Sandy Garrett’s Column
Learning is no longer confined to four walls and a chalkboard. In today’s classrooms, laptops, PDAs and other technologies have broken down the walls for teachers and students; literally bringing the world to their classrooms.
Technology is making a positive difference in schools and revolutionizing the way educators teach and children learn. Just this week the U.S.
Department of Education released a study indicating online education
Today, 98 percent of Oklahoma school districts use computers for curriculum, assessment and administration. In the last eight years, the number of computer in schools has more than doubled.
This is impressive considering the funding for hardware, software, and connectivity has come primarily through local bond issues and federal funds, grants or Education Rate (E-rate) discounts.
According to the State Department of Education’s annual “School Technology Survey” released at the regular June State Board of Education meeting, in Oklahoma:
— along with traditional face-to-face teaching — is an effective strategy for 21st century education. •
school year;
Schools spent more than $105 million on technology during the 2007-2008•
One-third use interactive whiteboards and PDAs;•
50 percent of schools subscribe to digital streaming;•
In addition, several districts are pursuing goals with 1:1 learning, which provides students with their own laptop computers to use each day.
A growing number of schools are also issuing iPods to students to enhance learning.
One innovative district that is integrating multiple digital technologies into classrooms is Howe Public Schools in LeFlore County. Under the direction of Superintendent Scott Parks, broadcast journalism students have created distance learning virtual field trips that enable other students to experience historical locations without leaving their classroom. Students broadcast a weekly news podcast and teachers are able to post homework and lessons online through computer programs.
Oklahoma’s core curriculum for Grades Pre-K through 12, the Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS), has standards that define basic skills of technology, including learning the operation of a computer, problem solving and telecommunications skills, and ethical and legal issues related to students using technology.
Our ever-growing global society makes the world available to every desktop. As such, the integration of digital tools into classrooms is a must for students to have the knowledge and skills needed to be competitive and successful as adults.
62 percent employ student blogs and 32 percent use instant messaging.
Sandy Garrett’s Column
From Will Rogers and Marjorie Tallchief to Carrie Underwood and Kristen Chenoweth, many famous artists have called Oklahoma home.
Oklahoma’s talent is home grown and our classrooms are full of budding young artists waiting to shine in the spotlight of success.
Talented students in the fields of acting, creative writing, ballet, modern dance, orchestra, chorus, photography, drawing/painting, and film/video attend the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain near Lone Grove each summer.
An intensive, two-week residential program gives young Oklahomans the opportunity to study with nationally renowned artists including winners of the Pulitzer Prize and of the Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards.
One of the first students to attend the Summer Institute is also one of its most famous alumni, Megan Mullally, known for her recent starring role in the award winning TV show, Will & Grace.
Participants aged 14-18, and a few graduating seniors aged 19, are selected through competitive, statewide auditions. Nearly 1,300 students applied this year, and 268 were accepted. Each receives a full scholarship to the institute worth more than $2,000.
Scholarships are provided by the State Department of Education with funding from the Legislature and matched by private donations secured by the Oklahoma Arts Institute—headed by a dynamic president, Julie Cohen.The summer institute also receives support from the Oklahoma Arts Council.
These scholarships are an important way to support student artists who have high ambitions.
At the 19th annual State Superintendent’s Awards for Arts Excellence, I had the privilege of honoring recent high school seniors who attended the summer institute.
We honored 109 talented high school seniors from 40 Oklahoma communities in a ceremony at the Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie. We also recognized school leaders and fine arts teachers.
The State Department of Education, along with the Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Alliance for Arts Education
—an affiliate of the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network, are sponsors of the event.Every year I am inspired by the creativity, passion and talent of the young artists we have in our classrooms. They give me hope for the future, but make me wonder what would happen if there were no arts programs in our schools.
It would be difficult for many of these young people to find creative outlets and to realize the academic benefits. Thankfully, the arts are a key component of Oklahoma’s core curriculum, the Priority Academic Student Skills.
Students of all ages and backgrounds benefit from exposure to the arts. A direct connection between arts participation, higher test scores and student success has been well documented. This has been especially evident in the studies of SAT scores.
We believe the arts are an integral part of a well-rounded education and I urge you to support youth arts in your community!
For information about the State Superintendent’s Awards for Arts Excellence, visit the SDE’s Web site
www.sde.state.ok.us. For details concerning the Summer Arts Institute, visit the Oklahoma Arts Institute’s Web site www.oaiquartz.org or call (405) 321-9000.
Sandy Garrett’s Column
Summer break is in full swing and students likely have indulged in sleeping in and spending hours playing with friends.
That is wonderful. Summer vacations should be full of fun. However, they don’t have to mean a break from learning. In fact, they shouldn’t mean a break from learning.
Countless studies continue to show that children experience learning loss during the summer months, particularly students in low-income homes.
On average, all students lose about two months in math skills over the summer months. While upper and middle income students gain in reading skills during this time, lower income students experience a loss according to a study by Dr. Harris Cooper, professor of psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
A recent report from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, “The Learning
Season: The Untapped Power of Summer to Advance Student Achievement” shows that nonacademic experiences during the summer can support success during the school year, including higher grades and test scores.
Families can prevent a “summer brain drain” and help children enrich their learning skills during the summer by heeding a few low-cost suggestions adapted from the Center for Summer Learning:
•
Take family educational trips. These can be visits to parks, historicalor children’s museums, zoos and nature centers.
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Practice math daily by measuring items around the house or yard.Children can add and subtract items at the grocery store and cooking (with adult supervision) is a good way to learn fractions.
•
Do good deeds together. Children learn better and “act out” less whenthey engage in activities that aid in their social emotional development, such as community service, maybe planting trees or cleaning up a park.
•
Enroll children in summer programs offered by local schools, recreationcenters, universities or community-based organizations.
•
Keep a schedule. Continuing daily routines will provide structure andlimits. This will provide a balance and keep young minds engaged.
•
Get outside and play. Intense physical activity and exercise contributeto healthy development and release pent up energy.
Also, providing plenty of reading material in the home and finding quality educational activities online are helpful to preventing summer brain drain.
Whatever you have planned, don’t forget to make the most out of the time you have together as a family. Here’s to plenty of fun and learning this summer!
Sandy Garrett’s Column
Oklahoma soon will raise the bar on state-mandated tests for elementary reading and mathematics.
The State Board of Education – a constitutional body of seven members chaired by the State Superintendent – has directed Oklahoma’s student testing company for Grades 3-8 to lead an effort resulting in higher expectations of students.This month, Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) of Minneapolis, Minn., will convene panels of reading and math educators, business and civic leaders, and representatives from higher education. DRC will facilitate committee work to raise the bar on what students must do to be proficient on the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests.
The original development of Grade 3-8 tests was both in state law and in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, however the tests were phased in between 2001 and 2006. Proficiency rates for some tests were set years before other tests were even required, such as the 6th and 7th grade tests. We have begun to see an “outlier” effect on some of the tests, especially with the 4th and 5th grades.
Thus,it is critical that we now align the test benchmarks, or cut scores, to provide consistency across the board on what it means to be “proficient” at each grade level on state tests. Committees also will consider how to better align Oklahoma tests with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Including open-ended questions on Oklahoma tests, to make them more like NAEP is costly and we have not received an appropriation for this to date.
In recent years, the Board has focused on directing the development of rigorous, high-stakes, end-of-instruction (EOI) exams in Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Biology, U.S. History, English II and English III, as required by the Achieving Classroom Excellence Act (ACE).
The EOI tests are part of the state’s new graduation requirements, established in the ACE Act. Beginning with the freshmen class of this past school year (2008-09), students must pass four of the seven EOI tests to earn a high school diploma.
Now that the EOI tests are operational and it appears proficiency benchmarks are sufficiently high, it is time to redirect our efforts to making certain that math and reading exams in Grades 3-8 have equal rigor to our high school exams and are appropriately aligned.
Setting higher math and reading expectations is critical to Oklahoma students being nationally and internationally competitive.
Recommendations for raising the bar on these tests will likely come to the State Board of Education for consideration in July.
We welcome this important opportunity to move Oklahoma forward.
Sandy Garrett’s Column
Over the next few weeks, young men and women from around the state will walk across a stage and receive one of the most important documents of their lives so far – a diploma.No matter students’ future plans, this should not prompt them to close the book on their education. Graduation needs to mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
At this moment, graduating seniors are making some important choices about what happens next, including whether to go to college, CareerTech or the workforce. This is the time for family members to help make sure graduates are considering all the possibilities and gathering information about the opportunities available to them.
It is amazing how many choices graduates have in the world today. When I graduated from Stilwell High School, there were not that many paths to a
career. Now the possibilities seem endless.
This past year, more women had earned high school diplomas, as well as associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees, than men, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Educational Attainment in the United States: 2008″
report.
The bureau also reports that workers in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree earn about $26,000 more on average than workers with a high school diploma. Thus, the decisions young Oklahomans make now will have a dramatic impact on what their future holds.
I hope all high school students are discussing their ideas with family members and other adults they trust, and perhaps are even seeking the opinions of those working in the career fields in which they are interested or already know they would like to pursue.
Making rigid life plans are not necessary. Being inquisitive, ambitious and attaining marketable skills and knowledge are what is important, as career paths can often change several times in life. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics states that Americans change jobs an average of 10 times during their working life.
Back in 2004, Secretary of Education Richard Riley reported that the top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 were not in existence and would be using technologies that had not been invented. This is why learning how to learn new skills is key.
Graduation is an exciting time and I hope each and every young person will make the most of the choices that lie ahead.
Learning continues in school, in life or on the job. Remember that graduation is not the end of something old, but the beginning of something new.
Sandy Garrett’s Column
Our state remains at the forefront of early childhood education and has quickly become an early model for the rest of the country.
What started back in the mid-1980s as a pilot Pre-Kindergarten program changed in a major way in 1998. That year, the Legislature began funding Pre-Kindergarten as a voluntary grade, and schools began receiving formula funding if they offered it.
Moving Pre-Kindergarten into the school funding formula made it possible for every four-year-old in our state to attend public preschool if their parents choose to enroll them. Nearly three-fourths do.
Oklahoma is 1 of 9 states that provides Pre-Kindergarten through its school funding formula, according to Pre-K Now’s nonpartisan annual report “Leadership Matters” issued on May 5.
According to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) recent annual report, “The State of Preschool 2008,” Oklahoma remains the only state where schools serve all four-year-old children enrolled with a certified teacher.
The report says that “research shows that high-quality Pre-Kindergarten can help improve the educational success of all children and by doing so, decrease school failure and dropout rates, and crime and delinquency. In addition, high-quality preschool education has been found to improve economic productivity and health.” Educators and parents realize how important an early start is.
While not required of schools, 99 percent of school districts in our state offer a Pre-Kindergarten program and 71 percent of all Oklahoma four-year-old children attend. There are now more than 35,000 children in Oklahoma who attend Pre-Kindergarten classes daily, with a little more than half of the in full-day programs.
For the last six years, NIEER has continually ranked Oklahoma first in the nation in access to education relating to the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled. NIEER maintains that our program is a national model, and we stand out for many reasons:
§ Early childhood teachers must hold at least a bachelor ’s degree, pass an Early Childhood certification test and be paid on the same salary schedule as other public school teachers;
Classes are kept small; and Curriculum is aligned as part of our state’s Pre-K through 12th grade core curriculum, the Priority Academic Student Skills.
We constantly search for ways to strengthen and broaden our programs to find what works best for children. One such option is for school districts to partner with outside groups within their community. We have Pre-K programs operating in Head Start, tribal and faith-based facilities but with the public school providing the teacher, curriculum and learning materials.
Partnerships have also been made with child-care centers that have high state ratings.
All students enrolled in public Pre-K programs outside of a public school setting receive the same services as students in a typical classroom setting.
Oklahoma’s early childhood program is a good investment and the key to a brighter future for our state.
Sandy Garrett’s Column
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on April 26 declared a public health emergency for the H1N1 virus, also being referred to as “swine flu.” As I write this column, the World Health Organization is indicating this is a Category 5 health emergency, one step away from an official pandemic.
Gov. Brad Henry has asked all citizens to be vigilant and make every effort to help prevent the spread of the virus. Fortunately, there are no confirmed cases of H1N1 in Oklahoma yet.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) is the lead state agency in Oklahoma’s prevention and intervention effort. The Oklahoma State Department of Education is working in partnership with the Health Department and other state agencies.
While this is an international concern, we would remind parents and school employees of the pivotal role each of them plays in preventing the spread of illness among school children.
Strategies for preventing swine flu, its symptoms, and up-to-date information on the public health emergency, including information sheets that can be distributed to parents and schools in English and Spanish, are available from the Health Department’s Web site, which we have linked on our home page
www.sde.state.ok.us. OSDH has set up a hotline for sharing information with citizens, (866) 278-7134.
www.ok.gov/health U.S. Centers for Disease Control, www.cdc.gov/swineflu/ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.pandemicflu.gov
Sandy Garrett’s Column
This year, May 3-9 is the special week we will honor the hardworking men and women leading our classrooms, with observance of National Teacher Day on Wednesday, May 5.If you would like more information about becoming a teacher in Oklahoma, please visit the State Department of Education’s Web site.
Because we agree that “Great Teachers Make Great Public Schools,” we always want to recognize our teachers for the hard work they do each day to help boys and girls reach their full potential.
Being a teacher is a calling. To do it well, requires long hours for modest pay. Yet, speaking from experience, the rewards are numerous!
A person decides to become a teacher for various reasons. Some are practically born into teaching, following in the footsteps of family members. Others are inspired by a favorite teacher they had in class.
For example, the 2008 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, Heather Sparks, was inspired by her Jenks High School geometry teacher, Alice Ward. Sparks is now a National Board certified math teacher at Taft Middle School in Oklahoma City, and it is her mission to teach students not just to learn math, but actually like it.
While many teachers become teachers the traditional way –
The process outlined in state law requires: determining eligibility, taking competency tests, fingerprinting for background checks, and applying to the Teacher Competency Review Panel (TCRP) for approval. After the license has been received, some requirements for a standard certificate must also be completed.
Another path to becoming an Oklahoma teacher is through the Troops to Teachers program. This federally funded program of the Department of Defense and the State Department of Education helps active and retired members of the armed forces or reserves obtain teacher certification.
Military men and women must go through the same alternative certification process that other degreed professionals go through if they don’t have an education degree. The program provides help with job placement, a stipend to cover testing fees, and a bonus for those willing to teach in high-poverty schools and/or schools with high percentages of children with disabilities.
Recent Teacher of the Year finalist Nolan Watson became an educator this way after a 20-year career in the U.S. Army. His experience in the military and travels around the world help him bring history to life in his classroom at Cache Middle School near Lawton.
We truly have thousands of remarkable, dedicated and caring teachers in our state. It is an honor to know and work with them.
Sandy Garrett’s Weekly Column
“Community involvement is so important. The community backs you. They back every sport and they also need to back the students. … [And, in turn,] schools need to invite the community in. We need mentors, volunteers, businesses and churches…”www.sde.state.ok.us. The Web site has information about the high school dropout crisis facing every state; resources include a powerful video featuring Oklahoma students, dropouts and graduates.
Carly Cox, a senior at Altus High School and member of the State Superintendent’s Advisory Council, in those few words summed up the focus of the state’s Dropout Summit, “OK Graduation: DO IT” on March 25.
Summit participants – which included educators, parents, students, business and community leaders, lawmakers and Carly’s peers on the State Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council – gathered at Oklahoma Christian University, in Edmond, to start defining a strategic plan to keep Oklahoma students in school, to chart the course for actually how Oklahoma schools and communities should “DO IT,” if you will.
The summit, hosted by the Oklahoma State Department of Education with funding from America’s Promise Alliance and State Farm Insurance, was focused on identifying prevention and intervention tactics that can be used in every school and community.
Participants expressed the need for additional counselors, more hands-on classes, teachers who were more engaging, fair and knowledgeable, and helping parents be more involved in each child’s education. Many agreed that having just one caring adult to listen, say a few encouraging words or mentor an at-risk student would make a world of difference in the student’s life.
One thing on which all agreed: A coordinated approach in every community is needed to better support students at risk of dropping out of school, and to recover those who already have done so.
That is why we are recruiting Dropout Intervention Team (DO IT) members from every school and community, large and small across the state.
Sign up today to be an OK Graduation: DO IT partner at the State Department of Education’s Web site
- Sandy Garett, state schools superintendent
