Missed opportunities to address disparities in student discipline

Students with disabilities in Oklahoma public schools have experienced disproportionately high rates of exclusionary discipline, such as corporal punishment and suspension, compared to students without disabilities. [More...]

SB 81 would break Oklahoma’s obligation to educate all kids

Article 13 of Oklahoma’s Constitution begins: “The Legislature shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools wherein all the children of the State may be educated.” That commitment to educate all of the children in our state is prominent in our… Read more [More...]

What cuts to alternative education mean for individual lives. Lives such as mine. (Guest Post)

The author of this post, a Tulsa-born social worker and parent of three children in the  public school system, asked to remain anonymous We hear a lot about the cuts to public programs that have been made in recent years as a result of… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma needs to rethink school suspensions

Tara Grigson is an OK Policy intern. She is a psychology and Spanish major at the University of Tulsa and previously worked as a Mission Impact Intern at YWCA Tulsa. In June, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil… Read more [More...]

Cuts to alternative education will come back to haunt us

Nothing is as critical to a young person’s future prospects as a high school diploma. Decades of research shows that those who drop out of high school are at significantly higher risk of being unemployed, living in poverty, and serving… Read more [More...]

No Exit: The School-to-Prison pipeline (Neglected Oklahoma)

Camille Landry is a writer, activist, and social justice advocate who lives in Oklahoma City.  This post is part of our “Neglected Oklahoma” series, which tells the stories of Oklahomans in situations where the basic necessities of life are hard… Read more [More...]

Governor should sign bill easing third-grade retention mandate

On May 9th, the State Department of Education announced that 7,970 third graders, or 16.4 percent of Oklahoma’s third grade population, scored unsatisfactory on the state’s standardized 3rd grade reading test, the OCCT. These children and their families will be… Read more [More...]