Republicans for State Superintendent of Education....

[TU Sepp]

Janet Baressi,,,we all know is the incumbent

Joy Hofmeister...main challenger from Jenks

Brian Kelly...???????????? ...this guy has not raised a penny for his campaign, has not done a single interview, and has not made a single public statement

I am beginning to think that he is a "Baressi plant" to help steal some of the anti-Baressi votes from Hofmeister...

Before you think I am a Hofmeister supporter, I can't even vote in the Republican primary...

I am just curious as to what your take is on the guy...

 

[rabidTU]

I watched the debate the other night except for about 5 minutes. The problem with short debates like that is that you just can't delve into specific issues with enoough detail to make sense of their positions.

Its always been my feeling that the SSE should have only a minor impact on our schools. They should not have a political agenda - left or right and allow as much local/district control as is humanly possible.

It appears to me that the incumbent has been blamed for the testing fiasco, but I'm not sure that was her fault. What I want is a SSE that has a limited/hands off approach to public education and isn't a barrier to charter schools, home schooling etc like we have in some liberal cities and states that are failing. Standards should be as "local" as can be allowed because the parents and ultimately the kids are the ones with most at stake, not some political hacks in OKC or DC.

Since I can't tell who would do the best job, I'll just leave that one blank and let those hopefully more informed decide. TBH, I'd probably be in favor of a different selection of the SSE - maybe done by a vote of school boards and school supts around the state rather than a vote of the people in general. There are just so many low information voters out there on the subject.

IMO

 

[noble cane]

I am still trying to figure out why we need a state superintendent when every local district has its own superintendent..



This post was edited on 6/24 12:22 PM by noble cane

 

[rabidTU]

Originally posted by noble cane:

I am still trying to figure out why we need a state superintendent when every local district has its own superintendent..

This post was edited on 6/24 12:22 PM by noble cane

Thats a very good question and I think the answer is that it is a way for a state to control local districts since the funding is from the state. I'd rather a state in control of our system than the feds, but the best control is from your local superintendent/school board - people you can talk to eye to eye. Try to do that with a secretary of education in DC. They are so far above the fray that they are untouchable and unaccountable.

 

[TU Sepp]

rabid...

Baressi should be blamed for the testing fiasco. Before she took his testing was not a problem. After she took office and awarded the state wide testing contract to a different company all hell broke out and the state has been drowning in problems. The illegal money exchange in education is rampet. Many teachers / former teachers believe that Prentice-Hall refused to give her $$$ as they had all ready spent large sums of $$$ to secure the testing rights before Baressi took office, so Baressi switched testing companies to get her hands on some of the cash from a different company. Only the problem was that McGraw-Hill did not have a credible track record and to no one's surprise the disaster took place.

One only has to remember that in her first campaign Baressi campaigned on the issues of charter schools and vouchers. She had very little use for public schools. On those 2 issues alone she swept around 70% of the vote state wide. According to an Oklahoma Education Association person I talked with...she received around 65% of the teachers vote including OEA members and around 70% of the vote from district superintendents.

Since charter schools and vouchers are both controlled by the legislature she had no control over the issues on which she campaigned.

Now, as to whether Hofmeister will be any better if elected, your guess is as good as mine!

However, the question of who is Brian Kelly yet remains unanswered???

 

[rabidTU]

As I understand it, the testing problems stemmed from an Obamacare-like breakdown of the computer program. I'm not sure that is preventable by a SSE. But if the problem was improper oversite in implementing the tests, that would be different. But like the Obamacare website, one person perhaps should be blamed. Should Obama bare the blame for "his" website fiasco? Goose to Gander.

 

[TU Sepp]

Obama has nothing to do with our state wide testing, as Common Core was not scheduled to be implemented until the 2014-2015 school year.

With that said Common Core was a result that came from a National Governors Convention some years ago. The governors worked with an education group that they chose to come up with a set of common minimum objectives that they felt all high schools students should pass in order to be ready for college. After the governors agreed on the common objectives "Common Core" they passed these objectives to Congress to be written into a law. Once in Congress these objectives now written into a law were passed and sent to the president to be signed into law.

So all the stuff you hear and read about Common Core being a liberal agenda is BS. The states took this to the federal gov't and when they decided they didn't like it, they then blamed it on Obama and his liberal agenda to take over the schools.

Like I have said before Obama has enough screw ups of his own for which he is responsible. People don't need to give him credit for things he didn't do!

 

[rabidTU]

With all due respect - NOT IN OKLAHOMA. Fallin rightly rejected CC out of fear of our kids being "Obamanized" into robotic like liberals that have nothing in common with their parents. Besides, the federal govt hasn't (up to now) been the primary funder of common education. So many of us think they should just butt out and leave the hard work to us local hicks from the sticks. Very few folks in this state want the federal govt involved in the rearing of our kids and in total control of "what they learn". It won't be standards in the end. It will become what the federal govt "wants them to learn". That equates to an ideology as much as a standrard of knowledge. In the end it will be the ideology that will be the goal. We already have the standards, so lets meet them.

The idea that a majority of governors hundreds/thousands of miles away should tell Oklahomans how they must educate their most precious commodity - kids, isn't something we need to endorse IMO.

 

[TU Sepp]

Here is the result so far for the state doing away with Common Core...

Whether this will turn out to be good bad or indifferent time will tell.

Since I am retired, it will have no direct effect upon me.

For the last 3 years the state has been ordering books that were written based on the Common Core standards. Now that CC has been abolished the state will revert back to Oklahoma PASS Objectives. The problem arises that PASS and CC to align very well at times. Thus the teacher will be teaching objectives that may or may not be found in the books.

A very good example of this can be found in the 6th grade social studies book.

Using CC the objectives were written with the emphases on Western Civilization...
Using PASS the objectives were written with an emphases on World Cultures...

Unfortunately the new books are now rendered entirely useless...

The teachers will be evaluated based on their teaching of the PASS objectives, while all their books will contain CC curriculum.

Most all districts will not have enough $$$ to replace the new books they just purchased in the last few years as they now use the books for a period of 7 years. Since the state only gives the district about 25% - 35% of the cost of the new books... you can see the problem!

Thanks for asking good questions.

from wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core

This site does a very good job in explaining the history of Common Core.

Thank you for your interest in the education of Oklahoma's children...

This post was edited on 6/24 11:20 PM by TU Sepp

 

[rabidTU]

I was under the impression that Oklahoma would write their own set of standards and use Pass until that time using the older texts. IMO The waste of money was due to the acceptance of CC in the first place.

But politics has been injected into all this and its unfortunate that Obama has made himself so despised through his "remaking" america agenda that this is even discussed. Many of us (rightly so) now fear more govt intrusion in whatever hasn't been intruded on in our lives already. To many of us here in Hicksville, this is a matter of the federal govt stepping in and taking away the future of the greatest commodity we have produced - our kids - and micromanaging their minds. That isn't the way its supposed to work.

But here is the question many of us ask on the subject. Who should have the most control over the education of our kids? (1) the parents (2) the teachers/local schools or (3) the officials in DC who want to set those agenda driven lesson plans and who have virtually nothing in common with us Hicks. What should happen is that the parents and good teachers like yourself should work closely together for the future of their child. Sit down and discuss their needs and form a plan for that individual childs wellbeing, The "entity" that should come a distant last is the federal govt. Besides, federal funding shouldn't be held over the heads of states and districts so the FG can pick and choose who gets the goodies. It isn't the federal govts money to begin with. It was earned by the parents who brought up those kids.

Standards are already in place. They have been pretty successful. So it wouldn't bring down our society if they remained in place as written and administered. We still have hundreds of thousands of children wanting to break the law to get here and get into a classroom right now regardless of the lesson to be learned.

But let me also say that I want to thank you for all those years of watching over the younguns, treating them when sick, nursing the skinned knee or the bruised ego or spending those extra hours outside the class. We ask you to protect our kids if there's a bully or a tornado or a fire. That is your job and that is to be commended. You are a part of the kids lives forever. Thanks!

 

[TU Sepp]

rabid...

Years ago Oklahoma use to test it's kids by using the Iowa Test Of Basic Skills. Teachers had to cover a great amount of material and the kids were exposed to everything that was grade level (or above) that was appropriate. All teachers were teaching at grade level with remediation and enrichment on a daily basis. I loved it, especially since I was teaching science.

Then the state came up with "IDEA" the if it developed it's own test that it could save money...

That was the downfall... The state developed their PASS standards and then teachers were instructed by their superintendents and principles to teach to the test. If it wasn't going to be on the test then don't teach it.

This resulted in kids being less fundamentally prepared for the next grade level. This cycle started the downward swirl of low test scores and underachieving students being passed to the next grade. You can't fail to many students or you will mess up the numbers for the incoming class. So districts went to bat with the legislature and low and behold provisions were added so those students could be passed along. Their were provisions in place so that practically any student regardless of race, color, creed and an inability to speak English could be passed to the next level. After all retaining a student was bad for their self-esteem...

Now the universities and colleges started getting these kids and they were being forced to add a lot of remedial, non credit, classes to their offerings. In hope that the remedial class would enable them to be college ready. Universities became extremely frustrated with all the remedial classes they had to offer. Board of Regents went to their elected officials, elected officials went to their governor, governor went to the National Governors Convention... and the saga continues...

With all the BS coming from the state and the district superintendents, it is a great time to be retired!

Thank you for your kinds words and may you have a very blessed day!

 

[old_goat_23]

Thank you for the solid information, Sepp.

 

[TU Sepp]

You're welcome!

 

[WATU2]

Sepp,

Thanks. Interesting and helpful.

 

[TU Sepp]

There is something I seem to be forgetting about Common Core...

It did not have anything to do with the objectives, but more so with the federal gov't encouraging the states to adopt CC and this part goes back to the "No Child Left Behind Act"...

The following is what "I THINK" I remember... It seems that there were certain requirements under NCLB Act that the states had to meet to continue getting their full amount of federal funding. If the states did not meet these requirements then their funding was reduced. So when the states wanted Common Core with a new set of objectives it seems that the states that adopted Common Core were given a pass on meeting some of the requirements of NCLB Act so their federal funding would not be reduced. So 46 of the 50 states choose to adopt CC so as not to lose federal dollars for education. If I remember correctly the states received additional federal monies to assist them in implementing CC. At that time Oklahoma voted to adopt CC, so it could keep all of it's federal monies plus get new federal monies. This is like the feds chumming the waters and then allowing the greed of each state's gov't to take over at the feeding frenzy for federal monies!

If I have made a mistake here and you find facts that I have either got confused or omitted please do correct me and add new found facts to the discussion.

Thanks to all for your interest in the educational needs of our state's children.

 

[rabidTU]

Originally posted by TU Sepp:
There is something I seem to be forgetting about Common Core...

It did not have anything to do with the objectives, but more so with the federal gov't encouraging the states to adopt CC and this part goes back to the "No Child Left Behind Act"...

The following is what "I THINK" I remember... It seems that there were certain requirements under NCLB Act that the states had to meet to continue getting their full amount of federal funding. If the states did not meet these requirements then their funding was reduced. So when the states wanted Common Core with a new set of objectives it seems that the states that adopted Common Core were given a pass on meeting some of the requirements of NCLB Act so their federal funding would not be reduced. So 46 of the 50 states choose to adopt CC so as not to lose federal dollars for education. If I remember correctly the states received additional federal monies to assist them in implementing CC. At that time Oklahoma voted to adopt CC, so it could keep all of it's federal monies plus get new federal monies. This is like the feds chumming the waters and then allowing the greed of each state's gov't to take over at the feeding frenzy for federal monies!

If I have made a mistake here and you find facts that I have either got confused or omitted please do correct me and add new found facts to the discussion.

Thanks to all for your interest in the educational needs of our state's children.

I'm pretty sure thats accurate and a major reason we should all be against it - a shakedown of the taxpayer with the taxpayers own money. No local school system should be held hostage in this manner - the reason = that by holding back a states own money for schools in that state, it hurts the very kids the govt says it wants to benefit. The federal govt has become a bully. In effect, the children of Oklahoma are being bullied by a govt that portrays itself as their protector.