By: Danny May
The Owensboro Innovation Academy is a cutting edge approach to education. In fact, OIA is the first New Tech school in the state of Kentucky. The academy is a collaboration between Daviess County Public Schools and Owensboro Public Schools with participation from McLean County Schools.
Dr. Nicholas Brake, Superintendent of Owensboro Public Schools, took the initiative on the OIA project, and says that DCPS was quick to see the need and happy to partner.
For this college and career guide, Owensboro Parent talked with Dr. Brake about current trends in education, college and career readiness, and the vision behind initiatives like OIA.
OP – What is the current trend in education?
I think it’s important to differentiate between the notion of educating and schooling. Educating has already become more one-on-one and personalized. Technology plays a major part in that. For example, you can download a Harvard class from iTunes and listen to some of the greatest minds talk about any subject, and you can learn that way. In some cases you can get credit for those types of things. But schooling is still ‘in-the-box.’ The question is how do we change schooling to fit what’s happening globally when it comes to educating. What we’re trying to do is move schooling along to where the notion of educating is now with the advent of technology.
OP – Integrating college readiness into all grade levels seems to be another trend in education.
Absolutely. The major focus of our district is to create opportunities and pathways that lead to a variety of postsecondary options for our students. We strive to engage the whole child from pre-K access and readiness to college, career and life readiness through what we call a ‘blended’ experience with postsecondary pathways the last two years of high school; whether it’s through AP classes, or “discover college” dual courses, or college credit classes at OCTC or Kentucky Wesleyan College. We want every student who walks out of OHS to have a postsecondary experience of some kind. About 65% of our students do now, but our goal is 100%.
OP – OIA is the first New Tech school in Kentucky, but it’s not a new concept.
That’s right, there are 134 New Tech schools in 23 states. It’s a proven model that’s been around for a number of years. Each of the New Tech schools is a little different.
OP – Another interesting aspect of OIA is the partnership between DCPS and OPS.
Yes, it’s about 50/50 enrollment between OPS and DCPS. It’s a great partnership. We’re happy to take the lead on it because we had the innovation status. The hope is that there will be several options of shared alternative programs between the two districts long term.
OP – Where do you think education is going in ten years?
I think if schooling doesn’t adapt, then the market will create it. It’s already happening in some larger, more urban areas, which is why I wanted to create a school like OIA. You really can’t serve the industrial factory model of churning through 1,600 students where everybody gets these credits in four periods one day and four periods the next day and then take the test and get the credit and you’re out. It’s the difference of getting the credentials versus actually getting educated.
To some extent, we still have to deal with the masses of students, but we also have to create opportunities for them to be more individualized. What we’re doing with our Bluegrass Scholars Program at Owensboro High School, for example, is once they’ve demonstrated that they’re college ready, they get on that individualized path and they have options to pursue whichever pathway they want once they meet their college bench marks.
What we’re finding is it creates a very strong incentive for students to bear down early on in high school and become college-ready.
These types of experiences really make the culmination of high school a lot different for these students, and it really is exciting. Our anticipation is that half our students will eventually be able to experience a program like this at some point throughout their high school career, which is great because we want more and more of our students to meet those college bench marks.