TULSA, Okla. — The Strong Readers Act was voted on by the Oklahoma State Senate on April 20.
It passed in a 43-2 vote.
The act aims to help boost student reading scores, especially those of students in third grade and older.
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STRONG READERS ACT: Oklahoma government working to boost student reading scores
Oklahoma was ranked 50th out of 51 in overall Education for 2025, going down from 49th place in 2024.
According to data compiled and released by Oklahoma School report cards, students in north and east Tulsa faced challenges in meeting target goals for English proficiency during the 2024-2025 school year.
At McClain Middle School, only 11 percent of English learners were meeting language acquisition targets.
The school tied with East Central Middle School.
Some elementary schools seemed to score a bit higher, but still less than half of students showed proficiency in English-learning.
Disney Elementary came in with 33 percent, and Hamilton Elementary came in with 41 percent.
Kelly Kane is Tulsa Public Schools’ Executive Director of Early Childhood Education.
She said she’s thankful that the state is making it a bigger priority to help children reach their reading benchmarks.
“We know that kids who read on grade level by third grade are more likely to graduate from high school on time, and it can have life-changing outcomes,” she said.
Kane said while she knows there are language barriers, she wants to stress that learning more than one language isn’t a bad thing.
“Multilingual learners ultimately outperform most of the rest of our kids, but they need that time to develop that language,” she said. “There’s real power in kids learning multiple languages, and so I think like it’s really important to us that that’s not used as a way to penalize our kids or to criticize our kids or to expect less of our kids.”
Chad Warmington is the CEO and President of the State Chamber of Oklahoma.
He said the act aims to provide more support to children and their families by providing more communication and updates, while also helping to address certain barriers.
“If you can identify dyslexia early, you can solve a myriad of other problems down the road, from not just literacy challenges or grade challenges,” he said. “You’re talking mental health, health challenges, significant challenges that will follow a student their whole life.”
He said that while he doesn’t have a specific budget for the act, he believes no amount of money is too much to help Oklahoma’s students learn to read well.
“There’s a lot of money that’s spent up at the Capitol every year, but if you can address the fundamental issues we have with literacy, all the other problems that we have in Oklahoma get easier to fix and address,” said Warmington. “Let’s lean in and let’s stay consistent on it.”
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