Drummond’s SCHOOLS Agenda

Gentner Drummond’s SCHOOLS Agenda is a comprehensive blueprint to improve student outcomes, support educators, and ensure accountability across Oklahoma’s education system:

S – Support Our Educators

Oklahoma’s teacher shortage is one of the most urgent threats to student success—leaving nearly 5,000 classrooms staffed by emergency-certified teachers and thousands of students without the qualified instruction they need to thrive. To deliver the education our kids deserve, Oklahoma must become a top destination for aspiring and experienced educators.

As Governor, Gentner Drummond will support our teachers — not attack them.

He will:

• Launch the Oklahoma Teacher Corps fellowship, offering financial incentives to graduates of Oklahoma’s colleges of education who stay in-state

• Innovate through teacher empowerment zones that reduce red tape and elevate professional freedom

• Streamline certification for qualified teaching candidates

• Provide competitive pay and benefits to ensure retention and morale

• Partner with higher education institutions to improve the quality and consistency of student-teaching placements

• Promote mentorship and induction programs for early-career teachers to reduce burnout and improve retention

C – Champion Reading Proficiency

Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic and life success.

Within four years, Oklahoma will become a national leader in third-grade reading. Drummond supports the end of failed strategies like “three cueing” and will go further:

• Ensure alignment of curriculum from early childhood education through kindergarten, so every child builds a strong, consistent foundation in literacy

• Launch the Governor’s Early Reading Honor Roll — annually recognize top-performing early childhood centers that demonstrate exceptional results in building pre-literacy skills and preparing children for kindergarten reading success

• Ensure all state and local reading programs are grounded in phonics and the science of reading, directing resources only to evidence-based methods that get results

• Ensure assessments for struggling students are formative, aligned with instructional goals, and limited in frequency

• Provide read-at-home plans and training support for parents

• Incentivize peer coaching by experienced reading instructors

• Launch the Governor’s Reading Corps—mobilizing business leaders, parents, and community members to support early literacy in local schools

H – Honor Local Control

Oklahoma’s schools should reflect the values and priorities of their local communities — not the personal agenda of a state bureaucrat in Oklahoma City.

Gentner Drummond believes real education reform starts with trusting local leaders. As Governor, he will respect the authority of locally elected school boards and empower educators closest to students to lead the way.

Drummond will:

• End unfunded state mandates — like the forced universal school lunch directive — unless accompanied by full financial support from the state

• Expand flexibility within innovation and grant programs, prioritizing local ideas and giving schools freedom to tailor solutions without jumping through bureaucratic hoops

• Launch a School Board Partnership initiative to offer guidance, elevate local voices in policymaking, and administer a voluntary annual audit—helping districts evaluate board practices, strengthen transparency, and share best practices statewide

O – Opportunity for All

Every student—regardless of zip code—deserves a path to success. Drummond will:

• Establish Oklahoma’s first Education Access and Empowerment Portal to serve as a trusted, one-stop resource that simplifies school choice for families—making educational options easy to understand and access, and accountable to parents and taxpayers

• Expand high-quality early childhood education options through both public and private partners

• Guarantee access to career pathways through Oklahoma’s career tech system, dual-credit opportunities, and job-aligned training programs

• Support personalized learning models that adapt to individual student needs and goals

• Foster a climate where high-quality charter schools are welcomed and able to thrive

• Provide targeted incentives to recruit and retain high-quality teachers in Oklahoma’s most challenged schools

• Invest in principal and school leader development, recognizing that strong campus leadership is essential to student success

O – Openness and Real Accountability

Accountability in education must go beyond test scores — it must also ensure schools are safe, transparent, and focused on student success. Drummond will:

• Improve the usability and clarity of Oklahoma’s existing school performance dashboard

• Integrate data from common education, career tech, and higher ed to track long-term student outcomes

• Streamline the administration of school choice tax credits and scholarships to safeguard taxpayer dollars, eliminate waste, and consolidate duplicative or inefficient programs

• Use clear, transparent metrics to assess school turnaround efforts and ensure interventions are tied to student growth

• Enhance school safety by funding School Resource Officers (SROs) statewide, establishing state-approved anti-grooming laws to keep predators out of classrooms, and helping all schools develop rapid-response threat protocols in partnership with local law enforcement

L – Leverage Innovation

Drummond will embrace 21st-century innovation to broaden opportunity:

• Enable students to learn from top teachers across the state through technology-enhanced instruction

• Invest in school infrastructure to ensure safe, inspiring, and connected learning environments

• Recognize and invest in innovative community- and faith-based after-school programs that reinforce learning and mentorship beyond the classroom

S – Stand with Parents

Parents are the foundation of a child’s success. Gentner Drummond will protect and promote parental involvement at every level, recognizing their central role in a child’s education.

He will:

• Create an annual statewide Parent Voice Survey to gather direct feedback on curriculum, communication, and school performance—with results published publicly to drive transparency and improvement

• Publish a clear list of curriculum tools and instructional materials so parents know exactly what their children are learning—supporting both openness and high standards

• Expand opportunities for meaningful parental engagement, including flexible options like virtual parent-teacher conferences

• Empower parents to opt their children out of specific lessons or content that conflict with their beliefs or values

• Enforce Oklahoma’s ban on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and any ideologically driven curriculum that divides students by race, gender, or political affiliation—keeping classrooms focused on academic excellence, not political activism

Maximizing Federal Resources

Drummond will make it a top priority to ensure the Oklahoma State Department of Education—as well as every school district and individual school—applies for and receives all eligible federal funding deemed beneficial for students, teachers, and families. Too many schools are leaving money on the table—funds that could go directly to classroom needs, student support services, and critical programs like universal free school lunches.

For example:

• 264 districts and 786 schools in Oklahoma qualify to provide free meals to all students through the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), yet many have failed to apply

• In January 2024, the state declined $48 million from the USDA’s Summer EBT grocery assistance program, which would have provided $120 per child for an estimated 403,000 eligible children

Drummond will lead a coordinated, statewide effort to:

• Identify and apply for all eligible federal grants that benefit students and teachers

• Improve internal capacity and compliance to ensure those funds are received, spent wisely, and transparently

• Close participation gaps in programs like CEP and Summer EBT so that no district misses out on money their students deserve

Governor’s Excellence Challenges

As Governor, Gentner Drummond will challenge Oklahoma’s future generations to aspire to excellence across academics, health, and innovation. From the Governor’s Reading and Math Challenges to the Fitness, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Challenges, students statewide will have opportunities to demonstrate achievement, creativity, and determination.

Winners will be celebrated at the Governor’s Mansion with their families — showing young Oklahomans that hard work and excellence are always recognized and rewarded. These challenges will not only raise academic outcomes but also build confidence, character, and leadership in the next generation.

Seizing the Moment for Oklahoma’s Future

With President Trump working to return education authority to the states, Gentner Drummond will seize this historic opportunity to set Oklahoma free from federal mandates, unleashing the innovation, flexibility, and local control needed to lead the nation.

Gentner Drummond is ready to listen, lead, and deliver—setting clear goals, making big promises, and following through with bold action. Together, we will make Oklahoma among the best states in America for every family, teacher, student, and employer, setting a new national benchmark for educational excellence and opportunity.

Footnotes:

1. WalletHub – States with the Best Schools 2025.
2. Oklahoma Voice – “Oklahoma sets new record for emergency certified teachers”, August 2023.
3. Annie E. Casey Foundation – Early Warning Confirmed: A Research Update on Third-Grade Reading, 2013.
   Key finding from the 2013 report: “Students who are not reading proficiently in third grade are four times more likely to not graduate high school on time.”

4. NAEP – Nation’s Report Card: Oklahoma Reading Performance.
5. NIEER – The State of Preschool 2024 Report.
6. Annie E. Casey Foundation – Kids Count Data Book 2025: Oklahoma Profile.
7. Oklahoma State Department of Education – Oklahoma School Report Cards.
8. Magnolia Tribune – “Lawmakers make grooming of a child a felony in Mississippi,” April 2025.
9. Hunger Free Oklahoma – “Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) Report: 2024–2025.”
10. KOSU – “Oklahoma declines to participate in federal summer food program for children,” January 2024.

Additional Resources:

Education Week, Quality Counts 2021 Report – “Educational Opportunities and Performance in Oklahoma.”
National Center for Education Statistics (NAEP) – “The Nation’s Report Card: Oklahoma Reading and Math Performance.” 2023.