Oklahoma’s 2026 literacy bills represent one of the most serious legislative pushes for early reading improvement in recent memory. Lawmakers across chambers have introduced proposals addressing screening, intervention, coaching, summer programs, and—in some cases—third-grade promotion standards. That is encouraging.
But after studying these bills closely, I believe the real question facing Oklahoma is not whether we pass “a literacy bill.” It is whether we build a coherent literacy system.
Debunking the Partisan Myth of the “Southern Surge”
This Sunday morning, as I sipped my coffee and scrolled through the latest headlines, I stumbled across yet another piece framing the “Southern Surge”—the remarkable literacy gains in states like Mississippi and Louisiana—as a red-state triumph over blue-state failures.
As a conservative educator with a passion for teaching kids to read, I’d love to cheer for a partisan win. But let’s be honest: this red-versus-blue narrative is a lazy oversimplification that muddies the real story. It lets Oklahoma off the hook for a literacy crisis that’s left 73% of our third-graders non-proficient in reading (Oklahoma State Department of Education [OSDE], 2023a; National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2022).
This isn’t about politics. It’s about an entrenched bureaucracy that’s squandered $150–250 million over the past decade on outdated, ineffective programs, leaving our kids to struggle while other states soar. Let’s celebrate the Southern Surge’s success by crediting its true drivers—explicit, systematic instruction over politics—and demand Oklahoma learn from it.
