Jason Glidewell And The Unfunded NCLB

-----The Daily "Mislead" is slamming public education again. If we lived with an outhouse, that newspaper's editorial page would be the perfect place to use it.

----- The latest school slam was entitled, "Our ill-preared kids -High remedial rates a blight on our state." The editorial really slammed the Oklahoma City School System and the Jenks Public Schools. The editorial was worthless.

----- I enrolled in the University of Oklahoma in 1963 and half the freshman class's grade point average, after their first semester, was below 2.0. What was the problem for most of them? Watch the "Adventures in Babysitting," or "Animal House," and anyone can see "why" so many students do so poorly their freshman year. Why? Alcohol and the party ethic. But even that doesn't explain everything.

----- One must take a look at what subjects they need to remediate. Generally, the top remediation classes are in math and English. I would bet that more girls need math remediation and more boys need English remediation.

----- Does that mean the public schools are doing a poor job of educating our students? Not at all. We are looking at a cross section of students, and if 50% need remediation, 50% don't need remediation.

----- I would suspect that the writer of the "Mislead's" article would need a remediation course in both Calculus and English.

THEY ALWAYS CONCENTRATE ON THE NEGATIVE

----- For some reason, the "Mislead" loves to "dwaddle" on the negatives of public school rather than the positives. We must remember that with every remediated student, there is one who graduated from the same public school who literally found undergraduate work a slam-dunk.

----- Jason Glidewell, was born, raised, and educated in Caddo County in the Anadarko Public Schools. Glidewell is a great example of how test scores are poor predictors of success and can actually cause universities to over-look some of the most talented students, after they chase head-long after their National Merit Scholars.

----- Jason is the Democratic candidate for the District 56 Legislative position - a killer student both in high school and at OU.

----- -Glidewell graduated from Anadarko High School in 1994, along with our oldest daughter, Holli. When Jason was in junior high, his grandmother, a teacher, predicted that her grandson would be difficult to beat for the valedictorian of his class, and she was correct.

----- While he was in high school, he was the BMOC and was involved in so many activities, we couldn't begin to list them here. Glidewell was the president of his class, graduating with a grad-point, well 4.0, since he took every college-bound class he could.

----- In high school, Jason promised my daughter, Holli, who graduated with him, that he was going in to politics.

----- "Jason," Holli said. "I'll vote for you."

HE WAS AN ACADEMIC WHIZ KID

----- Jason enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, and the next four years, dazzled his professors with a 4.0. Moving on to Law School, Glidewell again excelled and was two years out of Law School before Holli finally graduated from Cameron University with a degree in Piano Performance, in their quality Fine Arts program, with a degree in Piano Performance.

----- Our daughter did need to take a remedial class in math, but Holli would have and did blow away any student on campus in music and piano, which, by the way is not part of the ACT or SAT.

----- Unlike many of Oklahoma's top students, Jason came home and became the Assistant District Attorney. I saw him in down-town Anadarko one day and stopped him.

----- "Jason, you are doing a great job for Anadarko. You are to be congratulated, " I offered.

----- "Thank you, Mr. Hill, ... that means a lot to me, " was his answer.

----- "Jason, what was your ACT score which you took to college with you?"

----- "Mr. Hill, I only had a 27, but your ACT score really doesn't matter when you get to college. What matters is how much you want it, and how much you are willing to work."

----- Let's face it, OU students brag about their school as being one of the top party universities in the U.S.! Jason refused to walk down that road.

----- Anadarko Public Schools offer a fairly broad range of academic opportunities for their students, including a class on the Kiowa language. Our school pulls in students from many surrounding schools, because those smaller schools, under President Bush's unfunded "No Child Left Behind," have had to drop "fringe" classes like music, art, and drama.

FINE ARTS TAKE A HIT IN SMALL SCHOOLS

----- Sadly, I am sure that many of our small schools have students who are gifted in the arts but will never have the opportunity to hone those gifts with which God blessed them, much less, seek a degree in a university setting, with a scholarship offer. Whose fault? Yet another mistake that ends up on our President's lap which he refuses to accept.

----- Oklahoma Schools are not better off under the Bush Administration. It is a crime to force schools to gut their Fine Arts programs.

----- Glidewell and our daughter, are prime examples of thousands of Oklahoma young people who did well in high school and went on to do well in higher eduction. By the way, Holli teaches piano students in Lawton, Oklahoma.

----- I'm voting for Jason Glidewell, because I can assure you that he will work on getting Fine Arts back in our small, rural school districts.

(c) 2004 Dale Hill