The Oklahoma State Board of Education decided not to require state report cards for school districts, citing upheaval from the COVID-19 pandemic.
State report cards for Oklahoma’s public schools have been suspended for a year because of pandemic-related disruptions in schools.
The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to “disentangle” the results of annual state assessments for students from the state’s school accountability system for 2020-21.
Maria Harris, deputy state superintendent for assessment and accountability, told the board that state and federally required tests will still be administered to as many students as possible in the spring.
These are tests in English/language arts, math and science for grades 3-8, as well as the ACT or SAT for high school juniors.
But she said it is likely that far fewer students will be able to take the tests than in a normal year and that many other data components of school report grades are impossible for schools to report or will be disrupted significantly by intermittent school closures, instructional interruptions and absences prompted by staff and student quarantines.
For example, she said, school grades factor in test results only for students who enroll in the first 20 days, who have missed fewer than 10 days of school and who are still enrolled at the same school site when spring tests are given.
Several state board members expressed concerns about the idea of forgoing state report cards for public schools before ultimately voting in favor of effectively putting off the release of new report cards for a year.
Board member Jennifer Monies of Oklahoma City said: “I think it’s critically important that we do have a state assessment. I am comfortable pausing from an accountability standpoint for this year but really want to be able to see where our students are academically so we can fill in any gaps that exist.”
Member Bill Flanagan of Claremore said he was dismayed by the cancellation of all state tests in spring 2020 and now the suspension of report cards for 2021.
“How would the public assess the schools without that data or a baseline to start with?” Flanagan asked.
Harris explained that the “baseline” by which state education officials measure year-over-year growth or loss in students’ academic achievement at schools has already been lost because schools were shuttered statewide in March and no state assessments were given.
Board member Estela Hernandez, also of Oklahoma City, questioned how the state’s public schools could not be held accountable for their performance this year when if “a student is tested, they are being held accountable for what they have learned, and a grade is given.”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister corrected her by stating that no Oklahoma student receives a grade for performance on state tests, and she said the proposal had nothing to do with anyone’s desire not to hold schools accountable.
“I object to that characterization — it’s about what is possible, what is impossible, … and where we want our focus to be.
“If there was a way to just change something (in the state’s system for calculating school grades) and do that for this year, yeah, we wouldn’t be here today talking about this. That is just not possible,” Hofmeister said. “The coronavirus has made these decisions for us.”
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Gallery: Andrea Eger's most memorable stories of 2020
'Our kids have become a piggy bank': Epic Charter Schools shields $50M in taxpayer funds from public scrutiny
This February story about Epic Charter Schools’ use of a $1,000 per student set-aside in taxpayer dollars as a chief recruiting tool was a full year in the making and had almost immediate consequences, the ripple effects of which are still ongoing. We dispelled the school’s longtime claims to parents and the general public that there was nothing secretive about Learning Fund expenditures and that they’re audited annually. But the use of the $79 million funds, which the Tulsa World was the first to document, has never been audited and Epic is still battling the State Auditor and Inspector’s office in court to keep the expenditure records private.
Wife of Oklahoma's first fatal case speaks: 'By the time we knew it was COVID-19, his lungs were already compromised to the point of no return.'
March seems like a lifetime ago in pandemic time, but for the families who have lost loved ones to the novel coronavirus, 2020 has been excruciating. I was proud to earn the trust of Carrie Dry, the wife of Merle Dry, Oklahoma’s first known COVID-19 fatality, and prouder still that Mrs. Dry, a longtime local English teacher, thought this story was well-written while not being invasive to her family’s privacy. I hold the Drys and the families of the other COVID victims I have had the privilege to interview during this awful, awful year in my own thoughts and prayers, and I hope their stories have given pause to and raised awareness among our readers about the very real toll of this pandemic.
Tulsa police officer killing: Suspect's 14-year history of run-ins with local police began with assault on very same officer
A July look into the lengthy history of arrests and criminal charges filed by local law enforcement against the suspect in the killing of Tulsa Police Sgt. Craig Johnson revealed one striking coincidence.
The two had come face to face before.
It sent chills down my spine to read Sgt. Johnson’s own handwritten record of the very first arrest as an adult of the man charged with gunning him down in the line of duty 14 years later. But what makes me proud of this story is that amid this senseless tragedy, the Tulsa World did what journalists do. We not only captured our community’s emotional response to this event, we also probed the systemic breakdowns that kept the suspect a free man despite local prosecutors charging him previously in 10 other cases, many of which just “didn’t stick,” as they say.
Potential conflicts of interest are not holding up Epic Charter Schools investigation, district attorney and state attorney general say
The primary focus of my investigative work on Epic Charter Schools the last two years has been on the use of taxpayer dollars, but my secondary focus has been on those in positions of power to address questions that have lingered for years about what is now the operator of the largest public school system in the state. In this story, we challenged Attorney General Mike Hunter and Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater to address potential conflicts in the ongoing investigation -- Hunter being one of the top recipients of political campaign donations by Epic’s founders and other school backers and Prater’s wife being a top executive at one of Epic’s school authorizers. Later this year, Hunter announced that he was recusing himself from reviewing the results of the state’s investigative audit and appointing a special counsel to take over and Prater agreed to turn over control of examining the audit and any decisions on legal action to the Attorney General’s Office.
Statewide Virtual Charter School Board member is relative of Epic co-founder
In September, the Tulsa World was the first to report that Mathew Hamrick, a member of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, accused by his fellow board members for intentionally avoiding public votes by the board in 2019 and 2020 on matters seeking to unmask Epic’s use of tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to date budgeted for student learning, had also accepted a campaign contribution from an Epic co-founder in a failed bid for state senate. Then we broke the story that the lone member of the virtual school board to vote no on termination proceedings against Epic Charter Schools is a family member of one of the school’s two co-founders, who have reportedly become millionaires through their deal to manage the school. The fallout from this reporting continued through this week, when both members were forced by a vote of a majority of the board to recuse themselves from all future discussions and votes on Epic.
Ditch the feeling of disconnection by being in the know.
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Andrea Eger
Staff Writer
I'm a projects reporter, examining key education topics and other local issues. Since joining the Tulsa World in 1999, I have been a three-time winner of Oklahoma’s top award for investigative reporting by an individual. Phone: 918-581-8470
