Mission: Make Oklahoma a world leader in public education Vision: Oklahoma will become nationally and globally competitive by strengthening its public schools by:
Raising standards o Graduating all students from high school ready for college and work
Attracting, preparing, and retaining high quality teachers
Improving transparency and accountability for results
“We keep trying to solve new problems and old problems with old methods and old ways of funding,” says Phyllis Hudecki. “The private sector is saying, ‘Let’s break out of that.’ We want to transfer that kind of thinking into education.
Recent Achievements
The Oklahoma Business and Education Council mobilized business leaders and advocated successfully for SB 2033, which ties teacher and principal evaluation to student achievement, eliminates some of the burden and cost for terminating ineffective teachers, and renders tenure more selective. Business leaders on OBEC’s board also aided efforts to reform teacher evaluation at Tulsa Public Schools by implementing employee evaluation methods proven effective in the private sector.
Executive Director Phyllis Hudecki was appointed to Gov. Mary Fallin’s Cabinet as Secretary of Education, and OBEC is now the state of Oklahoma’s official partner in developing state education policy.
OBEC successfully defeated House and Senate bills that proposed rolling back high school graduation requirements and weakening academic rigor, and is currently providing technical assistance to a senator developing a bill that would ramp up math requirements for graduation.
