The Oklahoma Legislature wants a dramatic turnaround in student literacy rates to rival the so-called Mississippi Miracle.
Now, every teacher of kindergarten through third grade, and every reading specialist, instructional coach and principal in elementary schools across the state find themselves on the frontlines of meeting a host of new requirements under the Oklahoma Strong Readers Act – and more importantly, will be trying to achieve measurable success where past efforts have fallen short.
They’ve got the summer break to digest new non-negotiables, as one state official over early literacy describes the new legislative mandates, and to prepare for heightened expectations come August to intervene with struggling readers and to communicate with parents about their child’s challenges.
At Jenks East Elementary School in South Tulsa, Mandy Shimp works by day as the Title I reading specialist for third and fourth grade. On evenings and weekends, she works as a private tutor for children with language-based learning disorders, including dyslexia, drawing on her advanced training as a certified academic language therapist.
When she heard talk of imposing a strict, new requirement to retain – or hold back – the vast majority of Oklahoma students who don’t pass the state reading test by the end of third grade, Shimp went into research mode. She ended up filling a binder with information about the decade-long investment of time and at least $100 million into teacher training that laid the groundwork for Mississippi student literacy rates to climb from second-to-last to top-tier between 2013 and 2024.
Now, she is questioning why Oklahoma lawmakers have imposed this key component of Mississippi’s law, referred to there as the third-grade gate, with just one year for educators to prepare.
“They’re expecting us to build this foundation in a year,” Shimp said. “Teacher training is not an extra — it is the foundation. We can pass laws, mandate screeners, and retain students, but if teachers are not deeply trained in how reading develops, how to teach phonological awareness, how to diagnose reading difficulties, and how to intervene effectively, the legislation will not produce the results people are hoping for.”
During 24 years in education, Shimp has attended more than 100 meetings with parents, teachers and administrators to help decide whether retention or probationary promotion to the next grade level is most appropriate for a child. That firsthand experience has her most troubled by the students who won’t qualify for so-called good-cause exemptions allowed under Senate Bill 1778.
“Students not on IEPs (Individualized Education Programs, which are customized for children with disabilities) can be retained up to two times – once in kindergarten, first or second, and then again in third grade,” Shimp said, shaking her head. “I begged, I begged, I begged, I reached out to legislators – `Please take that out.’
“That is an eighth grader driving,” she said. “That is a kid graduating when they’re 20 years old. It is not effective. If they are not on an IEP, there’s other issues going on.”
Michelle Goldstein, principal at Northeast Elementary School in Owasso, is a lot more optimistic about the sweeping overhaul of Oklahoma’s Strong Readers Act because her school already has in place the Multi-Tiered System of Supports, or MTSS, now required.
Through this approach, all Oklahoma schools will use screener tests to identify struggling readers in early grades and provide them interventions of increasing levels of intensity with the goal of ensuring they score proficient or better by the end of third grade.
Goldstein said Northeast’s most powerful strategy is the use of child study teams. Teachers sign up once per month to meet with a team of reading specialists, a psychologist, a counselor, two school administrators, and special education and English Learner teachers to discuss individual cases of academic or behavioral challenges.
“We sit there as a team and brainstorm ideas for what might help the student,” Goldstein said. “Then the teacher comes back the next month to discuss the results. As educators, we have never arrived knowing how to help every student. It’s strength in numbers. We all know a little, but together, that’s a lot.”
With news of the changes in state law coming as schools were winding down for summer break, Goldstein said she believes the greatest challenge for the majority of school-based educators like her will be to catch up on the new legal requirements.
She will rely on district administrators, who will rely on guidance from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
“I think it will be harder for schools that don’t already have those multi-tiered systems in place,” said Goldstein. “For us, I think it’s how we roll it out, how we package that change for parents and students. We make or break the weather of how that feels in our building. I’m not worried about having a bunch of kids being caught by a law.”
Rush to provide state guidance, support
The same person credited by State Superintendent Lindel Fields with devoting hundreds of work hours as the point person for the Oklahoma State Department of Education on SB 1778 as it moved through the legislative process is now leading the state-level work to implement the new law.
“We are going through this with a fine-toothed comb right now, making sure districts will have what they need to implement this in the fall,” said Melissa Ahlgrim, director of literacy policy and programs at OSDE. “A lot of this is not new.”
Because of the comprehensive overhaul of the Strong Readers Act, state education officials are busy updating the OSDE webpage on the subject, writing a special newsletter for statewide distribution, preparing two public webinars scheduled for July, and speaking at summer conferences for educators.
The most urgent requirements, Ahlgrim said, are for all schools to use screeners to identify students’ reading challenges early and to begin reporting to parents several times each school year about their child’s Student Literacy Intervention Plan beginning in August. She said there will also be literacy-related changes in how state funding is calculated in the 2026-27 academic year, but that is a concern for school district administrators.
“The biggest misunderstanding I see is third grade is too late,” Ahlgrim said. “We have to be helping them starting in kindergarten. It is still up to schools to decide how they will best meet the needs of their students, but they must better define the framework. We are defining those fences, so there is a lot of freedom left within those fences, but if you’re way off in another pasture, that won’t work. There are some new non-negotiables.”
Chief among those new non-negotiables is who will be allowed to move on to fourth grade – and who will not.
State test data for 2024-25 show that 21,300 third graders failed to score at basic or above, meaning that under the new law, they could have been held back unless they qualified for an exemption. But that part of SB 1778, as well as a new requirement for schools to give second graders the state’s third-grade reading test unless their parents opt out, won’t kick in until 2027-28.
That new testing mandate is the subject of the most questions and concerns Ahlgrim and her team at the state Education Department are reportedly receiving, and they don’t yet have all of the answers.
“We are still trying to figure that out because it was added later in the (legislative) process,” Ahlgrim said. “They (legislators) had been talking to Indiana, which has done a version of this, but they have an opt-in for second graders to take the third-grade test. One of the platforms the authors had was, `We need to stay the course. We’re not going to see a change in one year.’”
To support the overhaul of the Strong Readers Act, the state budget includes more than $43 million for reading instruction and interventions in schools, $5 million in supplemental funding for teacher training academies this summer, and $5 million in ongoing annual funding for teacher training programs. Additional funding will support reading-at-home initiatives and statewide math and reading screeners, helping educators identify students' learning needs earlier.
Among those increases is a rapid expansion of Help Elevate Reading Outcomes for Every Student, which the legislature established as a pilot program three years ago.
Ahlgrim’s team is on a hiring spree to expand the literacy instructional team that will be working with 145 of the state’s approximately 1,000 elementary schools to implement science-based reading instruction through professional development and coaching for teachers and principals. They ended 2025-26 with 15 on the team, and are aiming to fill new positions to deploy a team of 30 across the state beginning in August.
HEROES team members said they are most concerned about schools that don’t already have well-articulated systems for identifying students reading below grade level and providing specialized, targeted instruction to help them catch up.
“Like in a car, that check engine light comes on,” said Classie Nolan, who worked 17 years as a teacher and instructional reading coach at Frederick before joining the HEROES team 3 years ago. “What skills are they missing? Where are we having roadblocks for this student? That’s where we provide a diagnostic assessment. We’re not going to ask for a tire when it could be a problem with our transmission. We have to diagnose it and get to the root of the problem.”
Lolly Cole, an Ada-based member of the HEROES team, said teacher training and buy-in by elementary school principals are key to improving student outcomes in reading.
“As a teacher, you get concerned you don’t have the time to balance it all out,” Cole said. “But the great thing I’ve seen from training or classes we’ve worked with, is the reaction of, `Wow, I never learned about phonics and phonemic awareness.’ I understand the concerns – there’s only so much time to balance between family and work. But this is a process. It’s not a quick fix. Most of the teachers I’ve come into contact with are excited. We are all here to make a difference for kids and our communities.”
Ripple effects
Public school educators aren’t the only ones preparing for the implementation of SB 1778, according to Sandra Valentine, who teaches third grade at Trinity School, a private school in Oklahoma City dedicated to students with learning differences.
“My school will keep growing and more schools like it will keep popping up all around that state,” she said. “If I’m told three times a year my kid might be retained, I’m going to be a momma bear and say, `Where can I take my kid so they won’t be 19 when they graduate?’”
When Ryan Walters, a political lightning rod, entered office as state superintendent three years ago, Valentine walked away from public schools after teaching third grade for 12 years combined at Little Axe and Tecumseh.
Still, she thinks about returning to work in a public school one day, and she continues to visit the state Capitol to advocate for public school policies she feels are best for the public school students in her own family, her youngest daughter and six grandchildren.
“I have thought about it, but Ryan Walters’ policies are still there,” Valentine said. “We have not changed anything, really.”
Her school is growing so rapidly that its kindergarten-through-third-grade classes now require a larger building. That means working through the start of summer break. Sorting through the contents of her classroom this week, Valentine said the tote bags, stickers and large painted poster emblazoned with her personal motto, “Literacy is non-negotiable,” will all certainly make the move to her new classroom.
“We have a lot of state officials tour here, wanting to know what we’re doing. (State Senator) Adam Pugh, when he came to my room, asked where my painted poster is – because he had heard of it,” she said, with a laugh.
The difference-makers, Valentine said, are that all teachers must have specialized training or certification in reading instruction, every student attends reading therapy class daily, and Trinity students aren’t subjected to the state’s high-stakes standardized test.
“We are meeting them where they’re at,” she said. “Not third-grade level, but working backward to where they are. Now, I’m no longer teaching to a test and freely teaching to the needs of my students. Why can’t we just put this in a public school?”
Valentine previously worked as a consultant to help improve schools’ academic results by targeting students who were just shy of meeting the benchmark for reading proficiency with state test prep.
“It’s all a numbers game,” Valentine said. “When our lawmakers say our kids in public schools are not proficient in reading, it’s not like a third-grade child is not reading Dick and Jane. It is an 8- or 9-year-old having to listen to 15 minutes of instructions right off the bat, then be on a computer for two to three hours, navigating passages that are 200-300 words long – sometimes on subject matter they have no familiarity with – and answering 60 questions. If they’re not passing after all that, then that’s considered not reading on grade level.”
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
