Regents Review Process for State Standards Clears Up

  Chancellor Glen D. Johnson addressed the ongoing saga of certifying Oklahoma's PASS standards as college and career ready today. He provided a timeline of how things have been handled up to this point and as we move forward. Here is a copy of that timeline click here. It is refreshing to see the timeline and I appreciate the OSSBA for tweeting it out today!

  I will be honest, I have had mostly no problem with how things have gone down so far. This timeline kind of reassures me of that stance. I was not a proponent of Common Core, so seeing Oklahoma remove itself from those standards was fine by me. I just had too many issues with those standards both how they were written and the path it would lead us down. So Oklahoma going it alone and writing standards for our state by people in our state is fine by me. You can have high standards and not support the Common Core contrary to what others would have you think! The nightmare of the losing the waiver might not be as bad as we first got reported. A report by Real Clear Education stated that Oklahoma might not have got an extension of the waiver, but that the accountability piece may be better than under the waiver. Article Here

  Chancellor Glen D. Johnson said today he hoped to have the review process done by the State Regents meeting on October 16th. But out of all the news today the part I like reading the most was who was reviewing our standards, EXPERTS!! This is something we have been sorely missing in education. We didn't have it for Common Core, for A-F, we don't listen to them for TLE. I hope we get this right on Oklahoma Standards. I'm not holding my breath as the Oklahoma State Board of Education recently put together a group to look at standards and board members and legislators out numbered teachers! I hope that is the just the beginning phases of it and as we set down to write the meat and potatoes of standards we turn to experts. Not outside groups or political appointees, but experts. This is Oklahoma's chance to shine, to get it right. To be a good example (unlike teacher pay, cuts to education, and per pupil spending). We have done that with PreSchool education. Let's do that with our Oklahoma Standards too.