According to the Oklahoma Office of Educational Quality and Accountability, 65.7 percent of all Oklahoma public-school students were considered economically disadvantaged in the 2023-2024 school year, the most recent for which full data is available.

But in some suburban districts, that rate is far lower.

In Edmond, just 36 percent of students were low income. At Deer Creek, only 22.39 percent of students were economically disadvantaged. At Bixby, just 29.79 percent of students were poor.

Since poverty is correlated with lower academic outcomes, that data suggests students in Oklahoma’s suburban districts will typically fare better than children in districts with much higher rates of poverty. And they generally do—so long as you compare only Oklahoma schools to other Oklahoma schools.

But a new report finds that “rich kid” schools in Oklahoma perform far worse than their counterparts across the country. In fact, Oklahoma’s low-income students compare better to their peers nationwide than do Oklahoma’s upper-income students.

“The Fall to 48th: Documenting Oklahoma’s Educational Decline,” by Adam Tyner at the Oklahoma Center for Education Policy at the University of Oklahoma, notes, “Students from less affluent households rank below average nationally, but more strikingly, Oklahoma’s more affluent students perform even worse on a relative basis—i.e., when compared with similar students from other states. Oklahoma’s more affluent students rank 44th nationally when math and reading are combined.”

Based on 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests for 4th grade and 8th grade subjects, Oklahoma’s “more affluent” students ranked 43rd in math and 44th in reading.

In comparison, “less affluent” students, largely defined as those eligible for free-and-reduced lunches, performed better when compared to their counterparts across the other 49 states.

Oklahoma’s lower-income students ranked 28th in math and 40th in reading on NAEP tests. When math and reading scores were combined, Oklahoma’s less-affluent students ranked 36th nationally while more well-to-do students ranked only 44th.

There was little difference in the rate of decline in student performance on NAEP tests between 2017 and 2024 when comparing Oklahoma’s affluent students and low-income students. In fact, the decline for affluent students in fourth-grade reading was worse than the decline for less affluent students.

Tyner is blunt in his assessment, writing that Oklahoma’s educational outcomes “do indeed rank among the worst in the nation.”

“In 2024, Oklahoma ranked 48th nationally on the NAEP Core measure, placing it ahead of only three jurisdictions,” Tyner wrote. “This low standing is consistent across subjects and grades. Oklahoma ranks near the bottom nationally in 4th grade and 8th grade reading and math, indicating systemic, not isolated, weakness.”

Aside from Native American students, Tyner found that “every major student group in the state performs below the national average compared with similar students in other states.”

“This pattern indicates that Oklahoma’s overall standing reflects broad underperformance across groups rather than the composition of the student population,” Tyner wrote.

And, he noted, states with similar demographics are now surpassing Oklahoma.

“In every year of NAEP Core data until 2013, Oklahoma’s education system ranked higher than those of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. At the time, those states were often viewed as chronic underperformers, especially Mississippi, which ranked near the bottom nationally for nearly two decades,” Tyner wrote. “Yet in recent years, the ‘Southern Surge’ has lifted these states and several others in the region. Tennessee was the first of these states to pull ahead of Oklahoma, overtaking it in 2013. Mississippi followed in 2019, and then Louisiana passed Oklahoma in 2022.”

Oklahoma’s public-school outcomes are not ranked poorly because of student demographics or any quirk of specific assessments, he noted.

“According to the NAEP, it is clear that Oklahoma’s poor standing on national assessments is broad, consistent, and difficult to dismiss as an artifact of measurement,” Tyner wrote. “According to 2024 NAEP Core data, the state does not rank last on any single NAEP measure, but it falls within the bottom seven jurisdictions on every major indicator of academic achievement.”