Oklahoma Leverages Lexile & Quantile Measures to Measure Student Progress, Promote Career Planning Statewide

MetaMetrics State Partner Showcase: Oklahoma State Department of Education

• Number of students: 698,696
• Number of teachers: 42,551
• Number of school districts: 509
• Number of schools: 1,805

Summary: To promote assessment and data literacy, Oklahoma State Department of Education leaders recognize the importance of educating state teachers in understanding how Lexile® and Quantile® scores from state tests can be used to measure progress and support individual academic and career planning from year to year, as well as how to utilize the resources in the Lexile® and Quantile® Hub.

When the Oklahoma State Department of Education began reporting Lexile and Quantile measures from its annual state student assessments, leaders understood that was just the first step in providing teachers, families and students around the state with valuable data for evaluating student progress in reading and math achievement from one year to the next. In 2019, the Oklahoma assessment team collaborated with MetaMetrics to develop a statewide roadshow with experts on how to use the measures to link assessment to instruction. Teachers not only learned about how the measures work but also received professional development on using the tools and resources in the Lexile and Quantile Hub, an online platform that includes instructional and planning resources, a career database, book search, text analyzer, academic word lists, math skills database and more. Oklahoma’s 42,551 teachers have Premium membership access to the Hub as part of the state’s partnership with MetaMetrics.

Rohrer went on to say, “Educators were excited to learn about the Hub’s Career Database because of its connection with our Individual Career and Academic Planning Initiative.”

“Not every assessment can do everything,” said Cora James, executive director of state assessments, “We are working to help people to understand that.” She continued, “Because educators can access Lexile and Quantile scores in relation to other measures (i.e., performance levels, scale scores, and standard level reporting), we want to be sure that teachers understand the purpose of Lexile and Quantile scores and how to use them.”

Like other educators around the country emerging from the disruption of the pandemic, one thing that the Oklahoma team has been thinking about is unfinished learning. Rohrer said, “The way that we look at and use those scores will be more representative of what we were doing in 2019 and we will be able to expand on the work that we were starting to do before COVID.”

And the team knows there is more work to do. James concluded, “We are ready to provide educators with an update on how to use Lexile and Quantiles with either another roadshow or webinars. It is a continual process and people always have a lot of questions. We have an ongoing commitment to message this properly and reinforce it with our educators.”

This MetaMetrics and Oklahoma Case Study is also available to download and share as a PDF.