Many of you may not have had the opportunity to listen to our State Superintendent of Public Private Education during her recent interview with Choice Media’s Jonathan Butcher.

The full ten minute interview is  embedded at the bottom of this post for your viewing “pleasure.” Don’t expect any revelations though.  As Jonathan lobs one softball question after another, it becomes quite evident that this is nothing more than a campaign speech accompanied by a friendly moderator to feed her talking points.

Watch the entire video if you have the time and intestinal fortitude. If you can only handle small doses of Dr. Barresi’s chirpy rhetoric, here are a few highlights:

2:12 – 2:26: An answer about the new and improved state tests, culminating with a sickeningly cheerful utterance from Janet: “Besides, if you don’t test, how are you going to know how you’re doing?” Uhhh!

7:56 – 8:14: Barresi: “I am a BIG supporter of ALL forms of education choice. We already have charter schools in Oklahoma, not enough, so we are working on efforts to expand.”

Jonathan:  “20 statewide charters?”

Barresi:  “No, 25 statewide, that’s almost embarrassing it’s so low, but we’re working on a process to expand.”

9:00 – 9:58: Barresi:  “There’s a growing discussion about it and I am excited about vouchers…” “We’re looking at lessons learned from Florida!…” We’re looking at this session if not next…”

If you couple these comments with the recently approved State Department Budget for 2015 that includes a quadrupling of the budget for Charter School Incentive Funds and it is obvious the direction our Superintendent is wanting to bring our state.

It is also becoming increasing evident that a major impetus for the new A-F accountability system is so we can identify and label our “poor performing” schools. With parents now aware of how “bad” their neighborhood schools are, they will be ripe for the picking.

Folks like Damon Gardenhire, Barresi’s former Communication Director and current senior program officer with the Wal-Mart Foundation, will be able to swoop in with corporate solutions to fix our schools. In fact, his job description on the Wal-Mart Foundation website actually says this: “Focusing on special initiative grant making in Oklahoma.”

Hmmm, I wonder what that means!

Anyway, the good news is that if you operate a private school, charter school or virtual school, your future in Oklahoma looks rather rosy. Janet has your back!

On the other hand, if you’re just a lowly public school, you need to watch out for the big, bad wolf! She’s coming for you!

If the video doesn’t appear, you can access it HERE.