John Thompson is an Oklahoma City teacher with 18 years of urban high school experience and an education blogger at thisweekineducation.com. He is a regular contributor to our blog on education issues.

All of the neighborhood high schools in the Oklahoma City Public School System and four other metro schools are categorized as “dropout factories” because they graduate less than 60 percent of their freshmen. And this is a huge improvement from the early 1990s when the OKCPS had a graduate rate of 39 percent. The Alliance For Excellent Education’s new report, “The Economic Benefits from Halving Oklahoma City’ Dropout Rate,” calculated the effects of reducing the city’s 4,800 dropouts by 50 percent. They estimate that reducing dropouts would generate $24 million in increased earnings, $17 million in additional spending, and $5 million in new investments. Reducing dropouts would increase home sales by $32 million and car sales by $2 million. The new graduates would produce 200 new jobs and generate $29 million in economic growth, as well as $3 million in new tax revenue.

New research by Columbia University’s Hechinger Institute, combined with previous studies, indicates that a key component of reducing dropouts is the expansion of high quality alternative schools. In New York City (where 80 percent of students are low-income) providing alternative slots to 5 percent of the student population has helped increase the city’s graduation rate by 36 percent.  New York discovered that:

…alternative schools for at-risk students worked wonders with struggling students. Regular high schools graduated 19 percent of overage, undercredited students. At alternative schools, the graduation rates were 56 percent – right at the city average.  Once students switched to an alternative school, they came to school more often and began earning credits more quickly. The solution was obvious: open more alternative schools. Read the rest of this entry »

From time to time, we use the OK Policy blog to post contributions that offer interesting perspectives on important policy issues for the state. This is the second of two posts from John Thompson,  an Oklahoma City teacher with 18 years of urban high school experience and an education blogger at thisweekineducation.com. He has a doctorate from Rutgers University, and is the author of Closing the Frontier:  Radical Responses in Oklahoma Politics. His first post looked at the national debate over education reform.

The law that could radically change Oklahoma’s school systems for good or for ill was  completely ignored in the latest debates between candidates for Governor and Secretary of Public Instruction on educational policy.   SB 2033, which passed in the final days of this past legislative  session in conjunction with the Oklahoma Race to the Top (RttT) grant application, has received almost no attention.  So maybe Oklahomans would like an overview of the federal education policy that prompted it.

I should first acknowledge my bias as a teacher in the lowest performing high school in Oklahoma, and as a believer that schools must respect students as whole social, emotional, and moral beings and not just a test score.  I served on the executive committee of Oklahoma City’s MAPS for KIDS, the product of a bipartisan coalition of business, labor, and the community, and which sought a humane learning culture for all.  Frankly I am embarrassed that the Chamber of Commerce tends to be more mindful of the dignity of my poor students of color than the educational bureaucracy. Read the rest of this entry »

From time to time, we use the OK Policy blog to post contributions that offer interesting perspectives on important policy issues for the state. John Thompson is an Oklahoma City teacher with 18 years of urban high school experience and an education blogger at thisweekineducation.com. He has a doctorate from Rutgers University, and is the author of Closing the Frontier:  Radical Responses in Oklahoma Politics. A follow-up post will explore Oklahoma’s new state law implementing education reforms.

Since President Obama endorsed the mass firings of teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island, my wife (who originally supported Hillary) has taunted me about teachers ripping their Obama bumper stickers off their cars.   When I explain my contradictory feelings on the President’s policy on schools, my wife’s eyes glaze over, so I will leave it to readers to judge whether continued, cautious support for the Obama policy is prudent or wishful thinking. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re #1, again! Last month, the National Institute for Early Education Research released the 2009 State Preschool Yearbook,  its annual report on pre-kindergarten education across the nation.  Overall, the report’s press release proclaimed that “Oklahoma was ranked as the leader of the top 10 states in the country… based on enrollment, quality standards, funding adequacy, and evidence of program effectiveness.”

On access, Oklahoma was recognized as “the only state where almost every child had the opportunity to attend a quality preschool education program at age 4.” The state data fact sheet shows that almost every school district in Oklahoma offers a 4-year old program and 71 percent of children were enrolled in a pre-K program in the 2008-09 school year. Under Oklahoma’s collaborative pre-K model, public school teachers can be placed in Head Start programs, child care centers, or other community-based programs, as well as directly in public schools. Read the rest of this entry »

Our public schools already shoulder a great deal of responsibility. They are expected not only to teach our children reading, writing and arithmetic, but also, in many cases, to help make sure that they are adequately fed and nourished, to help them cope with disabilities, to instill in them core values of good citizenship, and to help those who come from afar integrate into our community. But should our schools also have the responsibility to serve as arms of the immigration enforcement authorities?

That, in practice, is what a bill introduced this legislative session by Representative Randy Terrill would force our schools to become. HB 3384, under the guise of collecting data on the population of students who are not lawfully present in the United States, would require the presentation by parents “for inspection to a designated school official at the school in which the child is enrolled of official documentation establishing the citizenship or immigration status of the child.”  Each school district would be required to make a determination of the student’s legal status and then compile and report this information to the State Department of Education. Read the rest of this entry »

In the heart of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oklahoma City, in a state-of-the-art facility beside the railroad tracks, the smell of fresh-baked bread and cookies wafts down the halls, which wind around the building to simulate streets in a town.

This is Educare, a premiere early childhood education and child care program, and Oklahoma City is one of only a handful of cities to claim one. In fact, at the time OKC Educare opened this summer, Oklahoma was the only state to have two Educare centers. (Tulsa’s opened in 2006.) Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve recently joined with CFED, a national organization dedicated to expanding economic opportunity, and the Oklahoma Asset Building Coalition, in releasing the 2009-2010 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard. Our earlier post summarized the Oklahoma results, as did several media reports.

One area where Oklahoma needs to do better is our 529 college savings plan. Section 529 of the federal tax code allows families to set aside savings in a special account overseen by the state government. Interest earnings on the account are not subject to the federal or state income tax. CFED points out that: Read the rest of this entry »

The Oklahoma State Board of Education recently adopted higher testing standards for elementary and middle school students. According to the Tulsa World, the higher standards result from recommendations of a committee of educators and business representatives. This effort responded to charges from business and conservative groups (and some left-leaning observers) that we set up test standards so most students would be considered proficient under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

New standards initially will result in  a drop in the proportion of students who meet basic and proficient standards in math and reading. If the theory behind high test standards is correct, students eventually will learn more and score higher on the more difficult tests. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandy Garrett argues:

There’s no doubt the bar has been significantly raised on what Oklahoma students are expected to know in math and reading in Grades 3-8. However, the Board and I believe this action was necessary to ensure Oklahoma students are competitive nationally and internationally and that our schools continue to move forward.

Higher standards are one education reform that people from across the political spectrum often support. It’s important to remember, though, that higher test standards and better outcomes are not necessarily the same thing. Dana Goldstein recently pointed out the difference in The American Prospect. Her column “Testing Testing” chronicles the growing movement for a national testing standard, cautioning that agreement on test standards can be oversold. Among Goldstein’s concerns is that the national testing movement is partly propelled by companies that make a living selling standardized tests. Another is that high standards can be created and attained through means other than testing.

Read the rest of this entry »