Oklahoma student proficiency expected to drop this year

OKLAHOMA CITY — Student proficiency scores are likely to drop when reading and math test scores are released Friday, officials said.

“It doesn’t actually mean students got less smart this year compared to last year,” said Megan Oftedal, executive director of Oklahoma Office of Educational Quality and Accountability. “It’s really just that the standard for the cut scores last year, the bar was lower.”

Educators and parents will have more transparent information about where students stand with proficiency, and it can “spark” conversations about what students need to be ready for college or a career, Oftedal said.

The goal is to provide a more accurate comparison of how Oklahoma public school students are performing versus their national peers, she said.

Oklahoma’s Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability in May returned the academic expectations for student scores to 2023 levels, a year after the state quietly lowered the bar that public school students must achieve to be considered proficient. The proficiency expectations, or cut scores, set the standard of what knowledge students should be able to demonstrate on annual state tests to be considered proficient.

Oftedal’s agency advised that this year’s results should not be directly compared to last year’s as the 2024 expectations were an “outlier” developed using a process that did not incorporate national comparisons.

Preliminary Oklahoma School Testing Program scores for grade school students will be available to educators Friday and to parents Aug. 1.

School report cards could also be impacted, Oftedal said, and it’s likely a decline in school scores will be reflected there as well.

Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, declined to answer questions about potential declines in scores or how it could affect school accreditation as the scores have yet to be released.

The now defunct expectations created a “divergence” between the state’s expectations and national testing standards, which is called an “honesty gap.”

Oklahoma worked to close the gap beginning in 2017 by aligning with national standards, but the gap widened again in 2024 when new benchmarks were approved.

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