TULSA, Okla. — Education advocates are taking matters into their own hands to improve the academic outcomes of the state’s students.

The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice is behind the Better Outcomes for Oklahoma Kids (BOOK) initiative. With educational justice at the heart of their work, jumping on a program like this made sense for their director of research and strategic impact, David Blatt.

“We truly believe that strong public schools are important to creating a society where all students, regardless of their background, their zip code, their ethnicity, all have the opportunity to thrive and become successful educationally, but also successful in the workforce of work and involved citizens. he said.

At its core, the BOOK initiative is about making education more successful at the state level.

Blatt explained that the goal is to open the conversation to the community about how to make things better for students. Then compile action items that they can take to change makers.

“Public education advocates continue to find us on the defensive, fighting back against rhetorical attacks and political attacks, but at the same time, we know there are great strengths to public education in Oklahoma,” Blatt said. “We realized that we really need something positive to bring people together and not just always say ‘well this is bad and we need to stop bad things from happening.’

The first step is to get information through an online study.

From there, advocates plan to compile 10-15 policies they can bring to school boards or legislatures to improve the issues most important to local parents and community members.

“We’re not going into this with a predetermined outcome,” Blatt said. “The big goal is two things. One is to change the narrative, focus on the successes we have and then help build towards more successes.”

Advance Oklahoma Kids Coalition, under the Appleseed umbrella, is helping to create the future through the new program.
Erika Wright is a charter member, parent and founder of the Oklahoma Rural School Coalition. She has high hopes that this initiative will help change the way education is handled across the state sooner.

“We’ve spent so much time being firefighters, right, there are big fires all around us that we’re constantly trying to fight defensively,” Wright said. “This kind of flips the tables and changes us from putting out fires all the time to becoming architects and building what we want our future to look like for our children.”

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Of course, there will still be fires, she said, but this move will bring everyone into the conversation.

With Oklahoma ranked 49th in the nation for education, advocates hope the community will participate in the program to improve conditions for all students in the years to come.

“As a parent, my biggest concern right now is the absolute decimation of our teacher workforce. This is no secret,” Wright said. “We really need to come up with a proactive strategy that is people-driven to be able to get in front of our legislature and get serious change in the state of Oklahoma.”

The survey will close at the end of December 2024. Based on the results, Blatt said there will be community events over the next six to eight months to dig deeper into concerns and areas of interest.

They plan to release a report in about a year with their findings and those 10-15 policy suggestions that all schools across the state can adopt for improvement.

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