How Oklahoma and Georgia are Leading the Way in Education – Rachel Maddow (2/14/13)

“Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity”. Thomas Jefferson

The above quote is one of my all time favorites on any topic by any truly quotable thinker. I don’t think that Thomas Jefferson would have considered himself a socialist, even though the term hadn’t yet been invented, but I do think that he would consider this to be a nutritional necessity of our society moving forward in an ever competitive world. In this video Rachel talks about Oklahoma (which really is a wonderful place, believe it or not you who may not have ever graced her red soil), and this was a fun video to watch because Rachel is of course very liberal, and my motherland Oklahoma is not, so to hear her talk about what we’ve done right was really fun. I think that there is a lot of room for common ground on this, we just can’t allow ourselves to be overrun by the loudest voices.

If you are a teacher, especially in Oklahoma, I would really love some feedback.

The chart that most stuck out to me was the first chart below, but they each have a lot of room for discussion. I’m sure that a lot of people would like to talk about what it means that there is a racial disparity, but I think it’s very important that we approach information like that with the perspective like that of a Malcolm Gladwell from the book “Outliers”, and there are reasons why these things happen – some are not so ugly to look at and some just are. What do you think about all of this? If you’re a teacher, especially in Oklahoma, I’d REALLY like to know what you think.