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Go to Oklahoma's report card.

Oklahoma:
Seeking Higher Ground

by Andrew Trotter

O

Vital Statistics
549 Public school districts
1,819 Public schools
625,000 K-12 enrollment
31.2% Minority students
24% Children in poverty
11.4% Students with disabilities
$3.2 billion Annual K-12 expenditures
(all revenue sources)
klahoma pressed ahead last year in its slow-moving effort to edge statewide academic achievement above the middle ranks of the states. New state money will support improved teacher training, enhanced school technology, and additional Advanced Placement and reading programs.

The state's main accountability tool remains Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandy Garrett's lists of "low performing" and "high challenge" elementary schools. A school is labeled low-performing when it scores below the national average on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and in the bottom 25 percent of state schools on Oklahoma's own test. A school that remains on the list for three years is moved to the high-challenge list. Ultimately, schools that fail to improve face state takeover.

Oklahoma continues slow progress toward statewide academic achievement.

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Last spring, 59 schools were placed on the low-performing list, the first time that more than 50 schools were put on the list since high schools were excluded four years ago. Schools blamed their low scores in part on high teacher turnover and poor reading skills.

During the 1998 legislative session, the state seemed on the verge of setting stricter high school graduation requirements--a keystone of the education agenda of Gov. Frank Keating, who was re-elected in November. The Republican governor's "4 x 4" plan would have required districts to raise the graduation requirements for students to four years each of English, mathematics, science, and social studies, up from the current four years of English, three years of math, and two years each of science and social studies.

Though members of the legislature have expressed support for that plan--or a similar proposal drawn up by Democratic Sen. Penny Baldwin Williams--it was squelched in the House education committee, chaired by Rep. James Hager, a Democrat, and was never voted on.

"It's a political thing," Floyd Coppedge, the Keating-appointed education secretary, said last fall. "The Democratically controlled committee simply did not support a concept that was a governor's initiative. We think that would be different the next legislative session."

Hager is now gone from the House, having given up his seat to run--unsuccessfully--in the Democratic primary for governor.

In the election, Democrats retained control of both the House and the Senate, but Hager's departure increases the prospects that Keating's plan, or some variation on it, will be considered by the entire House during the 1999 session that convenes this month.

A stiffer graduation rule could also be put into effect by the state school board as early as this month. Garrett, a Democrat who was re-elected as superintendent in November, chairs the board, and has said it should increase graduation requirements to four years of English and three years each of math, social studies, and science. Those levels would match the core curriculum recommended for the ACT college-entrance exam. Or the board could adopt a 4 x 4 plan.

Tougher graduation standards are starting to appear in districts even without state action. The El Reno and McAlester districts have adopted the 4 x 4 requirement.

The state has continued in the 1998-99 school year to increase support for staff development, providing a total of $14 million, up from $9.8 million in 1997-98. About $9.5 million of the staff-development money flows to districts according to an enrollment-based formula; that money allows districts to provide special training for first-year teachers and for mentors of teachers in reading, math, and science.

From the balance of the $14 million, the state has given $1 million to seven professional-development centers and $3.5 million for specialized workshops for teachers--well above the $2 million it provided for workshops last year.

More staff development in the use of technology is being financed by $7 million the state is collecting over five years, beginning in 1997, under Oklahoma's new telecommunications law. That training, administered by the state's highly regarded system of vocational-technical schools, will focus on integrating computers into the curriculum.

Another marker for educational improvement is students' participation in Advanced Placement courses. Despite the availability of state incentives to encourage districts to emphasize the courses, Coppedge says, "the biggest barrier is we don't have teachers trained in teaching them." One program, budgeted at $4.2 million this year, gives schools start-up money for teacher training in AP courses.

Schools offering such courses also get extra money to spend on materials and computers. In addition, the state gives schools $100 for each student who scores at least one 3 on an AP test, out of a possible score of 5. The money must be used to improve the school's AP program.

The incentives may be paying off. In the 1997-98 school year, 106 out of the state's 478 public high schools offered at least one AP course, up from just 79 high schools the year before.

Coppedge says the education department will ask the legislature for more incentive money this year, with some rewards possibly being paid directly to teachers.

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© 1999 Editorial Projects in Education

Vol. 18, number 17, page 168