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Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I want to tell a bit of a story. There are some great schools and great teachers in Oklahoma. They do an incredible job, and they serve our families every day, doing remarkable work, working alongside so many kids who struggle in their educational environment, who struggle to be able to learn but who excel. I am grateful to those teachers across our State. Those teachers who are in our public schools--both our public traditional schools and our public charter schools--deserve to be applauded and encouraged for the work they do every day, and I am proud to know many of them as friends and as neighbors.

But what is interesting to me right now is there is a push that is happening from the Biden administration to divide teachers, teachers who are in public school education, that there are some who are like the good public school teachers, and apparently there are some that-- you are the bad public school teachers. And it is not based on the ratings for their students or the quality of their teaching; it is based on which public school they choose to be able to serve in.

You see, the Biden administration has put out a new policy to try to crush public charter schools. How are they doing it? They are saying that if there are open desks in other public schools, then the public charter school can't prove a need for them to exist at all, and they want to just be able to wipe them out.

Stop. Let me just set this in context for you. In Oklahoma, there is a school called Harding Charter Preparatory High School. Maybe you wouldn't know it, but U.S. News & World Report--they know it. U.S. News & World Report--with 18,000 schools in America, they rank the 18,000 schools in America. U.S. News & World Report ranked Harding Charter Preparatory School in Oklahoma City 115th out of 18,000 schools. In fact, in Oklahoma, Harding Charter Preparatory High School was ranked No. 1. The No. 1 school in the State is this public charter school.

Now, it happens to be in an area where there are open desks in other schools around it, so it won't meet the need requirement that the Biden administration is putting out to say: You can't prove a need for your existence. So the No. 1 school in our State could be wiped out because those public school teachers are teaching at the wrong public school.

What else can I tell you about Harding? At Harding, 100 percent of the students go to AP classes--100 percent of them. What else can I tell you about Harding? Seventy-two percent of the students at Harding Preparatory School are minorities--72 percent--and it is the No. 1 school in our State.

What is different about a public charter school and a traditional public school? Well, the rules for the kids are exactly the same--the same testing requirements, the same State requirements, the same Federal requirements for the kids. The rules are exactly the same for the kids, but they are different for the grownups. The grownups have a different set of rules. They have a different set of accountability in charter schools.

What is the result they are getting? The No. 1 school in our State is a charter school. The 115th school in the country is this charter school. Yet, now the Biden administration is saying: You are going to have to prove a need for it.

Can I tell you, the parents and families in Oklahoma have already proven a need for it. I got an email in from one of those students, who said: I was not getting access to these AP classes in the school--in the public school they were in before. They had no shot of really getting into the college they wanted to be able to get into until they got into Harding Charter Preparatory School, a public charter school, and now they have a shot.

I have to tell you, I don't understand the battle with choice that is happening with parents in this country. I don't understand why suddenly so many government officials want to be able to say to parents: You go to that school, the school we choose; you can't move; you have to stay right there--why that is suddenly the trend in America.

This growing push across our country for public charter schools, for parents to be more involved in their child's education, for parents to have new options in education, for parents to be able to have a choice and some freedom, why is that so bad, that so many kids get a shot?

Can I tell you, I have two daughters. They are not the same. They have different preferences. They have different ideas. They are both beautiful and amazing girls. But, for some reason, the folks in the Biden administration, in the Education Department, are saying: All kids are the same, and we are going to require them to do it the way we want all kids to do it--rather than allowing parents like me and parents like others to be able to say: This child's best education environment is in that location, in that public school, or another child has a better educational environment in a different charter public school.

Don't lose track of this: They are both public schools. They both have requirements for the students which are exactly the same, but the rules for the grownups are different. Some in the teachers union do not like that, and so this plan is to shut down this type of school, like Harding.

I say let's stand with those parents and with those students, with that charter school and a multitude of others in my State where parents are engaged in their child's education and administrators in those schools have to work twice as hard because they don't get the same level of funding as other public schools. Let's support them, not try to diminish them.

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