Wednesday’s interim study will explore retention in “literacy-focused grade levels”

According to Rep. Rob Hall (R-Tulsa), House Interim Study 25-089 “will explore the implementation of a policy to retain students in the grade levels focused on literacy (K-3) until they have mastered essential literacy skills” AND “explore auxiliary interventions and support provided in grades K-3 to ensure students have ample opportunity to successfully master those skills and promote out of third grade.” That’s a LOT of studying, which is long passed due.

Enacted into law 28 years ago, the Reading Sufficiency Act (RSA) was intended to improve students’ reading skills by the end of the third grade - a developmental change from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Beginning-of-year (BOY) and end-of-year (EOY) assessments were implemented for accountability, and millions were appropriated to support the effort. In 2012, state tests at Grade 3 became “high stakes” because students were not supposed to move on to fourth grade if they had not proven their ability to read or qualified for a “good-cause exemption.”

Over the years, many changes were made in the law, and I hadn’t read the report in some years so it seemed like a good time to update the files (from https://oklahoma.gov/education/services/literacy-policy-and-programs/strong-readers-legislation.html).

In 2024, Senate Bill 362 did more than change “Reading Sufficiency” to “Strong Readers”; it further codified the “science of reading” and added certification and teacher training requirements.

When I read that the interim study would “explore implementing a policy that retains students in literacy-focused grade levels until they have mastered essential reading skills,” I realized it’s a bigger picture than RSA was so I’m hopeful that will make a difference in the results. From the 2023-2024 RSA Study and Report:

My pet peeve about RSA (other than the lack of ROI) was the state forcing schools to make all Kindergarteners take an online assessment at the beginning of the school year. We do need to know where each student begins and ends the year so intervention can be defined but I wonder about the accuracy and validity of an ONLINE test taken by five-year-olds. Now, I’m not a teacher, a psychometrist or a legislator so I don’t know, and possibly it’s not a big deal. However, it is critically important to know when we’re spending $12 million per year on this program that 46.9% of K-3 students were identified as “at risk of reading difficulties” in 2023-24 compared to 39.7% six years ago .

Some good news: “There was an increase of total students meeting RSA criteria as determined by the Oklahoma State Testing Program (OSTP) with 71.2% of third graders achieving this goal. Although not yet equal to pre-COVID numbers, the trajectory is positive for increasing the number of students meeting RSA criteria.” …  The other shoe falls later in the report: “Due to the other pathway options such as screeners, good cause exemptions, and school reading proficiency teams (SRPTs), the actual percentage retained has decreased each year. This year’s percentage is at 1.4% compared with SY23 at 1.9%, decreasing only slightly from 2.0% in SY2022 and 2.4% in SY2021.” [Bold emphasis, mine.]

Yes, Oklahoma needs to maintain this level of investment in early childhood reading instruction. But with all the money, stress on students, and work by teachers, parents and the state of Oklahoma, only 1.4% of students were “retained” in Grade 3 for not meeting state’s criteria. And, Grade 3 English Language Arts scores from the 2025 state test dropped to just 27% of students proficient in 2025. .... I hope everyone is studying up on Mississippi; also I just found a recent 50-state ECS-analysis of such policies here: https://www.ecs.org/early-grade-literacy-is-third-grade-retention-effective/ - FYI. I hope you’ll join me in watching tomorrow’s discussion among legislators, Superintendent Fields, and other stakeholders in Room 206 here: https://www.okhouse.gov/events/comed-20251022-09000000.

Let me know any questions you have at this time! – Thanks, Wendy