Small: Sweeping reading reform puts state on right path

Sweeping reading reform puts state on right path

By Jonathan Small

This week, surrounded by school children, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a sweeping reform that will dramatically improve literacy outcomes.

Based on Spring 2025 state tests, just 27 percent of Oklahoma third graders read at or above grade level. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests show only 23 percent of fourth-grade students scored at or above proficient in 2024. Only two states did worse.

Oklahoma’s abysmal reading outcomes have occurred even as public schools’ per-pupil revenue has surged more than 50 percent since 2018. The problem was not money, but execution.

Fortunately, Mississippi provided a guide map.

Since the 2013 passage of Mississippi’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), Mississippi has climbed from 49th to ninth for fourth grade reading, according to NAEP. Mississippi is the only state where the bottom 10 percent of students scored better in 2024 than their 2013-2014 school-year counterparts.

Oklahoma previously had a law similar to Mississippi’s program. It produced dramatic improvement from 2011 to 2015, but the Oklahoma law was watered down and largely repealed through the years.

This year, lawmakers opted to duplicate much of the Mississippi model while adding tweaks.

Senate Bill 1778, now signed into law, requires significant early intervention for struggling readers in the first and second grade. As a last resort, it requires third-grade students to score above the “below basic” level on the statewide reading test to be promoted to the fourth grade.

In effect, the bill requires that students read at least on a second-grade level before beginning the fourth grade.

While no one wants a child to repeat a grade, it is far worse to send a child into fourth grade who cannot read, because that child is unlikely to ever catch up with his or her peers.

When Oklahoma’s prior third-grade retention law was gutted, its critics claimed school officials would still put the same effort into reading instruction. But the outcomes, which steadily plummeted in subsequent years, indicate that did not happen. Oklahoma’s fourth-grade reading outcomes were above the national average in 2015, but Oklahoma students now trail peer states by more than a full grade level.

The changes mandated by SB 1778, if maintained, will have generational impact. The more children who read at grade level, the greater their lifelong potential. All those who supported this bill deserve our thanks, but especially those who led the way, including House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, state Sen. Adam Pugh, Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, state Rep. Rob Hall, state Sen. Micheal Bergstrom and Governor Kevin Stitt.

By passing reading reform, Oklahoma policymakers have sent a signal that they want our state to be one where all children can prosper, not just a lucky few.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.