At Bartlesville’s Richard Kane Elementary, a handful of fifth graders sit in the hallway, reading prompts out loud from their laptops. They use an AI program called Amira, which incorporates science of reading techniques to coach students through reading passages and reports their progress back to their teachers.
It doesn’t replace primary classroom instruction, but administrators say it’s been an important tool to keep a closer eye on student development.
That development is displayed on a massive grid on the wall of what can only be called a “war room” of literacy. Their color-coded names move around five achievement levels, ranging from “urgent” to “above” level.
“You can look at a report all day long, but when you see it up on the wall, and you actually see those children that have moved from ‘urgent intervention’ to ‘on watch’ or even up to ‘on level,’ it’s a reaffirmation of what you’re doing is the right thing,” said instructional coach Cindy Schwermer.
Richard Kane is in its third year of using Amira. Schools across the state are looking to innovations like technology and science of reading training to address the literacy gap for Oklahoma students.
In the 2024 to 25 school year, only 27% of third graders tested at least proficient in reading on state tests — and nationally, only 23% of fourth graders tested proficient.
That’s why lawmakers are making literacy this session’s belle of the ball.
What policies are under consideration?
Senate Education Chair Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) is proposing Senate Bill 1778, one of several pieces of legislation that would overhaul the state’s literacy policy. It would require first- through third-grade students who do not meet literacy targets to participate in a summer academy. Starting this fall, if first graders do not improve or participate in the academy, they would go to a transitional second-grade class or move on with targeted pull-out sessions.
In the 2028-29 school year, the law would apply to second graders. The following year, third graders not meeting grade-level targets would participate in a summer academy. If they do not improve, they will be retained in third grade with intensive intervention services, unless parents provide written consent for promotion to fourth grade.
“Everyone was talking about third-grade retention, which is a component. That’s the last-ditch effort in my piece of legislation,” Pugh said. “It starts much earlier.”
Third-grade retention was written into state law in 2011 through an update to the Reading Sufficiency Act. However, the legislature whittled down its enforcement over the years.
In 2014, an amendment to the Reading Sufficiency Act allowed “probationary promotion” for third graders who failed the state test, if recommended by the parents and educators that made up the Student Reading Proficiency Team. Three years later, the exception was made permanent. In 2019, good-cause exemption requirements were expanded.
Retention was recently repealed when the policy became the Strong Readers Act.
House Bill 2944 by Rep. Rob Hall, R-Tulsa, and Senate Bill 1271 by Sen. Michael Bergstrom, R-Adair, aim to bring back third-grade retention through the Reading Excellence through Accountability, Development and Standards (READS) Act. Third-grade students who do not pass literacy tests would be held back, except for those who meet good-cause exemptions, such as English language learners.
Hall conducted an interim study in October to examine the state’s literacy gap and inform his policy proposal for the 2026 session.
“This bill is really the culmination of that process of trying to add on a few more pieces, to ensure that we have a comprehensive literacy framework for early elementary education in Oklahoma,” Hall said.
Hall said the third-grade retention policy might be controversial, but he sees it as one of the main reasons why Mississippi pulled ahead and Oklahoma lagged behind.
“Over the last decade and a half, we’ve seen Mississippi go from bottom five in the nation in early elementary literacy to top ten in the nation, and we’ve seen Oklahoma go from kind of middle-of-the-pack to bottom five,” Hall said. “And I don’t think those things are unrelated.”
Other proposed updates to the Strong Readers Act featuring third-grade retention include House Bill 4149 from Rep. Toni Hasenback, R-Elgin, House Bill 4420 by House Speaker Rep. Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, and House Bill 3023 from Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber.
How did Mississippi perform its ‘miracle’?
ExcelinEd is a nonprofit education reform think tank that played a key role in supporting Mississippi’s 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act. It was founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
It champions a policy playbook of 18 “Early Literacy Fundamental Principles,” which include early identification, family engagement, teacher training, intensive interventions and grade retention.
Oklahoma’s law already applies 15 of the principles. The three others relate to retention. For instance, the Strong Readers Act introduced a three-times-a-year literacy screener starting in kindergarten and an individualized reading plan for identified students.
Kymyona Burk, senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd, was Mississippi’s literacy director when its policy was implemented. She said legislators shouldn't just adopt retention “for retention’s sake." Instead, they should beef up other supports, like science of reading training and literacy coaching for teachers.
“Oklahoma is primed and ready for this type of advancement,” Burk said. “But also, [the legislature should] just ensure that the Department of Education has what it needs to be successful. That they have the funding, that they have the language in the law that helps them to be able to implement.”
Though Mississippi’s state legislature allocates $15 million annually, its “miracle” was also funded with a $100 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim Barksdale.
Chad Warmington, president and CEO of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, said the business community is highly invested in Oklahoma’s reading turnaround. The Chamber debuted its “Oklahoma Competes” program in the fall, which calls for the legislature to implement Mississippi-style reading reforms, like third-grade retention.
Warmington said the role of the Chamber this legislative session is not to be “education experts” but “coalition builders.”
“It’s rallying the business community to be supportive of the education community. It’s using our lobby team to make sure that, if there’s some really important points that we feel about… we don’t think that any of those steps can be skipped,” Warmington said.
“I think you’ll see us play a very engaged role as part of the team to get this done.”
Pugh said the narrative that the legislature has been influenced by the Chamber to do an about-face on third-grade retention is not accurate. His bill, which ultimately pulled retention in 2024, was to “start over and start from scratch.” Now, he said, he’s ready to write a new policy.
Will the miracle work in Oklahoma?
Cheryl Wolff, an instructional coach at Putnam City Public Schools, said when Oklahoma implemented its initial retention policy, it was a “total disaster.”
“The kids were discipline problems. … They all knew that they were being retained because they failed the test, and so they had a bad attitude. And you can’t blame them,” Wolff said. “ It was bad — not only bad for those kids, bad for the teachers, but bad for the other kids because they didn’t get the best of those teachers.”
Wolff said adding retention to what is already a high-stakes test will impact students’ mental health.
“There’s kids that get sick — physically sick. I’ve seen them throw up in class, I’ve seen them cry through the whole test. It just gives them anxiety,” Wolff said.
Instead of retention, Wolff said the state should be focusing on “paring down” the choices of what schools should use for curriculum. In Oklahoma, school districts are given the authority to decide instructional materials and textbooks, but they can only use state funds to purchase textbooks approved by the State Textbook Committee.
Adam Tyner, executive director of the Oklahoma Center for Education Policy at the University of Oklahoma, pointed to evidence showing a positive impact of retention-based policies. In Florida, retained students outperformed their same-age peers who were promoted to the next grade.
“I think there should be a conversation around retaining students in even earlier grades to help avoid third-grade retention,” Tyner said. “But as a state policy, I think the idea is, we’ll let districts decide when to promote students in these earlier grades and how to intervene.”
While Mississippi’s short-term gains were notable, some critics point to less substantial long-term gains. But between 2013 and 2022, Mississippi had cut the test score gap in eighth grade between itself and the national average in half.
Kymyona Burk, said teacher coaching was one of the state’s most impactful levers.
“[The turnaround] would not have been possible without professional development,” Burk said. “And it was clear early on that what we needed to do was to create this common language for our teachers around what it meant to teach students how to read.”
Training teachers in effective reading instruction is also part of the legislative menu. Pugh’s Senate Bill 1338 would make permanent a previous pilot program, HEROES, to deploy literacy coaches in school districts identified for intervention. HEROES stands for Help Elevate Reading Outcomes for Every Student.
According to the state department, in October, there were 14 literacy coaches from the HEROES program. Pugh wants to get that number closer to about 50.
Teacher training in effective reading techniques, namely, the science of reading, has impacted every educator at Tulsa Public Schools. Under former State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ administration, the district was required to train all teachers in the science of reading — a feat that, the district says, it has accomplished.
Like Richard Kane Elementary, the district also tracks students’ progress on a digital intervention platform. Erin Armstrong, chief learning officer at TPS, said when students are consistently and actively engaged on those platforms, students are seeing positive benefits on screening tests.
At Anderson Elementary, third-grade students sit enraptured while teacher Alexis McCane takes the students through a passage about insects. She helps students sound out words and uses a variety of strategies to check reading comprehension, like talking through the author’s purpose.
At the end of the lesson McCane puts her own spin on the lesson with an impromptu rap the students echo back to her.
“The author has three reasons why he writes a story,” McCane raps while a student clicks a beat on his desk with a pencil. “Persuade, inform, entertain!”
Teachers at schools like Richard Kane and Anderson are working to open doors for their students through literacy. And if the legislature ponies up a comprehensive policy and the funds, Oklahoma might just see its own literacy miracle.
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