Obama launches “Promise Neighborhood” grants
Only a few days after the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone visited Oklahoma City, President Barack Obama announced a $10 million competitive grant to replicate the zone’s success.
The Harlem Children’s Zone is a non-profit organization in Harlem that serves 10,000 children and approximately 7,000 parents in a 97-block area of Harlem.
The privately funded $75 million-a-year operation has produced academic results from some of the area’s poorest children that have astonished long-time educators.
Obama’s grant will provide up to $500,000 for 20 organizations across the nation to create “promise neighborhoods” modeled after Canada’s.
Geoffrey Canada spoke to local educators Wednesday at the Petroleum Club about the need for action to end the education crisis in America.
Read tomorrow’s Oklahoman for information about what local agencies will be applying for this grant due in June.
Choctaw high schooler rang NY Stock Exchange bell
A 10th grader at Choctaw High School rang the bell this morning to open the New York Stock Exchange as part of the “Ring the Bell” national competition for excellence in math.
Reign Glover won the honor of ringing the bell after a former teacher nominated her for her “compelling drive to succeed against the odds and her inner strength.”
Glover moved to Oklahoma a year and a half ago after one of her parents died, but the teen has remained academically successful despite having to help raiser her five younger siblings in a single-parent home, according to a media release from the non-profit Get Schooled.
The Get Schooled Foundation flew Glover to New York for the opening ceremony today and also provided her with a chance to meet actor Hank Azaria, a backstage tour of the New York Stock Exchange, a Dell laptop and other prizes.
Glover returns to Oklahoma tomorrow.
Viacom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation developed the Get Schooled Foundation to encourage math and science achievements in education.
Hero for Harlam children to speak in OKC
Geoffrey Canada is a giant in the educational world.
His Harlem Children’s Zone is successfully taking 10,000 of New York’s inner city youth and putting them on track for academic success, higher education and a way out of poverty.
Those are the dreams that any public school has for its “at-risk” youth, but particularly urban districts face the challenge of overcoming the odds to place students in higher education or professional fields that are personally or economically rewarding.
Here’s New York Time’s columnist David Brooks take on the “enormous gains” seen by children in Canada’s program.
This story from Education Week touts the same study and the program’s remarkable results but cautions that the program spends $19,000 per student. Oklahoma public schools average $8,000 per student.
Canada will speak Wednesday, April 28 at the Petroleum Club, 4040 N. Lincoln Blvd.
Tickets to the event are $40 and will not be sold at the door. Call the Black Liberated Arts Center, Inc. at 524-3800 for more information.
Oklahoma to receive $39 million for failing schools
Oklahoma was awarded $39 million in federal School Improvement Grants to turn around the lowest performing schools, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday.
The bottom five percent of the state’s schools – most likely those who are on the federal “needs improvement list” – will be able to apply for the grants from the Oklahoma Department of Education.
School districts will have to select one of four plansto restructure the failing schools. They are:
→Turnaround model: Replace the principal and rehire no more than 50 percent of the staff.
→Restart model: Close and reopen as a charter school or under independent management.
→Closure model: Close the school and enroll students in a higher achieving school.
→Transformation model: Replace the principal, institute comprehensive instructional reforms, implement longer school days, increase community participation and provide the principal with flexibility and support in curriculum and staffing.
Oklahoma City Public Schools has already announced it will seek the grant money for two of it’s schools that have been on the “needs improvement” list for four years: F.D. Moon Academy and U.S. Grant High School.
Half of the teachers at U.S. Grant were notified last week that they wouldn’t return to the school but would be relocated throughout the district. While discussions are ongoing at the combined middle and high school F.D. Moon Academy about which of the four models would be implemented.
There may be as many as 36 schools throughout the state that qualify for the funding, but they would have to apply.
Africa West tout art talents at Douglass High
Douglass High School was alive with art on Saturday as students from Kindergarten through twelfth grade participated in the first ever program for all of Oklahoma City Public Schools Region 1 schools.
Africa West was an opportunity for the predominately black schools located in northeast Oklahoma City, Spencer and Midwest City to celebrate the “African-American imprint.”
If parents have any photos from the event – whether it was the Thelma Parks Elementary students dancing or one of the high schoolers belting out the theme song from Rent – send them my way and I’ll try to post them on this blog: mrolland@opubco.com.
OKCPS dropout, remediation rates high
A report on the number of drop outs at Oklahoma City High Schools, showed that while some schools made it through 2009 without loosing a single student, others lost students in the hundreds.
The district also reported the number of students attending college from each of the district’s 11 schools, and of those students how many required remediation in math and reading.
At some schools more than half of college bound students required remediation in math or reading, while other schools boasted less than 18 percent of students had to enroll in remediation.
Read the full report here under the OKCPS Dropout and Remediation Report link.
NAEP results show little growth
Oklahoma is among a majority of states that showed no significant growth on national standardized tests for reading, according to the Nation’s Report Card released today.
Every student in the nation is required to take the National Assessment of Educational Progress for reading in fourth and eighth grades.
The report released today found that across the nation reading scores have remained the same for fourth graders and increased only slightly for eighth graders.
Oklahoma fourth graders scored an average of 217 points on the reading exam, while the national average was 220 points. Only 27 percent of students scored proficient or advanced on the test, while 38 percent showed basic reading skills and 35 percent showed below basic skills.
In 2007, the state’s fourth graders had exactly the same average score on the tests, while it does show at least a two point improvement from the 2005 tests.
National education organizations are calling the nationwide lack of growth in reading scores “disappointing,” particularly given the focus that has been placed on federal reading programs.
Read the full report here.
District’s strategic plan debated
A strategic plan for the Oklahoma City School District stalled Monday night as board members called for a more in-depth planning process that may bring in an external firm to help draft the plan.
After holding several workshops, the board had drafted a “framework” for its strategic plan. However, that plan failed to get approval Monday night.
“I can’t vote on this if I don’t know who is going to take charge of the process,” Board Member Lyn Watson said.
Member Phil Horning called for external help in the process.
“I think that this document may be the best that we can do ourselves, or very close to it, so the question may seem to me are we going to get an outsider to check our work,” Horning said.
Chairwoman Angela Monson urged the board to approve the framework Monday, and then move forward at a later date with creating a strategic plan.
A review of the district’s progress released last month by the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation noted that the district had no strategic plan or direction for the future. The foundation offered to support the process.
Monson called for the district to pull together a strategic plan in 30 days, following the report.
Superintendent Garrett named impactful woman in public service
Oklahoma State Superintendent Sandy Garrett received the Kate Barnard Award that recognizes “outstanding women in public service.”
Garrett was the first woman elected to the state’s top education position and has served five consecutive terms.
The award has been given by the Oklahoma Commission for the Status of Women since 1998, and it is named for Kate Barnard, the first woman elected to statewide office not only in Oklahoma but in the United States.
Barnard was elected in 1907 as the Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections.
“Kate Barnard spent her life championing issues impacting women and children, and I have strived to do that in mine,” Garrett said in a media release.
Tech Day at Capitol today
Want to learn what your teenager means when they start talking about gigabytes, Skyp, or their new iPod touches?
You’re not alone, and apparently the state’s lawmakers feel the need to be tech savvy as well.
Today is “Tech Day” at the state Capitol with students from all over Oklahoma sharing their knowledge in a day-long presentation.
From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. the students will be camped out at the fourth floor rotunda with exhibits demonstrating the latest in technology.
“This will be an exciting event and it’s an excellent opportunity for lawmakers, reporters and the general public to get insight into the extent of technology as a learning tool,” State Superintendent Sandy Garrett said in a press release.
Schools participating were from Comanche, Crescent, Howe, McAlester, Muskogee, Norman, Ponca City, Putnam City and Sperry public schools.
