FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

What:   Tulsa Public Schools Announces Student Performance Improvements Following Intensive Focus on Improving Literacy

When:   Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Where:   Charles C. Mason Education Service Center (3027 S New Haven)

Contact:  Luke Chitwood at news@tulsaschools.org or 918-605-6009

TULSA, Okla. – Tulsa Public Schools is today announcing preliminary results from the spring Oklahoma State Testing Program (OSTP) assessment, following a year of intensive focus on improving literacy achievement for our students. The district is proud to share that Tulsa students have achieved an overall 5 point improvement in the percentage of students scoring Basic, Proficient, or Advanced on the English Language Arts assessment. Team Tulsa is excited to see growth as a result of the efforts of our students, teachers, school leaders, and support staff over the past year. 

While testing can give us important information, assessment results are certainly not a comprehensive representation of all the work happening in our school communities. Our teachers and school leaders are working diligently to ensure that Tulsa children have the exceptional learning experiences that they need and deserve. Notable increases in proficiency rates for our students are a testament to the commitment and hard work during the 2023-24 school year.

• For elementary grades (3-5), students overall improved 16 points in ELA proficiency rates and 5 points in Math proficiency rates (students scoring Proficient or Advanced). This overall growth also included a 9 point improvement in ELA for students scoring Basic and above, a further testament to our focus on supporting our struggling readers to improve their literacy skills.

• For middle schools (6-8), students overall improved 12 points ELA proficiency rates and 4 points in Math proficiency. 

• For high schools (11th grade tested), students scored Basic, Proficient, or Advanced at a rate 3 points higher in ELA along with an 8 point increase in math. These are measured through CCRA (College and Career Ready Assessments) which includes the ACT.

While announcing positive performance data today, the district also acknowledges there is still a long way to go to support all of our students in achieving their full potential, and we are eager to continue that work into the 2024-25 school year. For the 2023-24 school year, our focus was to: 1. ensure core classroom instruction with consistent teaching and assessment practices and standards-aligned curriculum, 2. implement a strong intervention program at all elementary and middle school sites to support literacy development, and 3. to improve conditions to support learning (hence big focus on attendance this year). Looking ahead, our 2024-25 Pathways to Opportunity board goal targets cast a bold and clear vision for continuing to increase the pace of improvement in student learning.

In any year - regardless of context - a single test score does not provide a complete measure of student achievement. It is important that we consider our student’s experiences such as their access to grade-level content, attendance, and course grades to provide a more complete picture of what students learned this past year. It is also important to know that we must use additional measures to understand student progress: graduation rates, reading and math growth, and access to college -and career-ready programming. 

About the Oklahoma State Testing Program (OSTP)

On the OSTP, student scores fit into one of four levels on the Oklahoma State Testing Program (OSTP) (including our 3-8 students and the College and Career Readiness Assessments (CCRA in HS):

• Students scoring Advanced demonstrate superior performance with challenging subject matter and clearly exhibit readiness for college and career. 

• Students scoring Proficient demonstrate mastery with appropriate grade-level subject matter and exhibit readiness for college and career. 

• Students scoring Basic demonstrate partial mastery with grade-level subject matter but may not exhibit readiness for college and career.

• Students scoring Below Basic have not performed at least at the Basic level.