John Thompson believes Oklahoma City’s suspension program needs a makeover to better serve students.
John Thompson
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Commentary: An open letter to David Boren
An education writer urges the state to raise teacher pay and help set students up for achievement.
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Commentary: Difficult changes needed
Fifteen years ago, the MAPS for Kids Student Achievement Committee was shocked to learn that 10 percent of Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) students needed in- or outside-school alternative services and the district needed an additional 1,205 alternative school slots. MAPS promised “Rolls-Royce quality” alternative schools so troubled students didn’t repeatedly disrupt classroom instruction merely […]
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Commentary: Students’ tests measure wrong things
Contemporary reforms failed in the same ways that previous data-driven school experiments failed.
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Commentary: Education for the people
The victories of Republican State Superintendent candidate Joy Hofmeister and the two Democrats, John Cox and Freda Deskin, are a part of the grassroots revolt.
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The War on Poverty wasn’t “lost,” but neither did we win it.
The War on Poverty wasn’t “lost,” but neither did we win it.
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Commentary: Student testing has lost its focus
By the first of April, the quest for knowledge often came to a complete halt.
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Enterprise schools work best
All three types of choice schools have excellent records that are virtually indistinguishable. Our application-only school market is oversaturated, however, and we must think anew. OKC’s Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Reach College Preparatory, for instance, does great work, but its potential is maxed out. It still serves about half of the students as the […]
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School values don’t fit into a single score
Scholars at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, in Oklahoma School Grades: Hiding “Poor” Achievement, anticipated the mess. They concluded, “a primary assumption of the A-F accountability system, that student test scores can be dissected and manipulated into valid indicators of school performance, is simply false.” The bubbling-in of three questions out of […]
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‘No tolerance’ doesn’t teach
In 1999, the committee was shocked to learn that the OKCPS only had 485 alternative school slots for students with behavioral or attendance problems, health conditions, pregnancy or parenting challenges or who were institutionalized. According to the state’s Needs Assessment, the OKCPS needed another 1,205 slots. We also knew that punitive policies, such as “zero […]