Oklahoma hit rock bottom last summer in nationwide education rankings. This legislative session, state lawmakers are doing something about it.
Shortly before Thursday’s filing deadline, key leaders in the House and Senate announced a slate of education reforms targeting teacher retention, reading and math intervention and classroom technology.
Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, and Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, are behind 16 bills. She says it’s the “right time” to focus on educational outcomes and literacy and anticipates lawmakers rowing in the same direction.
While the state has hovered in the bottom of national education rankings for years, Seifried says last July’s ranking “woke people up.”
“Fiftieth was really hard for some people to take. I welcome that,” she said in an interview with the Flyer. “We need everyone at the table to really solve this issue.”
In the House, Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber, shared his own slate of bills Wednesday, tackling early literacy and teacher certifications. Only a quarter of Oklahoma students were proficient on state reading tests in 2025.
Lowe and Seifried are both pushing against technology in the classroom. Lowe proposes keeping tech out of reading intervention and primarily through direct teachers or specialists. Seifried hopes to make her temporary statewide school cellphone ban permanent.
“We’re not guessing,” Seifried said. “We know what works and we’ll have to advocate for it.”
Pugh, who is running for state superintendent of public instruction this November, said the slate of Senate bills “are the culmination of hundreds of hours of work and meeting with teachers, schools and parents.”
Dozens of other education bills have been filed in recent weeks, including measures amending teacher benefits, funding workforce development, barring foreign students from Oklahoma universities and tackling the state’s literacy crisis.
We’ve compiled some of those bills before the 60th legislative session begins Feb. 2.
Improving K-12 outcomes and literacy rates
Pugh’s proposed amendments to the Strong Readers Act in Senate Bill 1778 introduces intensive interventions for reading skills in first, second and third grade.
These include summer school programs students unable to meet grade-level targets, and transitional classrooms or retention if they continue to struggle. Only allowing schools to retain a student in third grade is “too late,” Seifried said.
Another pair of legislators are tackling the same law with the Oklahoma READS (Reading Excellence through Accountability, Development and Standards) Act.
Filed by Rep. Rob Hall, R-Tulsa, and Sen. Michael Bergstrom, R-Adair, in December, the parallel House and Senate bills would also retain third grade students falling behind in literacy and establish state-funded literacy coaches to work directly with struggling. It takes its inspiration from the so-called “Mississippi miracle,” which took the state from 49th to the top 10 nationally in reading.
“Whatever bill gets across the finish line,” Hall said, “it needs to contain a unified vision, a comprehensive system of training and support to the teachers, consistent screening, evaluation and timely interventions for the students.”
Seifried hopes to enact a similar intervention statewide in mathematics. Senate Bill 1360 would establish an Office of Mathematics Improvement in the state’s education department and a three-year pilot program placing math instructional teams in school districts.
“No one was talking really about math,” Seifried said.
Her bill takes inspiration from states like Alabama who’ve improved math outcomes post-pandemic. “I didn’t want to be left behind. I didn’t want to be in eight years talking about our numeracy crisis.”
Teachers and school boards
Teacher pay changes may be on the horizon, with Pugh’s proposed $10,000 tax credit for teachers entering their eighth consecutive year in a school district and an additional 5% stipend to qualified special education teachers.
Changes to the state’s parental leave policy for public school employees may be on the horizon through a series of bipartisan bills by Sen. Mark Mann, D-Oklahoma City, and Rep. Emily Gise, R-Oklahoma City.
The bills would include fathers or adopting parents in benefits along with extending parental leave from six to 12 weeks and giving that benefit to fathers or adopting parents. Another bill filed by the pair, Senate Bill 1204, would require three days of paid bereavement leave following the death of a spouse or child, including miscarriages.
Pugh filed similar legislation, Senate Bill 1337, to add parental leave for fathers.
Other bills would affect teachers and school administrators:
- Senate Bill 1363 proposes a minimum salary schedule for teachers, and stipends for certified personnel. This legislation would set a floor at $43,000 for zero years of experience and a bachelor’s degree. With a doctoral degree and 35 years of experience, they would be paid $68,718.
- Senate Bill 1237 would create a “Teacher’s Bill of Rights.” In addition to enshrining planning time and lunch periods, Bullard’s bill would protect the right of educators to keep and use “holy scriptures” in their classroom, to carry a firearm, to refuse vaccinations or mandated masking or to provide instruction that violates their “conscience, ethics or religion.”
- Senate Bills 1200 and 1199 by Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, would restrict candidates from school board races if their business interests intersect with district bond issuance or construction projects.
Student safety and values education
Other bills focus on sex education, teaching patriotic values and changes to nutrition or fitness standards.
- Senate Bill 1422 would create prayer opportunities at all public and charter schools. Filed by Sen. Jerry Alvord, R-Wilson, this bill would mandate districts allow students and school employees to choose whether they’d like to pray or read religious texts — like the Bible — during each school day. Alvord also submitted the Teaching Honesty, Respect, Integrity, Virtue and Excellence (THRIVE) Act for debate. This OSDE program would emphasize the value of full-time work, patriotism, abstinence before lifelong marriage and respect for religious faith in public schools, with an opt-out option for families.
- House Bill 2959, filed by Rep. Steve Bashore, R-Miami, would step up reporting requirements for student abuse and neglect in schools, mandating administrators report any allegation or suspicion of abuse by a school employee to law enforcement within 24 hours.
- In Senate Bills 1374 and 1373, Sen. Aaron Reinhardt, R-Jenks, is tackling school nutrition with the “Healthy Meals for Healthy Kids Act” and a state-funded reimbursement program. The act incorporates state funding in school meals, focused on improved food quality by requiring “Oklahoma-produced food, freshly preparing scratch-cooked foods and engaging student and family voices and choices in menu development.” It would also establish a grant program to support the purchasing of Oklahoma-produced food in schools.
- Senate Bill 1282 would change sex education from an opt-out to an opt-in system, requiring written approval from parents. Sen. Dana Prieto, R-Tulsa, proposes changes to the Oklahoma Parent Bill of Rights that would also give parents the right to review any library books or materials used by schools and establish a time-bound remediation process for parental concerns at the district. It would also mandate schools disclose any student name or pronoun change requests to parents.
- Senate Bill 1250 would require public and charter schools to submit a list of books and materials to the state each October to prevent “pornographic materials or sexualized content.” If a school district violates those expectations, the state would withhold 5% of expected funding the following year.
Higher education funding and eligibility
Bergstrom introduced a flurry of bills aimed at foreign college students.
Senate Bill 1248 would prohibit students “not lawfully present in the United States” from enrolling in an Oklahoma college or university. Senate Bill 1249 would prohibit the Oklahoma higher education system from providing scholarships, grants or tuition aid to “foreign national students.” And Bergstrom’s Senate Bill 1315 would prohibit students from enrolling in an Oklahoma college or university if they are from a “country of particular concern” as designated by the U.S. State Department.
Filed by Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, Senate Bill 1261 would prohibit higher education institutions from accepting donations, gifts or grants from any foreign source and prohibit institutions from keeping any donor information confidential.
Other bills deal with higher education funding, scholarships and deceased conservative activist Charlie Kirk:
- Senate Bill 1272 would increase income eligibility for the Oklahoma Tuition Equalization Grant, a scholarship for private or not-for-profit colleges in the state, from $50,000 to $80,000.
- House Bill 2961 would waive Oklahoma higher education tuition and fees for the spouse or children of a Gold Star recipient killed in the line of duty in the United States Armed Forces — as long as the recipient was an Oklahoma resident at the time of death.
- House Bill 2946 would expand the waiver of career technology fees to grandchildren of Oklahoma law enforcement who died in the line of duty.
- Senate Bill 1336 would waive tuition and fees at Oklahoma universities or technical colleges for veterans with service-connected disabilities on a sliding scale, starting at a 50% waiver.
- Senate Bill 1262 would waive resident tuition to any survivors of human trafficking, provided they were a minor and Oklahoma resident during the trafficking.
- Senate Bill 1187 would require all Oklahoma higher education institutions to dedicate a “Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza” on their campuses by March 2028. Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, and Prieto included mandatory building requirements in the bill, including signage describing Kirk as a “modern civil rights leader” and a statue — with specific suggestions for design.
Responses to the Ryan Walters era
Several Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation reflecting, if not explicitly, on the previous leadership of former State Superintendent Ryan Walters.
Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, wants to prohibit the state education department from using agency resources for political “propaganda” in House Bill 2986. In another bill, Rosecrants wants to repeal a state statute that prohibits mandatory gender or sexual diversity education in schools.
Through a Senate joint resolution, Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, would require the superintendent of public instruction to have the same certification requirements as a superintendent of schools.
Other bills mandate higher oversight standards for charter schools. An investigation of Epic Charter School made public Monday determined poor budget management and lacking transparency contributed to the charter’s fiscal crisis.
Senate Bill 1411 would mandate public comment at charter board meetings, and annual “oversight” reviews by the site’s sponsor in addition to performance reviews.
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