Oklahoma Voice reporter wins national contest for reports on changes in state test scoring

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma Voice reporter won first place in the Education Writers Association national contest for her reporting that uncovered that state officials had quietly lowered student testing proficiency benchmarks.

Nuria Martinez-Keel won first prize in news reporting for a trio of stories she wrote in 2024 that uncovered changes to student test scores that showed student proficiency rates jumped as much as 33% even while actual academic gains were largely stagnant. Relying on interviews with parents, educators, testing experts and others, Martinez-Keel reported that the Department of Education did not disclose that dramatic growth in student performance was because of lowered performance expectations. In previous years, the department notified districts of new scoring methods.

The performance expectations, known as cut scores, indicate what knowledge students must demonstrate to perform at grade level. 

Last month, the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability voted unanimously to restore the cut scores to the previous bar used from 2017 to 2023, which align with the national standard.  

The contest judges wrote that Martinez-Keel’s dogged reporting highlighted an otherwise hidden issue that the public may not have been aware of. 

“This story series was both enlightening and compelling,” a contest Judge said. “It left me wanting to know more about the discrepancies in scores and why the state administration sought to distance itself from its own decisions. I also appreciated the diversity of thought and voices across the three stories.”