© 2024 Public Radio Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, OK 74104
(918) 631-2577

A listener-supported service of The University of Tulsa
classical 88.7 | public radio 89.5
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

New Oklahoma School Report Cards Are Out. What's Behind Them?

Oklahoma’s first school report cards in two years are out.

The State Board of Education approved Thursday releasing the new grades. They’re based on an overhauled system meant to give schools more credit for student improvement. You can see them at oklaschools.com, but first, an explanation of the technical details.

First things first: State testing still counts the most. Elementary and middle schools earn up to 35 points, and high schools up to 45 on 90-point scales for English, math and science scores.

However, students go down this list until they fit into a group: special education, economically disadvantaged, English second language, and race and ethnicity. Academic achievement scores are mostly based on the percentage of students meeting targets for their priority group.

That’s an Oklahoma innovation under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

"It is a civil rights law that requires this civil rights check on our students that are most vulnerable. It also is measuring all students in an effort to ensure that those protected groups are improving and have the progress that all students deserve," said State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister.

In elementary and middle schools, academic growth accounts for up to 30 points. The State Department of Education split below basic, basic, proficient and advanced testing levels into low and high bands, and points are earned based on students’ movement within and across levels from one year to the next.

Maintaining performance or even falling to the next-lowest level earns points because content gets more difficult.

"We looked at the proficient level before, and if they improved, they got a point. Not — they weren’t divided in half. So, if you went from below basic to basic or basic to proficient, you got a point," said Deputy Superintendent Maridyth McBee. "This is so much better because it goes the whole range and it also shows growth at the lower levels all the way up to the higher level."

To recap: Elementary and middle schools can earn 35 points for academic achievement and 30 points for growth. To round out the 90, they earn up to 15 points for the percentage of English learners on track to exit their language programs on time, and they earn up to 10 points for the percentage of students missing less than 10 percent of school days.

Remember, high schools can get 45 points for academic achievement. They also get up to 15 for English language progress and 10 for attendance. To finish their 90-point scale, high schools get up to 10 points for the percentage of students graduating in four or five years, and 10 points for the percentage of juniors and seniors completing at least one postsecondary option, ranging from Advanced Placement courses to industry certification programs.

All that said, the first thing you see when you look up a school will not be a big letter grade.

"We’ve been very careful in the way we’ve displayed this to provide that kind of balance that was missing in the past," Hofmeister said.

Search for a school, and the first thing that comes up is information about it, like who the principal is, enrollment and special programs. Grades for each indicator and overall are farther down. They’re shown relative to the state’s performance, and breakdowns are available in just one click.

Hofmeister said that level of detail is important for schools.

"We want to act on evidence and make strategic decisions based on evidence. This is one piece of that," Hofmeister said.

The new report card system may get additional indicators as time goes on. Those are up for discussion with the feds.

"But class size is huge. Funding is huge. The qualifications of teachers are huge — how many of them have the credentials that they need and how many are emergency certified," McBee said.

For now, Hofmeister says it’s important parents and educators not see the new report cards as a way to label schools, and to remember they are still a snapshot of what any given school is doing.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.