In no particular order these
shall be my declarations as #OKlaed king for the day.
Develop a feasible and
aggressive technology vision for our states education system in its entirety.
Oklahoma is becoming increasingly behind
the nation yet again, this time in the area of providing avenues to which
all schools can garner an equal opportunity to provide an environment that
accommodates students’ technology needs.
We continually hear that we are not producing workers that are prepared for the
21st Century workforce, yet there has been little to no discussion
on the basis of how we can provide an infrastructure, as well as actual
devices, to our students PK-12. Our students will be working within environments
that are saturated with technology and need
the skills to produce in these surroundings. This has simply fallen under
the umbrella of what a school is expected to and needs to provide to students
to offer a high-quality education, along with the bevy of other things that are
now necessitated over and above even just 15 years ago.
Competitive starting pay for
our teachers, and better pay for our
best teachers. I don't know a single industry that does not benefit from a
good salary attracting the best candidates, or from paying their best the best.
(I have another blog coming soon about
this topic only) Education is no different, and I cannot fathom as to why
some will say that education is an anomaly in that regard. It's not 'whining',
its backed up by actual research,
of which this is simply one example.
Stop redirecting and dancing around the issue whilst talking about
administrative salaries, consolidation and ‘propping up unions’. Get to real
problems and real solutions. Get to factual information in those areas, as well
as do them in the name of transparency and efficiency, but can’t we do them
all? We are 49th. We’ve tried the cheap approach. It’s not working.
Restructure schedules, both daily and yearly. We are operating
under a standardized calendar simply out of 19th Century compromise
and convenience, and not even
agrarian principles, as most would be led to believe. If we are to get
serious about true education reform, and we know there are many that get excited
just at the utterance of those two words, then we cannot do so without tackling
our inefficient and outdated school schedule. In regards to the calendar, most
outside of education probably do not even realize the issues that come along
with the feast and famine school schedule as it currently stands throughout
most of our state. The ‘summer slide’ is very real and can be minimized by the creation of a more
efficient school calendar. With regards to daily scheduling, we must embrace
research that strongly suggests that the school day should start later. We could also look into staggering start times, especially for Middle School and High School, allowing for
parents and students to choose the best fit. We like choice right? This approach would also save money by allowing for doubling the usage of buses and
therefore requiring less buses. However you slice it up, our school schedule is
archaic and harming the educational attainment of our students.
There are more things that I
would obviously address if I were ‘King for a Day’, but I only have 600 words and
“wish for more wishes” was already taken.
