House Speaker Jeff Hickman says he is “frustrated” by what he sees as lack of action by the Board of Education: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/legislative-leader-expresses-frustrations-with-board-of-education/article_76ddd725-5690-5b52-bc67-0fa3da80e500.html
Well he’s half right… the State Superintendent should be an appointed position. BUT, the state Board of Education should be elected positions to answer DIRECTLY to the voters! That’s part of the problem, a board who answers to the Governor, not the legislature. Citizens/voters should be the ones holding them accountable for the education standards… so that we don’t end up with Common Core (or any other federalization of our public education system).
As for “writing the standards into legislation”, it was the right thing to do so that non-elected boards did not continue pushing a federal takeover of our kids’ curriculum. So to the House and Senate – get off the dime and get busy writing those standards!!!!
I said this during the ridiculous goings-on last spring – there are too damn many people/boards/legislatures involved with setting school education standards, and none seem to be accountable to anyone.
When the order of the day was to create new standards to replace CC, the writing on the wall dictated that none of these parties would accomplish anything – and that is proving true.
Us old farts remember that the three R’s ruled when teaching, and it seemed to work quite well then. It landed us on the moon, provided us with Gortex, and gave us Ronald Reagan.
That’s not a bad track record. Let’s cut out the PC crap and get back to teaching what our kids need to ‘know’ – not ‘feel’.