Oklahomaâ€™s new education chief says classes are too easy

Only 2.4 percent of students in Oklahomaâ€™s graduating class of 2009 scored in the upper tiers of national math exams, a ratio that places the state among recently industrialized nations such as Bulgaria, Uruguay and Serbia, according to a study released this month.

State schools Superintendent-elect Janet Barresi said the study, which also ranks Oklahoma among the worst 10 states in producing top-achieving math students, should be a wake-up call against the status quo.

â€œLetâ€™s quit making excuses,â€ she said. â€œLetâ€™s accept it, and use it as a challenge, Oklahoma.â€

She challenges parents to take a long, hard look at how much time their children spend watching television or playing video games.

She challenges teachers and administrators to increase the difficulty at school.

And she has challenged herself to overhaul a system that, she said, has asked too little of Oklahoma students for too long.

â€œWe have learned that we canâ€™t stuff enough facts into children anymore,â€ she said. â€œWe have to teach them critical thinking skills, to think for themselves, a love of learning.â€

Barresi takes over the state Education Department on Jan. 10 as the first Republican to be elected into the office, and the first new leadership the department has seen in 20 years.

She has big plans for the state of education.

Oklahoma lags behind

The news that Oklahoma lags behind most states and many developed nations was published this month in Education Next by education policy experts Eric Hanushek from Stanford University, Paul Peterson from Harvard and Ludger Woessmann from the University of Munich.

â€œTeaching Math to the Talentedâ€ doesnâ€™t focus on Oklahomaâ€™s education failures, but on the fact that the U.S. education system has fallen behind. Only Massachusetts produces enough high-achieving math students to compete on a global basis.

In Massachusetts, 11.4 percent of students obtain advanced scores on the national math exam, which ranks them at roughly 15th in the world, on par with countries such as Austria, Germany, Slovenia and Denmark.

Barresi said the study confirms what she already knew: that in Oklahoma there are pockets, or islands, of excellence that produce top math students.

â€œI want to join those islands together and make continents,â€ she said.

The report has its critics, who note it compares two different tests â€” the National Assessment of Educational Progress that samples American students every year, with the Program for International Student Assessment, which most industrialized nations give their students.

Additionally, it is argued that many countries that outperform the United States have a lower percentage of minority or impoverished students.

â€œLooking at just white students places the U.S. at a level equivalent to what all students are achieving in the United Kingdom, Hungary and Poland,â€ notes the study.

Simply put, Barresi says, the state and nation need to redefine their missions, so that â€œwork-readyâ€ and â€œcollege-readyâ€ mean the same thing, so that every student who graduates is ready to enter freshmen year of college without remediation.

Plans for reform

In November, Barresi joined a conservative group of state education leaders in Washington, D.C., for Jeb Bushâ€™s Foundation for Excellence in Education.

The reform group created by the former Florida governor promotes policy changes such as adopting a letter grade rating system for schools from â€œAâ€ to â€œF.â€

Barresi said she gained confidence in her reform ideas at the conference and made connections with state education leaders who already have begun to implement the changes.

First on Barresiâ€™s agenda is bringing professional development back to the state Education Department, something that has increasingly been left up to school districts.

â€œAnytime you want to get the best benefit for children in the classroom you will first work on teacher and leader effectiveness,â€ Barresi said.

She wants teachers to learn how to individualize their lessons to the needs of students in the classroom.

The new state curriculum, known as Common Core, will have to be â€œmade Oklahomaâ€™s ownâ€ so it allows more depth in instruction, more discretion among teachers and more of a focus on learning skills rather than facts, Barresi said.

She plans to drastically improve the stateâ€™s student data system â€” The Wave â€” so that it is rich in information teachers can use to address each studentâ€™s needs.

Given the high mobility of students in Oklahoma, she wants the system to track students as they move around.

â€œWe have some children moving three times a year,â€ she said.

All of these â€” the professional development, the curriculum changes and the new data system â€” will be tools that teachers and administrators can use to increase the difficulty of their schools and classrooms and better prepare students for a global market, Barresi said.