Oklahoma has a teacher shortage. In 2016, school districts cut about 1,500 teaching positions. They still had over 500 teaching vacancies when the school year started. The Oklahoma Teacher of the Year moved to Texas for better pay.
Now comes word that an Oklahoma agency under the control of Republican Governor Mary Fallin has denied certification to TU’s Education Department. In vague terms, TU states that the problem is with evaluating teacher preparation and candidate assessment.
Tulsa is a private university but subject to the state’s certification standards. The Tulsa World reports: “Higher education institutions that prepare teachers used to be accredited by the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation, but in 2014, a change in statute combined it with the Office of Accountability and renamed the new entity the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability, or OEQA.
OEQA commissioners are appointed by Gov. Mary Fallin, and Fallin’s secretary of education, Natalie Shirley, serves as chairwoman.”
The action does not seem to be motivated by an agenda to destabilize public schools. Just this month, Gov. Fallin got behind a proposal to raise taxes $1.5 billion to help fund public education.
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For readers in Illinois, this story might raise even more concerns about great education departments at EIU, ISU, and other state schools that are harmed by the budget impasse.
PHOTO CREDIT: Bennett, Christian Science Monitor
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