For years, teachers’ unions and even officials at state colleges of education have resisted efforts to improve reading instruction in Oklahoma public schools. That’s why this year’s passage of legislation focused on reading instruction is such a significant victory.

Senate Bill 362, the Strong Readers Act, requires that Oklahoma teachers be trained in “the science of reading to provide explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, encoding, writing, and comprehension and implement reading strategies that research has shown to be successful in improving reading among students with reading difficulties.”

The House today adopted Senate amendments to a bill that would require school personnel engaging in electronic or digital communication with a student to include the student’s parent or guardians. House Bill 3958, authored by Rep. Sherrie Conley, R-Newcastle, now moves to the governor. This is good news for Oklahomans raising children.

“There have been absolutely too many reports of inappropriate digital communications shared between educators and students, whether that be inappropriate pictures or texts of a sexual nature,” Conley said. “These have long-term devastating effects for young people and can ruin the lives of educators when they are wrongly accused. It’s our desire that teachers and coaches be able to share homework assignments or team communications freely with their students, but including a parent or guardian protects the students and the educators from any potential impropriety. This also keeps parents fully engaged in their child’s education.”

In a significant exposure of data “redefinition” today a V1SUT on Substack analysis begins with questions, “If someone told you your child’s school district had a 95.7% Academic Achievement rating, how would you feel? If you then learned that only 46.6% of students at the same district scored as proficient or better on state testing, would that change your view of the district’s performance?”

Understanding public data from your child’s school and district is second only to actively participating in your child’s education journey. Interpreting the available data year-to-year is complicated. In many cases, education officials have changed “public facing” reports to deflect and defuse public criticism.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced today in a detailed release that 117 out of 191 schools showed enough improvement this year to no longer be designated Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) Sites, a federal designation which closely corresponds to the State Report Card “F List.” In last year’s cohort, only 32 schools achieved this distinction.

“I promised Oklahoma families that we would get our students back to basics and back on track,” said Walters. “I am thrilled to announce today that our efforts are beginning to bear fruit. Within our Department, we have instituted new collaborative partnerships focused solely on assisting schools with programs targeted specifically at increasing student outcomes while helping schools target their available budgets to get the maximum return on investment for our students.

“Each one of these 117 schools has shown remarkable progress and is showing the nation that Oklahoma is leading in reform and improvements in student achievement, and several of our schools have shown tremendous gains in the past year. This is hard evidence that our focus on the academic basics, rather than being sidetracked by political indoctrination, is the best path to student success in our state,” Walters declared.