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Education

Lawless Bureaucrats vs. Special Needs Kids in Oklahoma

Several school districts in Oklahoma are flatly refusing to comply with a new state law offering school vouchers to parents of children with disabilities.

The Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Act makes available to thousands of disabled students with an individualized education program a scholarship of up to $7,500 to attend any public or private school that meets state accreditation standards. Oklahoma’s legislature passed House Bill 3393 in May, and Gov. Brad Henry (D) signed the bill into law on June 8. Reformers hailed the law as a victory not just for school choice but for kids with special needs who are often poorly served by their local public schools.

But at least four districts decided the law is unconstitutional and they’re simply not going to follow it. Besides, all of those extra special education dollars are nothing to sneeze at.

Brandon Dutcher, proprietor of Oklahoma’s Choice Remarks blog, says the bureaucrats just don’t get it. And so he’s made a video that puts their intransigence in its proper context:

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— Ben Boychuk

Ben Boychuk is a policy advisor for education at The Heartland Institute and a former managing editor of School Reform News. Ben joined the Heartland Institute in 2010 after several years writing on education and other national issues as an editorial writer for Investor's Business Daily and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif. More recently, Ben was co-moderator of RedBlueAmerica.com and was managing editor of the Claremont Review of Books from 2000 until 2004. He is now editor of the California edition of City Journal. In addition to his work for Heartland, Ben writes a weekly syndicated column for Scripps-Howard News Service and contributes regularly to The Sacramento Bee. His writing has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Rocky Mountain News, The Washington Times and the Arizona Republic, National Review Online, and elsewhere. Ben graduated with a B.A. in political science from the University of California, San Diego. He lives in the Inland Empire of Southern California with his wife Millie, their two children, a cat, a tree frog, and an albino corn snake.

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  • ConcreteNeil

    Silly people! Don’t you realize that bureaucrats are above the law? Look at the IRS, FBI, DEA, or any state’s CPS. They know what’s best for us, law or no law, and we must obey their edicts.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1786837552 Steve Hinton

    Granted this is a ludricous situation, but the video is hilarious!