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PrintLunch with: Kathy Taylor
Governor’s chief of education strategy and innovation.
Sometimes an interview starts as one thing and ends as something else.
When Kathy Taylor and I set up our lunch via Facebook, we hoped that our conversation would center on the benefits of Tulsa Public Schools being named a finalist for the federal Race to the Top education innovation and reform grant. The decision hadn’t come down from D.C. when we met.
Alas, TPS missed the cut, though Taylor said publicly after our visit that the effort has created momentum for the state’s educational system. One example: Oklahoma recently passed the Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Act, which moves the schools more toward a merit-based pay model than a tenure-based one. (This was required legislation to apply for the federal funds.) A five-tier evaluation system will rate teacher performance from A-F.
“Teachers rated exceptionally go to career status more quickly,” Taylor explains. “Teachers that receive an F for two years or more would not have their contract renewed.”
It’s going to take a long time, but the results will include a better system for placing the right teacher in the right classroom, Taylor says.
Not surprisingly, as we talked, I saw how expert Taylor has become on education. I’ve always admired that she’s a quick study; I hope someone else can make use of what she’s learned.
The “something else” of our meal involved chatting about what’s next for this highly visible former Oklahoma secretary of commerce and Tulsa mayor once her education job ends in November. This day in mid-July she was enjoying the comparative downtime of summer and arrived dressed in shorts, her hair pulled back from her face. She’d had a busy morning, and I was glad to see that she felt comfortable enough with me to arrive as she was. (And ... she didn’t think we’d be snapping pictures. Photographer Jen Hoppa said, “No problem,” and arranged to get the shot you see here. Authentic, no, but it’s one of those things women do for each other.)
So what are her plans?
“I don’t know,” she says. “I might go back and practice law; I love practicing law.”
An advocate of mentoring during her mayoral term, she and her family are also considering mentoring a group of Gilcrease Middle School eighth-grade girls through high school graduation. She and daughter Elizabeth Frame Ellison are also co-chairing Street School’s annual fundraising event. Word is, they already have it super-organized.
Taylor is also trying to get back in shape after four years of a life-consuming job (her doctor says she’s on track).
Gardening. Grandmothering, which requires dealing with the pleasant chaos the six grandchildren she shares with husband Bill Lobeck can create. Of course, this is sometimes challenging for the mother of an only child.
Not long ago on a lake trip (involving “a tremendous amount of food, and cups, and noise, and Band-Aids,” she says), Taylor and Lobeck’s youngest grandson managed to get into blue food coloring designated for birthday cupcakes. The toddler walked down the stairs with a grin on his face, completely covered with the dye.
“He looked like a Smurf, head to toe,” Taylor says laughing.
She was baking and had flour all over her hands. But like the take-charge woman she is, Taylor grabbed the boy and “threw him in the tub,” she says. Crisis averted.
Our talk moves to other topics — local sports, how we might spend retirement (she kids, “I can do decoupage … and cook”).
It’s nice to see someone who has worked so hard simply having time to enjoy life. But I’m not betting Kathy Taylor is anywhere near retirement, or that she will permanently fade from view. No, ma’am. This won’t be our last lunch — or our last interview.
