opportunity to speak with this group and
what I want to kind of lay out today is
the way in which the strength of
communities and schools are incredibly
intertwined and the way that I want to
do this is to first identify a couple of
the challenges that I see and you’ve
seen a lot of these but let me sort of
crystallize those for this group but I
don’t want to spend a whole bunch of
time there I am much more interested in
solutions so as I lay out a couple of
the challenges we’ll talk about
solutions and I would love to sort of
connect with this group because I think
I’ve got the basic sort of elements of
some ideas but I think with this group
we can get some amazing things done so
the first slide that I have up here is
the picture of the first president of
the University of Oklahoma David Ross
Boyd when he took the job he actually
took this job sight unseen and so he’s
got off the train he saw a really
incredible challenge no faculty no
students and not even a single building
to teach him but that didn’t deter him
he actually looked at that as an
opportunity to create something special
but I think in education were sort of at
that same crossroads so we have lots of
people that are really questioning what
is what are we getting for what are we
getting for our money what’s the value
proposition associated with education
and we see some incredible challenges
coming out of that so let me lay out the
challenges a little bit this is a slide
that shows the difference in salary
between 1994 so the national data set
1994 to 2015 and what we’re comparing
here is the average graduate of a
college of education to the average
college graduate so a two percent gap in
94 has grown to a 12 percent gap in 2012
so to put that in perspective in 30
States if I am the single breadwinner
I’m a mid-career teacher I’ve got two
kids and a spouse
that stays at home and helps to raise
kids my kids actually qualify for free
and reduced lunch at the school that I
teach they qualify for government health
care because salaries have sort of
bottomed out so low so people don’t get
into this business to get rich but when
in thirty states you qualify for free
reduced lunch your kids qualify like
just think about some fundamental
questions just just for a second I want
you to reflect should teachers be able
to buy a house should they afford a
house in this in the school district
that they teach should they be required
to work a second job so that they can
should they be able to save enough so
that they can send their children to
college without assuming huge amounts of
debt increasingly those are challenging
questions that teachers are having to
deal with because the compensation
levels have come down in really pretty
drastic ways but it’s not just the money
it’s the think about the the sort of
perception of teachers and what it is to
be an educator I would argue that if you
if you think about sort of asked this
question 20 or 30 years ago you get lots
of people that would talk about respect
pillar of the community a teacher that
had a huge impact today increasingly the
conversations that I’m engaged in is
teachers sort of get framed as stuck in
the status quo part of the problem not
willing to change and grow and move
forward that has a huge impact because
one of the things that I increasingly
and concerned about is teaching is seen
as closer to the service industry than
it is as a profession and I think that
will have devastating consequences on
what we’re trying to do in strengthening
communities going forward so let’s bring
this down even another level we’ve had
lots of conversations about specifically
what’s going on in the state of Oklahoma
and I just want to crystallize this for
people in this group so this slide is
based on National Center for Education
data and it looks at the percent change
of funding that the state is providing
per pupil between 2008 and 2015 we’re
not in a good spot there folks like
that’s not where we want to lead there’s
a lot of places we want to lead and
that’s not it so the consequences of
this is Oklahoma is now 50 out of 50 if
you just look at salary and compare
teachers across the United States dead
last now if you include total
compensation and you build in health
care benefits and retirement benefits we
bump up to 48 but the two states that
have been below us Mississippi and South
Dakota have done increasingly things for
teachers the last couple of years so
what I’m really afraid of is by the time
the data cuts catches up and it’s
published will be 50 out of 50 any way
you cut it that has some pretty bad
consequences for attracting and
retaining teachers so let’s move it even
more locally this is a picture of
students in the Rainbolt College of
Education and you see in the very back
what it says there
Plano Public Schools so Plano by just
about any measure is a thriving
community they have been able to attract
really good businesses to locate there
they have an affinity in the audiences
from Plano but socially there’s lots of
good stuffs going on there I mean they
are doing amazing things in attracting
families and businesses so the reason
that I show you this slide is is we’ve
got lots of students who clearly are
listening to what Plano has to say if I
am a and I actually went up and was a
little awkward but sort of grab their
materials to see you know what’s getting
the attention here Plano Public Schools
salaries start at fifty to fifty two
thousand it depends a little bit on your
area your discipline in eighty percent
of districts in the state of Oklahoma if
I have a doctorate and I have 25 years
of experience or more if you follow the
state salary scale
I make forty six thousand dollars think
about that gap for a second between what
I can make my entire
career with a doctorate versus no
experienced first-year teacher what do
you think great people are going what do
you think that builds into that local
community so the consequence that we
have seen in Oklahoma is a phenomenon
called emergency certifications and
again you guys have seen these headlines
let me give you the picture behind it so
we had a thousand last year and we’ve
already had a thousand emergency
certifications this year an emergency
certification the image I want you to
have is a substitute teacher they meet
the same requirements so again I’m going
to ask you to sort of imagine a little
bit think about the transformational
substitute teacher that you had in your
educational career okay so there’s
probably a different image that you
might have with that substitute teacher
the leading area that emergency certs
are working in our schools is elementary
education so these least prepared folks
are teaching kids the fundamentals of
reading how to do math science like that
doesn’t add up to a good future for a
lot of kids in fact about 40,000 that
are working with these folks okay so let
me stop for a second and pivot to how
are we going to change this thing but
first I want to clarify the logic good
thriving community is connected to a
strong school system a strong school
system is based on great teachers
professionals who are prepared with deep
content knowledge in the subject that
they teach a scientific understanding of
how people learn of managing behavior in
classroom of motivation that’s what
great teachers look like so that those
are sort of the dots that I’m connecting
now what I’m excited about is let’s get
there let’s flip the script in terms of
those are the challenges let’s not get
stuck there so in study Ned policy for
about 20 years now there’s a couple of
things that I want to share with this
group the first one is think buffet
not one perfect recipe if I and the the
image that I want you to have there
is every communities can be a little bit
different different strengths and
resources and connections and so if
there’s a buffet of ideas that they can
take in and tailor that’s the metaphor
that I want you to hang on to it is not
one right policy that works perfectly in
every community so buffet not recipe the
second thing I want you to think about
is how important education is for
democracy like whatever the economic
outcomes are that that’s sort of a given
right if you can have a strong economy
you’ve got to have people that come out
and can do the work but what about for
democracy people need to be able to read
and think to be good strong participants
in a democratic society another idea
that I want you to think about it’s just
the complexity of the problems that
we’re dealing with if you only leave it
to teachers to fix you’re not going to
get anywhere you have got to have
public-private partnerships and people
increasingly with different perspectives
that can come together and solve or
better manage some of the challenges
that we see in our schools
another component increasingly that I
think about is we have got to do a
better job of scaling what works and
eliminating what doesn’t like tradition
we’ve always done it this way cannot be
the answer for a lot of the things that
we’re doing we have to be able to pivot
from some of those things and then again
spread like wildfire the things that are
working the last idea that I’ll sort of
put up here I need to be a little
careful with I do not want our federal
and state government to abdicate
responsibility because equity is huge
and they need to play a role in making
sure that different communities have
basic levels of support but increasingly
I am personally convinced that the
community is the right answer it will be
the people in this room connecting with
your local schools and your communities
that allow them to thrive we can no
longer wait for other people to solve
these problems
so with that foundation let me tell a
couple of ideas and again this is the
general idea what it needs is
modification for lots of different
places one of the programs we have in
the rainbow college of education is
called debt free teachers real simple
concept
you graduate from the College of
Education you teach in Oklahoma in a
high need area and we forgive up to
$5,000 of your higher ed investment each
year for four years up to $20,000 people
put down roots in those four years
communities grow people stay in the
state some of our best teachers we
actually have 60 participated in this
program we’ve helped OSU and you co to
start similar kinds of programs but
communities could do this as communities
are thinking about competitive ways to
attract and retain great teachers they
could do this similar kind of a
variation the next idea that I want to
show is the concept of Community Schools
in a lot of our education policy we get
so complex and we miss this very simple
idea if a kids basic needs are not being
met you can’t get it the academic needs
here’s what that looks like if a kid is
being abused if a kid is chronically
hungry
if a child is constantly dealing with
mental health or physical health issues
to simply give them another sheet of
algebra and expect it to improve totally
the wrong answer
so what if we thought about schools as a
hub to connect professionals to the kids
instead of it being the responsibility
of the kid or the family to find that in
the larger community what happens if we
actually find them where the people
where the kids are so we actually have a
study right now where we’re looking at
36 community schools in the Tulsa area
to really amazing outcomes early on in
this research one teacher satisfaction
has gone through the roof I think about
it for a second right I mean if I’m a
teacher and I actually get a teach and I
don’t have to be the parent in the
physician and the social worker the
second outcome that we see that was I
think a little bit surprised us a little
bit is a dramatic decrease in student
mobility so many kids and families are
absolutely on the edge of being able to
stay where they live like it’s a
constant sort of
movement as they as they make or can’t
make rent what we see for the families
is even if they get pushed out of the
place that they’re living they are
making a conscious decision that their
kid remains in the boundaries of that
Elementary School and that’s a totally
different decision than we see in lots
of other families where you have
children that are bouncing across
multiple schools in multiple districts
in a single academic year it is tragic
for the kind of academic performance
issues if you don’t get a teacher that
has that sustained ability to work with
that kid okay here’s another idea and
I’m this is where I need lots of help
I’m on thin ice here I’ve got the the
basis of an idea
I need smart people to help me out with
this so think about a hundred years ago
in this state many others a big part of
the compensation for educators was we
provided a house right place to live
whatever other challenges were out there
what would that look like in the 21st
century right I mean there’s sort of
this fundamental if you have communities
that have higher percentages of owners
versus renters you typically have a
stronger community so how do we connect
teachers in our communities to houses we
have a pilot program in the College of
Ed right now where we’ve got a group of
17 students that are participating in a
United Way financial boot camp the goal
is to get them a 660 credit score by the
time they graduate it’s not a huge
threshold you just have to be purposeful
about it when they graduate if they have
that 660 they qualify it for the
Oklahoma Housing Finance Authority’s
dream home act up to a $250,000 house
with a 3 to 5 percent down payment
requirement immediately teachers can
begin to build personal wealth by
investing in a house what are the other
variations of this could you think of
maybe a Community Foundation coming
together and providing a down payment
match in exchange for recruiting a
teacher into that community
could you imagine a city that is dealing
with condemning houses on a consistent
basis thinking about almost a variation
of habitat
for Humanity where we’re fixing up those
houses in providing them for great
teachers that are gonna live in our
community there are any number of
variations I mean again I could imagine
almost taking the idea of a
rent-controlled house in New York City
so if you think about what that
essentially does is it limits the risk
and it limits the reward but but if I
get my money back out of it that might
be the right mechanism for teachers in
the local community a variation of
section 8 housing like there’s all kinds
of ideas that we could imagine out there
but the fundamental concept is we need
great teachers communities need to step
up to be able to attract and retain
these teachers so as I sort of closed
down here I want you to look at this
picture and read this quote for just a
second this is again David Ross Boyd
reflecting on what he saw this is
actually the image he saw this is in the
the second edition of sooner magazine
so this is the challenge that he saw
and this is the foundation that he
provided for all of us that’s what I’m
challenging you to do today you might
not see the benefits of the seeds that
you plan in your local schools in your
local communities in your lifetime it
might not be in your children’s lifetime
but I don’t want you to think in that
kind of a time frame I want you to
invest in a future that you might not
benefit from and I know that’s a huge
ask every one of us today is benefiting
from exactly that same thing and that’s
what I challenge you get involved in
your schools take a field trip go make
up go make up your mind for yourself get
a sense of what the opportunities and
challenges are and then jump in and help
to solve them thank you so much [Applause]