Representatives Mark McBride and Dick Lowe, who are the chair and vice chair of the House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Education respectively, are concerned not enough explanation has been given over the changes to student test score metrics. Those metrics are used to give schools their A-F Report Card grades.
The changes created some score variations for some schools.
“The Oklahoma State Department of Education dropped the ball on telling school administrators, parents or anyone about the change in the way they would determine student performance on state tests,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “This left districts shocked and surprised when they saw this year’s scores, and it puts a false narrative out there. While we want to recognize the heroic efforts of our state educators, and we don’t in any way want to diminish the incredible work they do in educating their students, the truth must be told.”
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters was asked about the changes to the A-F Report Card scoring after Thursday’s State Board of Education meeting.
“We have not discussed them with the public to break down what has changed. Because look, the reality is standards were changed and were passed through the Legislature. The tests had to be changed in accordance with the new standards. Committees that had either no connection with this agency or independent of this agency helped put those things together.
“So, we are actively working districts through that process now to say, ‘here’s how these decisions were made, but remember these committees, most of them aren’t even connected to SDE.
“So, we want to make sure that people understand it’s a different test over different standards,” Walters said.
According to McBride and Lowe, the COVID Pandemic created a delay in the regular change for subject matter. The delay put English language arts and math on the same schedule resulting in the massive changes to standards used in the A-F Report Cards. That caused major upward swings in student test scores. That, in turn, increased the schools’ scores on the Report Cards for the 2023-2024 school year.
