Oklahoma ranks near bottom of Nation's Report Card

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — This week's release of the Nation's Report Card showed another year where Oklahoma ranked low when compared to other states.

Overall the state ranked in at least the bottom 10 of all states on the list.

The test results are formed around fourth and eighth grade reading and math results. States are required to take them every two years so that the nation can compare results from state-to-state.

For Oklahoma eighth graders ranked around 48th for reading and 45th for math. For Oklahoma fourth graders ranked around 47th for reading and 44th for math.

Overall, the results compared to the previous in 2022 were stagnant. They were below what was seen when comparing them to pre-pandemic results too.

Nationally, the results didn't see much improvement either.

For years educators have sounded the alarm that test results aren't the common denominator for improving academics.

But where do the answers lie when it comes to improving these specific scores?

There is federal funding at just over $59 million for the Literacy Grant. It's aimed to improve reading overall for the state.

There was a deadline for a letter of intent from schools that ended on January 17. However, it's unknown how many districts sent in a letter of intent.

News 4 contacted an Oklahoma State Department of Education spokesperson, who did not get back with an answer.

"The data is pretty clear that we need to do better," said Senator Adam Pugh has led the Senate Education Committee for years.

Do the answers lie at the State Capitol? Lawmakers are set to introduce legislation that they hope raises those scores all around.

A major shift compared to years previous includes the banning of cell phones in classrooms.

Senator Pugh and many others have been leading the charge with this.

"I want to highlight Warren Public Schools. They started that policy a decade ago and it has worked," said Senator Pugh.

He's talking about Warren Public Schools having a cell phone-free campus. Something the district started around 2013.

Senator Pugh said that mental health along with test scores have shot up since that began.

"I want to do what's called the Bell-to-Bell policy, which is, you know, the moment you walk on to K-12 campuses, you put them away," said Senator Pugh.

"I want to see those cell phones out, I promise it would help," said Representative Ellen Pogemiller (D-Oklahoma City).

Representative Pogemiller is leading the charge for several changes in education; she is hopeful to improve test scores. One legislative move she's leading surrounds chronic absenteeism, which Oklahoma students and schools suffer from.

"One of the things that I had heard throughout doorknocking and just working with educators is that the metric of punishing for absenteeism impacts the score for our state report cards. If kids miss classes, we know that they are not going to do well on their state and national tests," said Rep. Pogemiller.

Her bill, HB 1131, removes chronic absenteeism from the Oklahoma School Report Card and replaces it with a school community survey.

"Use more of a metric like a community survey where we're talking to teachers, students, parents about, hey, what are things going well in your school," said Rep. Pogemiller.

Rep. Pogemiller also mentioned HB 1113, which she's heading, would create guardrails to ensure adjunct educators are on a pathway to becoming either traditionally, alternatively, or emergency certified.

At another level, union leaders speaking to legislators on behalf of educators, are saying the same thing.

"The number one thing that we see that helps drive instruction for students is a quality educator in the classroom," said Cari Elledge with the Oklahoma Educators Association.

When asked about what she thought about the test results on the Nation's Report Card, she mentioned hiring and keeping the teachers themselves needs to improve in Oklahoma.

"And recently we've had up to 5000 emergency certified educators who are well-meaning people but haven't gone through all of the same classes that are taken to be able to be an educator," said Ellredge. "It's great that you have the content knowledge and we really appreciate anybody that's coming in to help. But we also have learned that it's starting to become a revolving door because people don't realize how difficult this job is. It's much more than babysitting. It's much more than teaching people how to add and subtract. It's classroom management and things like that."

One such fund comes form the U.S. Department of Education's Literacy Grant. The grant ensures schools will receive $58.9 million in federal funding over the next five years to provide reading and literacy programs across Oklahoma.