OKLAHOMA CITY — When it comes to standardized testing, Oklahoma’s Indigenous students are doing better than their counterparts in other states, education data reveals.
Addressing the state Board of Education Thursday morning via Zoom, Lucyann Harjo with the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education presented testing and graduation data tracking the progress of the state’s Indigenous students.
As of Oct. 1, more than 90,000 Native American and Alaska Native children are enrolled in Oklahoma’s public schools, equal to 12.85 percent of all students.
Nationally, 72 percent of Indigenous students graduate from high school, compared to 85 percent of all students. However, American Indian and Alaska Native high school students in Oklahoma have an 83 percent graduation rate, which puts them on par with their non-Native classmates.
Oklahoma’s Indigenous students also are passing Advanced Placement tests at a higher rate than both the state average and the national average for Indigenous students. According to data provided by the College Board, which administers Advanced Placement exams, 51.7 percent of Oklahoma’s Native American and Alaska Native students who took at least one Advanced Placement exam scored a 3 or higher as compared to 45.7 percent of Oklahoma high school students and 33.9 percent of Indigenous students nationwide.
Advanced Placement exams are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with a 3 or higher considered passing, thus potentially earning a student college credit while still in high school.
“That is really exciting to see,” state Superintendent of Education Joy Hofmeister said. “That is a very, very extraordinary statistic.”
Oklahoma’s Native American fourth graders also had higher test scores in reading than the national average for Indigenous students.
The lone benchmark where the state’s Indigenous students did not exceed the national average was the ACT. Oklahoma Native American students had an average score of 17.3, a full point lower than the national average for Native students and more than three points lower than the national average for all students.
However, as state officials pointed out, the ACT is now mandatory for Oklahoma high school students, which is not the case everywhere.