Podcast: Talking with Ramona Paul about Early Education in Oklahoma

Oklahoma has been recognized as a model of high accessibility and high quality when it comes to state-funded pre-kindergarten. Research has shown that children who come out of Oklahoma’s pre-k program have developed more writing, pre-literacy and pre-math skills than those who did not attend. In its annual State Preschool Yearbook, the National Institute for Early Education Research reports that Oklahoma meets nine out of its 10 quality benchmarks, including the existence of early  learning standards, bachelor’s-degreed pre-k teachers,  and class sizes of no more than 20 students. The state serves 75 percent of Oklahoma’s 4-year-olds and pays pre-k teachers at the same level as K-12 teachers.  In fact, according to Ramona Paul, the state’s former assistant superintendent of public instruction, the only difference between the state’s pre-k and kindergarten programs is that pre-k is voluntary.

Ramona Paul began building Oklahoma’s public early education system about 30 years ago and has received national attention for tweaking the state’s funding formula to support early education programs. Paul retired in January of this year.

For this podcast,Early Ed Watch spoke with Paul about her work in Oklahoma.  She describes the state’s model of pre-k for 4-year-olds, new publicly funded programs to serve 3-year-olds, and efforts to improve the quality of care and education in programs that serve infants and toddlers.

Early Ed Watch podcast – February 21, 2011

Podcast: Early Education in Oklahoma

With our guest Ramona Paul, former Assistant State Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Oklahoma Department of Education.

Attachments: 

early-ed-podcast-022211.mp3