Superintendent from sponsoring certain charter schools after certain date; requires certain notification; directs certain charter school applicants to enter into certain contract by certain date; provides for dissolution of certain charter schools after certain date; and removes language regarding the location of certain charter school sponsored by the State Board and State Superintendent...
   We believe that SB 879 will help curb big-spending lawmakers' ability to create more and more public charter schools, so that Oklahoma tax-payers are protected from tax increases. The big money, however, is on the side of charter schools, as one may notice in Epic Influence.