Q: How can Oklahoma improve education outcomes and workforce readiness for future generations? Education and the workforce are critical to our state. One key issue from our committee discussions is Oklahoma’s lack of a Statewide Longitudinal Data System. It’s believed Oklahoma may be the only state without a system that tracks students from pre-K through college. Without this system, we cannot track outcomes or understand the student’s learning capacity throughout their education. Several pieces of legislation in 2025 aim to address this, ensuring systems at higher ed, career tech and K-12 can communicate, allowing us to track a student’s achievements throughout their education and career path. Q: How will you ensure aspects like longer days, summer programs and after-school initiatives improve student learning capacity outcomes in literacy and academic performance? During and after the pandemic, there was a push toward four-day school weeks, along with a reduction in required instructional hours. Oklahoma has one of the lowest numbers of instructional days. As other states increase the number of school days to focus on STEM, math and reading, we’ve reduced the number of instructional days. Despite record funding, our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores have decreased, which can be attributed to less time in the classroom. We’ve heard some larger school districts are considering four-day weeks, which would send a bad message to other schools. We’re working to push back against that idea.
Q: What steps will you take to secure the Rebuilding Oklahoma Access and Driver Safety (ROADS) Fund is sufficient to support Oklahoma’s transportation system and meet the increasing demands on infrastructure? The eight-year plan, started in 2006, has successfully improved roads and bridges. From 1980-2006, Oklahoma had the highest number of deficient bridges, and we hadn’t increased infrastructure funding until recently. This year, there is a major effort to boost that funding. For example, since 2019, inflation in road and bridge construction has been 63%, so we’re working to preserve buying power and increase funding. This will allow us to continue the major infrastructure improvements we’ve seen over the last 20 years. The Chamber and our transportation committee support adding about $60 million to the ROADS Fund, led by Sen. Avery Frix and Rep. Nicole Miller. This effort has transformed Oklahoma City, and we aim to maintain this progress in the future.
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