Special Edition: Oklahoma’s Testing Waiver Isn’t Serious Leadership

Last week, State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced that, starting in the 2025–26 school year, Oklahoma will end federally required end-of-year testing for grades 3–8 in math and ELA. Districts would instead be allowed to use “approved benchmark assessments” in place of the current summative tests. (Oklahoma ranked near the bottom on the 2024 NAEP for both reading and math, and was among the first states to lower state standards after the pandemic.)

He’s called it “a done deal,” assuring the public that the federal Department of Education has blessed this plan. There is no indication from the Department that this is true; let’s hope it’s not.

Here’s why education leaders across the country should be paying attention to what happens next: 

By federal law—passed by Congress, signed by the president, and upheld under both Republican and Democratic administrations—no state chief has the authority to unilaterally decide which parts of the Every Student Succeeds Act to follow and which parts to ignore.

ESSA is by no means perfect, and there is a lot of room to improve upon state testing in particular. But eliminating statewide summative assessments—or something equivalent—would be bad for kids. Without them, a state’s vision for education can’t be measured in any consistent way—making it nearly impossible to track progress, identify achievement gaps, or help struggling schools get back on track.

If the federal government grants this waiver, it would send a dangerous signal: that it doesn’t care whether families and communities can see how their schools measure up to others in their city or across the state.

Education leaders should be empowered to innovate in ways that move the needle for kids (see pages 7-11 in our Measurement Playbook for ideas on how to do that well). But Oklahoma has not shared any plans to measure how this new approach serves kids better, which the federal government requires as a condition for waiving the state’s ESSA obligations. 

Nor has the state articulated how it plans to use these benchmark tests to match the equivalence and transparency of a statewide summative assessment. How will Oklahoma know which school is doing better if a fifth grader in Norman is assessed by a completely different standard than a fifth grader in Lawton? 

So the question becomes: How will the feds react? 

The Department of Education has staked much of its vision for K-12 on the idea of “returning power” to the states. They have invited states to apply for waivers from a broad range of ESSA provisions, including assessment requirements. 

What’s unfolding in Oklahoma is a major test of whether and how the Department intends to act as a backstop to protect kids and taxpayers from bad state decisions. Assistant U.S. Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler and Senior Education Advisor Penny Schwinn have long been strong advocates for what’s best for kids, and we hope their counsel is both heard and heeded.

Will the Department of Education continue to enforce the spirit of the federal law? Or do they intend to rubber-stamp any idea from state leaders, regardless of the impact on kids? The answer will tell us a lot about what’s to come.