Education advocates are taking matters into their own hands to improve student academic outcomes across the state.Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice is behind the Better Outcomes for Oklahoma Kids (BOOK) initiative. With education justice central to their work, jumping on a program like this made sense to their director of research and strategic impact, David Blatt.We really believe deeply that strong public schools are important for creating a society where all students, regardless of their background, their zipcode, their race ethnicity, all have an opportunity to thrive and become educationally successful but also successful in the workforce and engaged citizens, he said.At its core, the BOOK initiative is to make education more successful statewide. To learn more >>> Advance Oklahoma KidsBlatt explained that the goal is to open the conversation to the community on how to make things better for students. Then, compile action items that they can take to changemakers. "Supporters of public education keep finding ourselves on the defense, we are fighting back against rhetorical attacks and policy attacks, but at the same time we know that there are great strengths of public education in Oklahoma," said Blatt. "We realized we really needed something positive to bring folks together and not just always saying 'well this is bad and we need to sort of stop bad things from happening.'The first step is getting input through an online survey. From there, advocates plan to compile 10-15 policies that they can put in front of school boards or legislatures, to improve issues most important to local parents and community members. We are not coming into this with a preordained outcome," said Blatt. "The big goal is two things. One is to change the narrative, to focus on the successes we have, and then help build towards more successes." RELATED STORY >>> Tulsa Public Schools gives first status update to Oklahoma State Board of EducationAdvance Oklahoma Kids Coalition, under the Appleseed umbrella, is helping craft the future through the new program. Erika Wright is a founding member, a parent, and the founder of Oklahoma Rural School's Coalition. She has a lot of hope that this initiative will help change the way education is handled all across the sooner state. "We have spent so much time being firefighters, right, theres raging fires all around us that we are constantly trying to fight against on the defense," said Wright. "This kind of flips that and changes us from firefighting all the time into becoming architects and building what we want our future for our kids to look like." Of course, there will still be fires, she said, but this move will bring everyone into the conversation. With Oklahoma ranked 49th in the nation for education, advocates are hopeful the community will participate in the program to improve conditions for all students in the years ahead. "As a parent, my biggest concern right now is the absolute decimation of our teacher workforce. This is no secret," said Wright. "Weve really got to come up with a proactive strategy that is driven by the people to be able to place in front of our legislature and get some serious momentum changing in the state of Oklahoma.The survey will close at the end of December 2024. Based on the results, Blatt said there will community events to dive deeper into concerns and focus areas over the next six to eight months.They plan to roll out a report in about a year with their findings and those 10-15 policy suggestions that all schools statewide can adopt for improvement. Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere -- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices. Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you Like us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram SUBSCRIBE on YouTube