Despite relaxed ‘cut’ score, most Oklahoma students still scored below proficient on state tests

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Even though the state relaxed its grading curve this year, newly released state testing scores from the Oklahoma State Department of Education show a majority of Oklahoma students still did not meet proficient scores on tests last school year.

Educators say there are a number of factors at play, including the growing number of emergency certified teachers in classrooms.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) officially released statewide scores for state tests taken by Oklahoma public school students in third through eighth grade during the 2023-2024 school year.  

News 4 first reported about the scores last month when districts received them from OSDE and noticed the state had essentially lowered the bar for students to achieve a proficient score, without notifying districts of the change.

Each student revives a rating of “Below Basic,” “Basic,” Proficient” or “Advanced” depending on how well they score on a test.

The newly-released 2023-2024 scores show, on average, 57% of Oklahoma third through eighth graders scored at “basic” or “below basic” on their English/Language Arts tests, with 44% scoring proficient or above.

On average, 66% scored "basic" or "below basic," in both science and math.

That’s despite a major change News 4 reported the state had made this year, when it lowered state testing 'cut scores.'

A 'cut score' is the minimum score a student would need to get on a test be deemed “proficient.”

If cut scores hadn’t changed, the 2023-2024 scores would have had shown even more students with below-proficient scores.

Katherine Bishop, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, told News 4 state testing scores are not meant to reflect a teacher or education system’s job performance, but are simply meant to help educators understand the needs of the students they’re working with.

“What we have to remember about our state testing and the scores that come out, they are snapshot,” Bishop said. “It's a snapshot in order for districts to look at that data and make it inference on how their students were progressing towards their grade level standards, are they ready for the next grade? It doesn't give you enough data to do deep dives. Our educators are working tirelessly in our classrooms with our students and their families to make sure that they're progressing towards those state-level standards. And what [state test scores] tell us is—where do we need to put more resources? Where are our most vulnerable children needing more help? And that's what this does.”

Bishop says there are a lot of factors playing into why so many Oklahoma students keep scoring below proficient, even with lowered standards now in place.   

“Being 48th in the nation in what we supply in per-pupil funding to our districts is a variable in that in that factor,” Bishop said. “Emergency certified certification is one of those factors.”

10 years ago, she says the number of emergency certified teachers in Oklahoma classrooms were in the double digits, no more than 30 or 40 statewide.

“And what that was… they were certified teachers, and they were just needing emergency certification out of their particular field,” she said. “So it was maybe an elementary teacher that needed to have early childhood certification and they needed to go take that test so that the district would ask for an emergency in that situation.”

But this year, she says Oklahoma already is on track to have more than 5,000 emergency certified teachers who have never been previously certified in any field. A record high that Bishop says is running resources thin at already cash-strapped districts.

“[Emergency Certified teachers] don't have the classroom management instruction that they need to have to go and make sure that they are able to create that engaging learning environment,” she said. “Our districts are not able to hire additional personnel to help mentor our emergency certified teachers. So it's on the backs of our veteran teachers.”

She says better pay, and more respect for their profession from society at large, could attract more certified teachers back to teaching, but until then it’ll keep being an uphill battle.

“We have got to be drilling down and saying, what can we do to recruit and retain our quality educators in our classroom, that's what we need,” she said. “At the community level, they support our schools. They support our public schools. We you know, we talk about school choice all the time. And our parents are choosing our public schools. Over 700,000 students sit in desks today in our public schools. And that's where they want to be. They want to be in their community. They want to be in their public schools. And our educators are doing an amazing job.”