Several years ago, Sen. Penny Williams (D-Tulsa) authored the first bill to legalize charter schools in Oklahoma. As you know, charter schools are publicly financed government schools, which by law are freed from some of the mandates, bureaucracy, and collective bargining that are a part of what's normal at most other public schools. Charter schools, unlike other public schools, also have the freedom to define for themselves and their students a more targeted curriculum. They can, for example, focus their teaching on math and science ... or music ... or history ... or core knowledge ... or college preparatory ... or performing arts ... or helping at-risk students, etc. — whatever their educational charter authorizes.
Today, numerous charter schools exist statewide, although Oklahoma's charter school law has never been as as favorable to the growth of these cutting-edge, publicly popular schools as were the laws in, e.g., the states of Arizona or Arkansas. That may be changing.
Sen. Glenn Coffee (R-Oklahoma City), the Senate's president Pro Tempore, has announced that he will introduce legislation in 2010 to expand the state's charter school law and to make it legally possible for mayors in the state's two largest cities, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, to authorize new charter schools, as well. Currently, elected school boards must approve a new school's charter before a charter school can begin its operations. Coffee's bill would open up the process a bit by vesting mayors with this authority, too.
OFPC generally believes that charter schools are good for education, good for the children and parents they serve, and we commend Sen. Coffee for his willingness to help Oklahoma's children have more educational choices available to them through an expansion of current statutory law regarding charter schools in Oklahoma.
