From the Lawton Constitution
By James Finck, Ph.D. Jan 27, 2026
I’m sure you’ve heard the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That’s exactly what came to mind when I heard that Oklahoma is considering extending the school year by up to two weeks.
I have spent my entire adult life in education, and no one is more passionate about our children’s learning than I am. But if the plan is to simply add more days of the same instruction and somehow expect Oklahoma to leap in the rankings, that sounds a bit crazy. Our students don’t need more time; they need better time.
First, I have to express my frustration with the constant repetition of hearing that Oklahoma is “50th in the nation in education.” I hear it so often it’s almost as if we’re proud of it, like being the best at being worst is some kind of achievement. I hate to break it everyone, but that same poll counts New Mexico as 51st because it includes Washington, D.C. So, we’re not even the best at being the worst.
My bigger concern is the poll itself. It comes from WalletHub.com. I’m sorry, but since when did WalletHub become an authority on education? If I wanted advice on personal finance, possibly. But education? I’m not saying that other polls have Oklahoma much higher, but let’s use experts in the field to assess how our students are doing.
Speaking of rankings, they are based on state testing given from third grade through high school. While it is important to assess student learning, we also need to understand what these numbers actually represent. These are the percentages of Oklahoma students for the 2024-2025 year that were proficient in each subject. They are not pretty. •3rd grade: English 27.1%, Math 32.8%. •4th grade: English 23.4%, Math 33.5%. •5th grade: English 26.5%, Math 26.7%. •6th grade: English 25.4%, Math 24%. •7th grade: English 22.7%, Math 25.1%. •8th grade: English 20.8%, Math 16%. •High school: English 36.8%, Math 17%.
Dozens of committees across the state have met to figure out why these numbers are so low and how we can improve. But consider this as an example: the testing shows that only 16% of 8th graders are reported as proficient in math. If that were true, then the vast majority of 8th graders would be failing math class, but yet they’re not. An informal survey that I conducted, shows that most 8th graders are passing their math classes with a C average or better.
I don’t blame you for not trusting my very unscientific survey so I invite you to ask your kids’ school how many are passing classes. I bet you it’s the majority. One of two things must be true: either schools are inflating grades, or the tests are not accurately measuring student proficiency. I’d bet it’s probably the latter.
Here’s something else to consider about why scores slope down as students get older: elementary students generally love their teachers and want to impress them. Ask an elementary student to try hard on a test that doesn’t affect their grade, and they will. Ask a middle schooler, and you’re likely to hear, “This is stupid, bro,” followed by something about “skibbidy” or “Ohio.” And honestly, I don’t blame them. If you had asked me in middle school to take a test that did not count towards my grade, I would have drawn shapes on the Scantron. Middle schoolers are not motivated by meaningless tests. It’s not that they can’t do the math—they clearly can. It’s that they don’t care about a test that has no impact on their grades.
High school is different and that’s why the numbers go up some. Oklahoma uses the ACT as its standardized test. Students who care about college take it seriously so the numbers rise; yet many could not care less, hence the numbers are still low. Less than half of Oklahoma high school students go to college. So why would they spend time on a test that doesn’t affect them? I’m not criticizing the use of the ACT—just explaining why scores are low. If we want students to take tests seriously, we need to make them meaningful. In the past, students had to pass the 8th-grade writing test to get a driver’s permit. Do you think they took it seriously? Absolutely.
So, will adding two more weeks of school help? Not if we don’t fix the existing problems. I applaud efforts to improve elementary reading through literacy coaches and additional teacher support—but where will the resources come from? Schools are already short-staffed. Many high school students graduate without ever reading a book on their own because schools often only have classroom sets of novels. History classes frequently read textbooks in class. This approach limits independent reading and discussion—not to mention is boring. It’s not required for teaching to be fun, but it helps.
If we truly want to help students, we should provide teachers with the resources they need: more books, more support, and fewer administrative positions focused on standards and learning objectives. Learning objectives don’t make kids better readers—teachers and books do.
Finally, regarding school days—and this will not make me popular—but let’s start with the ones already on the calendar. I’m a huge supporter of high school sports. I played as did my son, but our experiences were different.
Today’s student-athletes miss far more school than I ever did. In my four years playing multiple sports, I only missed one class for a game. My son went on one two-week stretch where he attended school only two days due to tournaments. Outside of football, because of tournaments, a multi-sport student-athlete can possibly miss up to the equivalent of two months of school. I never hear anyone caring. If we truly believed that more days in school improve academics, we’d keep students in class instead of sports and extracurriculars—but we
won’t. For the record, I’m not advocating for cutting back sports time, extracurriculars are an important part of school. But I’m not the one advocating for more class time. Pick one: either more class time is important or it’s not.
I don’t enjoy pointing out flaws without solutions, and I know how hard educators work. Our students already spend plenty of time in school, and these test scores don’t tell the full story—no matter what WalletHub says.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at james.finck@swoknews.com.
Historically Speaking 