Oklahoma Puts 59 School Districts on Accredited-With-Warning Status Over Test Scores in First Use of New Rule
The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted this week to designate 59 school districts as accredited with warning because their students scored poorly on state reading and math tests. The affected districts include the three largest in the state: Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma City Public Schools and Epic Charter School. According to Oklahoma Voice, it is the first time the state has applied its relatively new rule tying academic performance to a district's accreditation status.
Under the rule, a district receives a deficiency if more than half of its students score below basic on yearly state reading or math tests for two years in a row. Scoring below basic means a student has not demonstrated even partial mastery of grade-level content, which the state says signals the student is not on track to be college or career ready. For 56 of the 59 districts, the academic deficiency was the only reason for the downgrade. The Oklahoma State Department of Education said that if the districts' test scores do not improve by 5%, their status could fall further to probation, which would bring additional state oversight.
State board member Becky Carson said before the vote that her main concern was that the state and the agency support the districts so they can come off the list. The affected districts responded: Epic Charter School, a virtual charter school educating about 29,000 students, said through Superintendent Shaun Ross that it is not waiting for an accreditation designation to drive improvement and is implementing targeted academic interventions, while noting it has met all established operational accreditation requirements and is now being evaluated under a new standard using historical data. Oklahoma City Public Schools, with about 31,000 students, said it understood when the rule was first approved that it would not reach the threshold in this cycle based on the historical data to be used, and said it must keep strengthening instruction and support so more students reach grade-level expectations. Tulsa Public Schools, enrolling over 32,000 students, said in a statement Thursday that its results show momentum over three consecutive years, while recognising there is still work to be done.
Former state Superintendent Ryan Walters proposed the rule in 2024 to tie academic performance to accreditation; Gov. Kevin Stitt approved it after the state Legislature took no action. The rule took effect in the 2025-26 school year; accreditation had previously been based on compliance with state laws, financial standards and other governance and operations requirements. Because accreditation reviews lag a year behind testing, the downgrades are based on test scores from 2023-24 and 2024-25. The Education Department reported that 358 Oklahoma districts were accredited with no deficiencies, 100 had one deficiency and 25 had more than one deficiency. Some education advocates and legislative Democrats opposed the rule, saying it would unfairly punish districts with higher rates of poverty and more students learning English as a non-native language.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于俄克拉荷马州 Sand Springs 的 Charles Page High School 校舍（资料照片，非本稿所涉学区）。照片：G. Edward Johnson 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / File photo: Charles Page High School in Sand Springs, Oklahoma (not a district named in this story). Photo by G. Edward Johnson, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
