U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. will visit Will Rogers College Jr. High & High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Friday, April 15, where he will visit a classroom and participate in a roundtable discussion with members of a local committee that reviewed and modified testing in the district to discuss efforts, aligned with the President's Testing Action Plan, to eliminate unnecessary testing. He will be joined by Tulsa Superintendent Deborah A. Gist.
King and Gist will participate in a media availability after the roundtable.
In October 2015, President Obama announced a set of principles promoting a smarter approach to student assessment, aimed at reducing the amount of time spent on standardized testing and providing support for states and school districts to develop and use better, less burdensome assessments. The Obama Administration's Testing Action Plan outlines that assessments must be worth taking and of high quality; enhance teaching and learning; and give a well-rounded picture of how students and schools are doing.
The visit is part of a series of events focused on a return to a well-rounded education. On Thursday, King visited Las Vegas, Nevada, to deliver a speech on well-rounded education, and he will visit Springdale, Arkansas, later in the day Friday, to talk about President Obama's Computer Science for All initiative.