The superintendent of one of Oklahoma’s largest school districts has given an emphatic defense of the state’s education system after a recently released survey ranked it 50th in the nation.
Robert Romines, the superintendent of Moore Public Schools — Oklahoma's fifth-biggest district, with about 23,600 students — was speaking as part of a panel of superintendents during the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s annual State of the Schools luncheon at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
The event on Wednesday, Aug. 6, brought together business and education leaders from across the metropolitan area, with one notable exception — state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, whose name was not mentioned during 90 minutes of remarks. Featured speakers included new Oklahoma State University President Jim Hess and state Education Secretary Nellie Tayloe Sanders.
The event also included a discussion with Romines, new Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Josh Delich and Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Polk. Romines was asked about the Moore school district's new “Bridges” program, which provides apartments for housing-insecure high school students. He talked about it, then launched into a criticism of a new survey by WalletHub, which placed Oklahoma above only New Mexico in its national ranking of education systems.
“I want everybody in the room, when you leave here, I want you to hear one thing, and I want to speak for Moore Public Schools,” Romines said. “I don't want to speak for anybody else. But you won't hear the rhetoric of being 50th in the nation in regards to education. Please know that that score is not just indicative of one test score. It's about multiple things, and I want you to know if you're standing in the middle of Moore, America, and you do a 360, we are not 50th in the nation.
“We've got wonderful things and programs and initiatives going on, and I invite anybody to come in and sit down with me and discuss what we've got going on. … We literally are moving mountains and removing roadblocks for students.”
Delich moved this summer to Edmond from Minnesota, where he held leadership roles with that state’s two largest public school districts. He now is overseeing Oklahoma’s fourth-largest district with about 25,700 students. He said during the presentation the vision of both the city and the school system was a major draw for him to come to Oklahoma. Afterward, he took a pragmatic approach to the WalletHub survey.
“I would tell you that ratings are ratings,” Delich said. “There’s a lot behind ratings that I don't necessarily know all of how we get to that. But any time you have those, the way I operate and the way we operate at Edmond Public Schools is saying, ‘How do we turn whatever might be considered not so good into something great?’ That's the approach that I use. So, to me, the rating is the rating. How do you take it and how do you make it even better for our students in Edmond, and even larger than that — Oklahoma itself?”
More: Lawmakers say proposed state report card changes would unfairly punish schools
Study ranked Oklahoma on ACT scores, dropout rates, and more
The WalletHub survey ranked states in six categories — median ACT score, reading test scores, dropout rate, median SAT scores, math test scores and pupil-teacher ratio. The categories were scored based on 32 relevant metrics for each section.
The state’s worst category was its median ACT score, but that is deceptive, said state Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber, who is the chair of the Oklahoma House Common Education Committee. All Oklahoma students are required to take the ACT — even those who are not planning on attending college, which drags down the state’s average score, Lowe said.
“You always have to look at what is the methodology of the (survey),” Lowe told The Oklahoman after the luncheon. “I never want to look at one test, one result. I always said if you want a poll to say something, tell me what you want to say, and I'll get it written or you'll get it that way. Let's look at the outcomes of our students, and that's not just the test scores. Are we putting students out there to work? Are we getting them ready for their career, to get in the workplace? That is our key and that’s what we continue to work on.”
The chair of the state Senate Education Committee, Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, when asked about Oklahoma’s No. 50 ranking, said, “We’re not 50th. We’re not 50th. It’s that simple. WalletHub gets to determine our education rankings? I just don’t believe that.
“It doesn’t change anything. Every day we should show up and say, ‘How can we be better?’ That is true. I do that as a dad. I do that as a colleague in my business. I do that as a senator. Everybody should show up at their place of business, or in their personal lives, and say, ‘How can I be better today?’ … Regardless of the rankings, that doesn’t change our mission — show up and educate kids to the best of our ability.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma superintendents defend education amid state's low rankings
Comments