Patricia Levesque is the Executive Director of ExcelinEd in Action.
By Patricia Levesque, Executive Director of ExcelinEd in Action
This op-ed originally appeared in The Oklahoman
In 2024, Oklahoma’s then-Secretary of Education made it look like students were achieving higher scores than they actually were by lowering the cut score needed for students to be deemed “proficient.” That decision undermined the integrity of the state testing system.
Thankfully, in 2025, Oklahoma’s Commission on Educational Quality and Accountability chose to restore rigorous and nationally aligned academic expectations for their students. Restoring higher academic cut scores on state assessments showed Oklahoma’s commitment to honesty over optics—a decision that deserves praise.
Rigorous expectations and strong accountability are only effective if it’s consistent, and policymakers need to make sure these kinds of about-faces don’t happen in the future. The good news: Parents are on their side.
A recent statewide survey of 500 Oklahoma parents clearly shows that they want a state testing and accountability system to measure student achievement, and they expect honesty and accuracy about their children’s grade level performance.
Fifty-five percent of parents polled say Oklahoma’s state testing and accountability system is “very important,” and another 28% say it is “somewhat important.” That’s more than eight in 10 parents who believe in measuring student achievement and holding schools accountable matters.
When asked specifically about cut scores, meaning the score that determines the difference between a student scoring “proficient” or “not proficient,” seven out of 10 parents said they would support a higher cut score. Clearly, the majority of Oklahoma parents don’t want to lower proficiency expectations again.
When it comes to tracking student progress, 95% say having a system in place is at least somewhat important, and 78% say it is very important. Parents don’t want to bury their head in the sand and ignore students in need of interventions and supplemental support.
