Tulsa Public Schools sees improvement in spring test scores

Tulsa Public Schools shared preliminary results from the spring Oklahoma State Testing Program assessment on July 31.

The district said it's proud to share that TPS students earned an overall five-point improvement in the percentage of students scoring Basic, Proficient, or Advanced on the English Language Arts assessment.

"While testing can give us important information, assessment results are certainly not a comprehensive representation of all the work happening in our school communities," TPS said. "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."

TPS shared these numbers with the State Board of Education as State Superintendent Ryan Walters threatened the school's accreditation if it didn't improve test scores.

Here are the results TPS shared:

• 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.

The district acknowledged that even with the positive data, there's still a lot of work to be done and student improvement is measured in more than just test scores.
"In any year - regardless of context - a single test score does not provide a complete measure of student achievement," TPS said. "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."

This is how the OSTP measures student scores:

1. Students scoring Advanced demonstrate superior performance with challenging subject matter and clearly exhibit readiness for college and career.
2. Students scoring Proficient demonstrate mastery with appropriate grade-level subject matter and exhibit readiness for college and career.
3. Students scoring Basic demonstrate partial mastery with grade-level subject matter but may not exhibit readiness for college and career.
4. Students scoring Below Basic have not performed at least at the Basic level.

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