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 »

As most observers of Oklahoma legislative politics know, in cases when only a handful of Democrats support controversial bills being promoted by the Republican majority, it’s usually the more conservative members of the caucus representing rural districts who buck party lines. But on SB 1111, a bill authored by Sen. Clark Jolley that moves various education reporting and accountability functions from the State Department of Education to the Office of Accountability based with the Regents for Higher Education, it was four mostly liberal Democrats (Anastasia Pittman, Rebecca Hamilton, Seneca Scott, and Jabar Shumate), representing some of the lowest-income urban districts in the state, who joined with 54 of 59 Republicans to pass the bill in the House and send it to Governor Brad Henry. Two of the Democrats supporting SB 1111 in the House (Pittman and Shumate), along with one of the two Democratic supporters of the measure in the Senate (Judy Eason-McIntyre), are among the five African-American Democrats in the Legislature (the other two African-American Democratic legislators, Rep. Mike Shelton and Sen. Connie Johnson, opposed the measure). Read the rest of this entry »