It’s a pretty quiet day here on Northwest 7^th and Hudson in Oklahoma City, right across from the Oklahoma City Federal Building. There are some changes you do notice since Better Block: reverse angle parking on Seventh Street. And there’s a couple cars going by, a couple trucks. Not many people out walking today, it’s a dreary day.

I visited the area a year later with Kristen Vails and Alison Barta Bailey, who brought Better Block to Oklahoma City. Scattered throughout the block: pop up shops, hawking everything from flowers to books. The quick transformation requires a buy in from the community and landlords.

“This was actually pretty easy last year, there was one property owner to work with. He was really cool with us just coming in and making it our playground essentially.”

As I stood on the street corner, I wondered what had changed though. For those involved, it’s awareness. Here’s Ashley Terry, who volunteered for the first one and now works on the block.

“There’s more of a social buzz about the area, that was left behind. And those things are great to have because change can happen when a lot of people come together. It does take small pieces,  but sometimes it does take a big group of people, and so it’s nice to have that.”

Better Block is a nationwide initiative designed to educate, entertain, and inform. Tulsa has something similar, called Street Cred. They both aim to re-make neighborhoods to show what they hope the future looks like – walkable, livable, and more community centered. On the education side, signs next to trees and benches highlight how they help create community. For information, a map showing a neighborhood, and how far you could walk in ten minutes. Entertainment? Bands.

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Down in the Farmer’s Market District, nuzzled between Walker and I-40 a bit southwest of downtown, a band entertained those out and about on this Saturday. And the variety of shops had expanded. There was a flower shop, sure, but there were also crafts, cooking wood, drums, artwork and more all for sale.

Since last year, Kristen Vails says they’ve learned a little bit more on carrying the momentum forward, so Better Block doesn’t just turn a neighborhood around for a day or two, but for a week, a month, a year, and beyond.

“We wanted to create more permanence with what we did this year in the Farmer’s Market District. More things that are going to stay and are not going to go away after we’ve done them.”

They saw potential in the area – a built in community, a set up that encourages parking the car and walking around, and space. Sam Douglas from Oklahoma City said this is the kind of event that brings out the future.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if people start wanting to invest more money and time into this area. I could definitely see that happening.”

It also brought out some businesses that are just getting started. Courtney Ramos was selling flowers to get the word out about her new shop, Dutch. But why this event, what was it that made it one to show up to?

“I feel like I’ve gotten a little bit of everything, in a good way. Yes, I do think it brings other people, maybe people you wouldn’t have at the bigger events. This is more cozy, neighborhood friendly.”

Alison Barta Bailey, Kristen Vails, and their team of volunteers have now been through two areas…Hudson and Seventh and the Farmer’s Market District. They’re in very different places along the development process. Alison sees what has been done in other parts of the country, though, and that gives her hope.

“People just know that area and they’ve made it a part of their life. And we want this to be that for our Oklahoma City citizens.”

“This is going to be an area that we look back 20 years from now, and see all sorts of really cool things happening. And I’m going to take pride that we as Better Block hopefully kicked part of that off.”

You may have seen them – they almost look like a ballpoint pen from the future – except there’s a puff of stream of vapor coming out of the end. They’re e-cigarettes, and their popularity is increasing. While there isn’t a whole lot of data on them because they’re so new, one shows use nearly doubling nationwide between 2010 and 2011. I sat down with Michael Cross to sort through this smoky story…

Okay Michael, there’s your plain old cigarette, then there’s your e-cigarette. But the change is more than adding a letter and hyphen…here’s Jennifer Lepard with the State Department of Health…

“To have something new on the market that we don’t know much about makes us feel very uncomfortable because we want people to know we know what we’re trying to get everyone to do.”

They might be new products, but nearly every convenience store in Oklahoma carries them. But the big thing now: independent shops selling e-cigarettes under the name of vapes.

You see these poppping up all over the place, there’s one right here in Stillwater: Vapor Kings. I went there and checked it out.

“A little bit of everybody. Of course our minimum age is 18, but we go all the way up to the 80s.”

Phil Emi runs the store – it opened up back in February. They’re already up to 4 locations in just a couple years. And in talking with people at the store, it’s clear why people are moving towards e-cigs…

“I want my health to be good, I want to be more active, I don’t want to smell like an ash tray and offending other people.”

So people are using this to quit?

Pretty much. It’s as simple as that. There isn’t really any other reason besides quitting, and if there is one, it comes down to quitting.

If nothing else, they’re not having the tar, not having the smoke. So even if it’s not to quit altogether, at least it’s a safer way to get the nicotine.

And that’s the idea behind this. It’s the same hand to mouth motion, they’re still getting the nicotine, they even have flavors designed to mimic the taste of cigarette brands on the market.

Beyond just regular or menthol, they’ve got cherry, chocolate, gobstopper.

130! They’ve got all these different mixes, and this sounds almost like candy to me.

And the worry is that this might go to young people.

The word of mouth is spreading so quickly that some aren’t even buying for themselves, I asked Ashley Hitchcock from Stillwater why she was buying…

“She’s made it this far smoking, I don’t really want her to chance it anymore. She’s doing okay and she needs to kinda level off with all of her medicine health wise. She just needs to figure out an alternative without having to completely cut it off.”

The she she’s talking about? That’s her 70 year old mother, a smoker for forty plus years. So they’re converting people to e-cigarette, people who were on cigarettes for years and years and years.

For all this talk about using e-cigs to quit, and there’s a lot, Jennifer Lepard says the evidence simply isn’t there yet…

“We want to base everything we do in the science. And until it’s out there, we’re going to just have to wait and see.”

There’s the FDA and others a lot of people wanting to make sure products are safe, then there’s legislation.

Michael, you’re at the Capitol just about every day they’re in session, and there’s someone you see pretty often:

Sean Gore, he’s the owner of Get Vaped in Edmond, but also the Chairman of the Oklahoma Vapor Advocacy League or OVAL. They are out there making sure lawmakers don’t overstep their bounds and crush this new industry that is just starting to pop up.

In fact, a bill that came out earlier this session would have made Oklahomans purchase only from online dealers or from e-cigarette wholesalers.

“The bottom line is what you’d be doing is hurting the Oklahoma economy. These stores would have to shut down. I know my store alone employs 6 people. There’s other stores that employ 30 to 40 people across the state, we have more vapor shops than anywhere. That’s a lot of people that are going to be out of a job.”

Sean’s efforts paid off when the Senate bill got killed in a House committee. Now pardon me here Michael, but this isn’t as white and red as a Marlboro…I mean you have a doctor lining up against the bill.

Representative Doug Cox came out against what was then Senate Bill 802 in the committee and says he supports the use of e-cigarettes.

“I would be very happy if I could get every patient I see that smokes cigarettes to move to e-cigarettes. People would live a lot longer with a lot less health problems. And that’s why I tended to listen to the people who ran the vapor shops and use the e-cigarettes who opposed the bill.”

Right now, it’s in a conference committee. And Senator Rob Johnson of Kingfisher says he wants to create a new definition so vapes don’t get taxed as tobacco.

“Right now, the maximum is one tenth of the rate of a pack of cigarettes. If we can differentiate and say these are not going to be taxed the same, that way they are a lower tax. These are less harmful, they shouldn’t be taxed at the same rate.”

It’s in conference committee and could be put on hold until next session.

Everyone is looking to one group: the FDA.

It will decide whether or not to start regulating e-cigarettes as tobacco products and if they do claim it as tobacco products, that could cause a lot of problems for the owners of these new vape shops.

While all-day Kindergarten has support from most educators, one school district chooses to keep a majority of its students in kindergarten for only half a day.

Discovered through our Public Insight Network, Jessie Thompson fixes ravioli for her family while two-year-old Gavin watches the Disney Channel and six-year-old Riley works outside with dad.

Riley attends Heritage Trails Elementary in Moore Public Schools; one of just 22 students at the institution picked to attend all-day Kindergarten.

Jessie loves the fact that Riley was picked in a lottery system to go to school all-day although she raised concerns at first.

“He did the half-day pre-K last year and he had a little bit of a problem adjusting to time away from home, but he’s reading level 2 books now, just about at a second grade level.”

The move to all-day Kindergarten started with the passage of Senate Bill 982, the Achieving Classroom Excellence Act in 2005.

Under the bill signed by then Governor Brad Henry all schools needed to provide all-day kindergarten for their students by 2011.

Lawmakers later pushed it back by two years to the start of the 2013/2014 school year.

A freedom of information request by KOSU to the State Department of Education shows all but 14 of the state’s 520 school districts have 100% of students enrolled in all-day Kindergarten.

Moore Public School, the largest of those out of compliance, holds half-day kindergarten for more than 1,100 of its students

Superintendent Susan Pierce explains as the largest growing district in the state it doesn’t have the space to provide all-day kindergarten for every student

“Right now capacity for full day kindergarten and converting all of our classes to full day prohibit us from having all of our kindergarten classes be converted, but we do have an offering of full day kindergarten.”

But, only for kids like Riley who were picked to be in the full-day classes.

Superintendent Pierce believes the district is staying true to the law as she interprets it.

“That would be a requirement for all schools to have converted all programs to full day when Oklahoma reached the regional funding average or the funding average for our region, our surrounding states.”

The State Department of Education knows about Moore’s decision.

“We understand the Moore Public School is questioning that interpretation of the law. I think that’s well within their local right to do that and we’ll see how that challenge moves through the process.”

Chief of Staff Joel Robison believes lawmakers removed that provision later because it wasn’t feasible.

He says over the summer Regional Accreditation Officers or RAOs will visit Moore to make sure the school follows Department of Education rules and Oklahoma law.

“There will be RAOs discussing this with Moore. I suspect if Moore wants to push this it will end up in court and we’ll let the court decide what the interpretation of that law is.”

While the Department of Education and even Moore Superintendent Pierce recognize the need for all-day kindergarten, not all Oklahomans see its importance.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker taught special education and elementary education in a “home school away from home” in Durant.

She says all-day Kindergarten puts too much stress on the kids.

“I think that the length of the day is way too much for kiddos. They need more sleep than that and they don’t need to be getting out of bed at like 6:00 or 6:30 maybe 7:00 if they’re lucky.”

In a few years, when her son reaches kindergarten age, she will likely not have him participate in all-day classes.

“I have no uncertainty about the idea that I’ll have him in a non-traditional program. I don’t feel that full-day kindergarten is appropriate. I’ll either home school him or have him in a program that’s shorter.”

For Jessie Thompson just finishing up dinner, she hopes that she doesn’t have to go through the lottery system when Gavin hits kindergarten in 2016.

“The fact that we were able to get full day for riley we were really excited and happy and yeah, now that we don’t have to worry about it for Gavin is, yeah, it’s a weight off.”

A bill to make the move to all-day kindergarten optional rather than mandatory died in the legislature this session when it failed to get a hearing in the Senate.

“Oh yes, we had a lot of problems with it. We only had about two sites that didn’t have problems with it. All the rest of them did.”

Glenda Choate is District Testing Coordinator at Edmond Public Schools. She saw how the testing outages affected students, and started to worry herself.

“Not having enough hardware, not having enough computers to be able to do that, and then not having the infrastructure within our system.”

By spring 2015, Oklahoma public schools will be in the middle of an overhaul of testing. The state is part of a group known as PARCC…ready? The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. It’s a group of states, 21, plus DC, working together to develop questions, testing procedures, and more based on Common Core.

We’ve been doing the transition for multiple years, but next year will be the most crucial year because it’s the last year of the old standards.

Assistant State Superintendent for Accountability and Assessment in Oklahoma, Maridyth McBee is also the K through 12 point person for PARCC.

“But they’ll be packets for everybody so that they’ll be prepared to begin that transition. Which is especially important in math, there are a few topics that change grade levels.”

But perhaps the biggest change will be in time. Compared to this year, third graders will be in tests for at least twice as long. 9 different sessions, spread over two different testing periods – one in late February, early March, another toward the end of the school year. And that goes for most grades, up through juniors in high school.

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As Stillwater Middle School lets out for the day, parents line up in their trucks, SUVs, vans, and some cars. And the opinions were just as varied as the vehicle choice. Deanna Henry has kids in 6^th and 9^th grade.

“Already we are seeing that teachers are teaching to the test. And so more and more time is taken away in the classroom to teach to the test, and so that’s my biggest concern.”

Or there’s Ashley Smith, with four kids scattered through the schools.

“I would be on board because we need to see where the kids are. All the studies you hear on the news, America is behind. So if that’s what we need to do to get the kids learning what they need to learn, I think that’s okay.”

Whatever thoughts there are on testing, there’s agreement all of it will put pressure on schools – not only on the teaching side, but with logistics. Class schedules may be shuffled, students pulled out of class to take a test, and more. Maridyth McBee recognizes its far from ideal.

“In the short run, it will definitely be a challenge for schools. As we move closer to having one device for each student or at least one for every two, then I think testing will be able to be scheduled within the class schedule without the major disruption that it sometimes causes now.”

Device – there’s one more key change. While students are more familiar with technology than ever, typing may be a different story. And those as young as fourth graders may have to type out a page long answer in a session. Back to Glenda Choate in Edmond.

“So we are already looking at how we can push keyboarding skills that type of curriculum farther down into our elementary grades.”

As to why parents may not have heard about this yet, Perri Applegate with Tulsa Public Schools has an answer.

“I actually have been concerned about talking to parents till I really knew what the blueprint was like for PARCC.”

With less than 24 months to go, things are far from settled. Florida is essentially acting as treasurer for PARCC – again, that’s the coalition of states putting the tests together – yet late last month their Education Commissioner indicated things aren’t a done deal. John O’Connor is a reporter with State Impact Florida.

“Has a lot of weight here, a lot of clout and so the fact that the Education Commissioner is saying ‘We’re going to consider other tests’ is kinda a warning shot to the folks in the consortium to get their act together, get these things moving.”

The state Department of Education says it has plans in place in case the coalition falls apart, and school administrators I talked to say they’re also watching developments around the country. Alabama dropped out of PARCC back in February, but since then, only rumblings of any more changes. So preparation goes on in Edmond and school districts across the state, as much as it can.

“We are doing as much. There’s a whole lot more we would like to do, we have lots of plans in place, but until the finances are available to be able to do that, it will make it very difficult.”

Up Interstate 44, Tulsa voters will decide if they want to authorize a 38 million dollar bond issue next Tuesday, with some of the money going to more computers – computers that would be used to take the PARCC tests.

Senate Bill 1062 would change workers comp from a court system to an administrative one, allows some businesses to opt-out of the system under certain circumstances.

KOSU Capitol Bureau Chief Michael Cross got a chance to sit down with Representative Leslie Osborn who carried the bill on the House floor to answer the question: “What happens now?”

State appropriations for education are on the rise, up about 91 million dollars. But new estimates show schools will take at least a $50 million hit because of State Question 766. Do you think education gets enough money to keep up with growth and new reforms?

“Education was the number one priority for the House this year. I’m extremely excited about that 91 million dollars. Matter of fact, it essentially makes for about 43% of all the growth revenue we had to spend this year. So I think that’s fairly significant.

“In regards to some of the lost revenue that they are projecting they’re going to experience this year,  that’s an area that I know we are looking very closely at. But unfortunately right now, no one has a really good number. I’ve heard anywhere between 30 million and over 100 million. So I think it’s extremely speculative right now. And one that we’re going to have to keep a close eye on as we get past the session. But for now, I think we can very proud of the 91 million dollars of new revenue…Something I know will be put to good use across the state in our school districts.”

Another department in the news lately…the Department of Corrections gets no new money. This despite nearly 40 percent of their positions going unfilled. There is controversy for the Department related to underreporting of money in accounts  – they have at least 18 million dollars. But is the entire Department getting punished for the actions of a few at the top?

“Well it’s certainly an area of deep concern. I know for us in the House, we have not only passed a pay raise bill earlier in session, we had carried money in our budget to give Corrections an increase, but with revelation of, I don’t want to say mismanagement, but with the revelation of some issues at DOC and some of these revolving funds, I think it was wise to take a step back.

“And unfortunately, those that do feel the largest brunt when we do that are those front line employees who have a monumental job. Day in and day out, our correctional officers or other DOC employees are coming to a very difficult work environment, doing an extremely hard job, and I know they’re not getting compensated very fairly.

“I’m disappointed that we weren’t able to do anything in that regard. But I know that we’re going to take an extra look at those revolving funds to ensure that that money is getting managed correctly. So before we start putting more money in the agency, we want to make sure that what they have, which I’ve heard its anywhere close to 22 million dollars in revolving funds, is being spent correctly and not being mismanaged. I think that’s the right thing to do, not only for those employees but for taxpayers.”

The Legislative Service Agency gets 5 million dollars to renovate some offices at the Capitol, but the House and Senate will get a million dollar increase each for operational costs. What kind of message does that send to state workers who haven’t seen an across the board increase in nearly seven years ?

“Well certainly that’s not an across the board raises at all. Matter of fact, the House and the Senate, we took during the recession when cuts were going on, both bodies took the maximum amount of cuts that any agencies would have sustained throughout that time. Just yesterday I heard that the House itself, if you added up all the cuts, it’s like 40% of our budget. We are certainly not unlike any agency out there, we’re doing a lot more with a lot less.

“Just last night before I left, I was talking to one of our workers in the House, and she was telling that just in her particular division, there used to be 6 employees and now there’s three and they’re doing the same amount of work. And so we are making a critical investment in those areas.

“There’s two areas, the House and the Senate and if you throw in the Legislative Services Bureau that are funded purely through state appropriations. There’s no fee revenue, no fee income, we’ve got security issues that have been brought up just recently that need to be addressed. We’ve got staffing levels, not only levels but what they pay.

“And then you mentioned the renovations. With the Supreme Court having moved out of the Capitol within the last year, we now have space down there that needs to be utilized not only for our meeting rooms, but for other meetings that the public can utilize.

“I think these are things that people will be excited about once they’re completed, but I think those were wise budget items.”

“These tests they always stall. You’re taking a question, you’re fine. You’re answer another question, you’re fine. You answer another question, you’re fine. But then your computer stalls and you have to go through this long process, and by the end of it, you’re only halfway through the test and you’ve run out of time.”

Jay Smith is a 9^th grader from Oktaha, about a half hour south of Muskogee. He’s one of about 3-thousand students across the state who had problems with their tests Monday and Tuesday.

“It’s ridiculous that we have to worry about if we’re going to have enough time to take a test that we know we can take, we can take under normal circumstances, that we took last year.”

“It seems to occur every year for about as long as the industry has been moving towards computer administered tests.”

Monty Neill, Executive Director of the think tank Fair Test, says this is nothing new for the testing industry. And just as Oklahoma was having problems, nearly 30-thousand students in Indiana were facing the same issue. They also contract with CTB McGraw Hill. Their problems go all the way back to 2010, before Oklahoma had even signed their current deal. Thus, the dilemma.

“Every one of these test companies has had major error problems.”

“The reason that I have hope is because of the transparency with the company in saying what they did wrong and how they are fixing it. So it’s something that we can observe and verify. It’s not a mystery in the cloud.”

Maridyth McBee is an Assistant State Superintendent. And more changes are coming, as Oklahoma starts using tests from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers in 2014.

“We will need to have paper options with PARCC. That’s always been the plan, we had hoped to have not as many, but I think that we won’t be able to go 100% online.”

PARCC is a coalition of states who will all administer the same tests in reading and math. The changes reduce the number of tests for grades 3 through 8, from 26 now to 25.

At the State Capitol Wednesday, a group of students, educators and Democratic legislators gathered to advocate for more funding for Oklahoma schools. As everything wrapped up, Representative Jerry McPeak asked how the students would rank the state Department of Education, in light of this week’s testing woes:

“F”

McGraw Hill is Oklahoma’s fifth test company in the past decade. Maridyth McBee says switching yet again would just add more risk to the system.

The state Department of Education has extended the deadline a couple days for tests. Grades 3 through 8 now have until May 7^th, End of Instruction tests for high schools end May 14^th.