EDUCATION OVERSIGHT BOARD MEETING MINUTES March 16, 2005 - 8:00 A.M. Room 412A State Capitol Building Oklahoma City, OK 73105 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Don McCorkell, Gerald Dickerson, Ron Dryden, Patrick Gilmore, and Representative Odilia Dank BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: Kenneth Bridges, Susan Field and Senator Angela Monson OTHER REGULAR ATTENDEES: Office of Accountability Staff: Robert Buswell, Matt Hesser and Jerry Hsieh VISITORS: Susan Savage, Lisa Pryor, Gina Wekke, Teena Nations, Barbara Ware, Ted Gillispie, Ray Pearcey, Kim Brown, Jill Geiger Call to Order and Roll Call: Mr. McCorkell called the meeting to order at 8:03 a.m. and declared a quorum to be present. Approval of Minutes: Minutes for the February 23, 2005 board meeting were unanimously approved as submitted. Discussion of civics education initiatives in Oklahoma schools: Lisa Pryor and Gina Wekke gave an overview of civics initiatives in which the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education were involved. One of the programs is Campus Compact, a national-level organization with the mission of increasing civic, community and political engagement among college-age students. Currently, 27 public and seven private colleges are involved with the program in Oklahoma. Another civics activity is the Oklahoma delegation to the Congressional Conference on Civics Education. This group looked at ways that high school students are civically engaged in their communities and how this impacts their learning and their citizenship. The ultimate goal is to get students more civically involved and, long-range, to encourage more citizens to become active registered voters. The Oklahoma delegation studied what civics learning opportunities were provided to students both inside and outside of the classroom. They also looked at how educators were being trained to teach civics. The group found that civics education was hit-or-miss, with civics education being taught to all students as a stand alone subject having gone by the wayside. Civics curriculum has either been integrated into other subject areas or has been dropped altogether. The delegation developed an instrument to inventory the level of civics education taught across the state and plans to use the results as guide for their future efforts. An additional activity, Project 540, is a process by which high school students from across Oklahoma identify and prioritize issues that directly affected their lives and then create civic action plans aimed at addressing those issues. Examples of the community action plans can be viewed online at www.project540.com. Mr. McCorkell thanked Pryor and Wekke for their report and stated that this information would help the board in creating a list of specific recommendations aimed at improving civics education in Oklahoma. Ms. Pryor encouraged the board to also visit the www.civicmissionofschools.com website for additional information related to civics education in schools. Discussion of Results of National Board Certified Teacher Survey: Mr. McCorkell asked Mr. Pearcey to give a status report on the project. Pearcey said that the contractor handling the survey was developing a summary of the responses. He went on to say that the prizes for the open ended question would also be awarded soon. McCorkell said that the results of the survey summary document would be forwarded to the board when it was compete. Discussion of "Agenda for Change: The Future of Common Education in Oklahoma": Mr. McCorkell introduced Barbara Ware, Ted Gillispie, and Teena Nations from the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation and asked them to speak about the quality of professional development offered in Oklahoma, the impact the programs have and where Oklahoma stands on funding for the programs. Ms. Nations gave a report on the "Connected Math" professional development program used at Stillwater Public Schools. The program dramatically improved the districts math scores on the Oklahoma Core Curriculum test. In 2002, Stillwater had 84% of its students scoring Satisfactory or above on the state test, in 2003 it was 85% and in 2004 it was 92%. They also increased the percentage of students scoring Advanced form 35% in 2003 to 45% in 2004. She explained that the professional development program for teachers was three years in duration with six days required the first year, four days required the second year and two days required the final year. McCorkell asked Ware how much money it would take to implement this program at a rapid pace in the schools across Oklahoma. Ware responded that $10 million was probably a workable number. She felt that funding beyond that level would be ineffective given the amount of training the existing infrastructure could supply. She also stated that priority should be given to districts that commit to both development in math literacy and to having their principals go through the "Principal Development" component. In her opinion, having a strong instructional leader at each site is key to the success of the program. Mr. Dryden asked what accountability measures were in place regarding the professional development that was offered at districts across the state. Discussion revolved around the idea that there should be an approval process at the state level to ensure that the programs offered were of the highest quality and fostered the specific skills needed by educators. Ware and Gillispie were also emphatic that additional days should be added to the school calendar specifically for the purpose of professional development and teachers could be compensated for the additional days. They felt that hour-long programs offered at the end of a school day had little impact on the classroom and were a waste of taxpayer's money. Mr. Gilmore asked Gillispie what was being done to educate local school board members about the importance of professional development and how to determine if the professional development offered at their district was of high quality. Gillispie admitted that more could be done to enlighten school board members on the subject of professional development. Gilmore said that he was speaking from the perspective of a local school board member and that he was eager to help with advancing quality professional development in Oklahoma's public schools. Mr. McCorkell thanked the group for their presentation and assured them that providing quality professional development to Oklahoma's educators was, and would remain, a high priority with the Education Oversight Board. Status Report on the Oklahoma Educational Indicators Program: No discussion. Status Report on the Oklahoma School Performance Review Program (OSPR): Mr. Buswell relayed to the Board that Stillwater's review was moving into the second draft phase. Mr. McCorkell added that Stillwater had provided positive feedback about the process. Year to Date Expenditures Report for FY-05: Due to other pressing issues, Mr. Buswell had not prepared a printout of the year-to-date expenditures to distribute to the board and board members had no questions for Buswell regarding the budget. Discussion of New Legislation: Mr. Buswell stated that the bills pertinent to the EOB were working their way through the legislative process. New Business: None Announcements: None Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:48 a.m. The minutes of the March 16, 2005 Meeting of the Education Oversight Board were approved as submitted on June 10, 2005