EDUCATION AUDIT: OPS Boasts of 100% Literacy ‘Moonshot’ as Test Scores Show High School Students ‘Can’t Read Well’

by Ken Shepherd and John Gage

(Picture credit OPS Twitter)

Education Audit will look behind the scenes at Nebraska’s public schools, from test scores, teaching standards, the rise of technology in education, how tax dollars are being used, and more. If you are involved in Nebraska’s education system and have information you believe would be relevant to our series, feel free to send a confidential tip to plainssentinel@protonmail.com

OMAHA – While Nebraska lawmakers debated last year over measures to combat Nebraska students’ slumping test scores, Omaha Public Schools was in the first year of a much-lauded plan they believe will turn around student achievement.

In March 2025, Omaha Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Ray unveiled his “Moonshot” push for 100% grade-level reading proficiency. Ray told Omaha Magazine in September of that year that the district set the goal before figuring out how they planned to achieve it.

“We launched it without a plan, which is a little bit different,” Ray explained. “We didn’t necessarily say, ‘Here’s our goal. We figured it all out.’ We spent last year, and we’re still spending time this school year, meeting with many groups to determine the best plan across the board.”

Since its initial announcement, the district has stated the goal is “foundational” to everything the district does. In the publication of its 2026-2030 strategic plan, OPS says, “Our Moonshot establishes a clear commitment: every student will read on grade level by 2030. Grade-level proficiency is the foundation, not the ceiling,” adding later in the document, “In this strategic plan, accountability is defined by one outcome: All students reading on grade level by 2030.”

With less than four years for OPS to achieve its goal, data show OPS is one of the worst-performing school districts in Nebraska, raising questions from critics about whether the “Moonshot” is a serious goal.

OPS ACT English Scores Near Guessing Level

Among all ACT test takers in the 2024-25 school year, OPS reported an average score of 12.6 on the English Language Arts (ELA) portion, far below ACT’s College Readiness Benchmark score of 20 and a drop from the previous two years.

The average ACT score in Nebraska is 19.1 – the test is scored on a scale of 1 to 36 points. The English section is composed of multiple-choice questions, and students are not penalized for guessing wrong on the test.

The ACT grades test scores on a sliding scale, but an examination of their official practice tests shows that a student who guessed randomly on their exam would expect to score between a 10 and 11 on the English portion, just below the average score of an OPS student.

OPS’s poor English test scores are not limited to the ACT. The most recent Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System data on English Language Arts shows only a 40% proficiency level for OPS students in the 2024-25 school year.

According to data from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, OPS students are almost three grades behind their peers academically across the nation, and are learning nearly 20% less than the average U.S. student per grade.

Moonshot ‘Money Grab’

Critics of OPS said they were not surprised the district’s test scores were lagging, but described the district as a “tragedy” and wasteful of taxpayers’ dollars. Nebraska State Board of Education President Elizabeth Tegtmeier told The Plains Sentinel that the district was “a mess” despite the large amount of money spent by taxpayers.

“They educate 52,000 students, that’s twice the number of residents of my town, and they’re not doing well,” Tegtmeier said. “And those kids, what recourse do they have by the time they’re in 10th, 11th grade, and they still can’t read well.”

Tegtmeier complained that “OPS gets over $8 million” for state grants meant to address “achievement equity,” but persistently have little progress to show.

“Twenty-eight of their 56 elementaries are below 40% proficient. It’s just astronomical. It’s shocking, is what it is, that the school district that educates the most kids—over 52,000 students—and receives the most money—over $300 million in state aid—and this is what they produce.”

“The return on investment is so low,” Tegtmeier complained, adding, “If somebody owned a private business and they were giving outcomes like this, they would go out of business. And I would say that the burden of proof lies with OPS to prove that their investments and their approaches are going to improve student achievement. And they’re not.”

Tegtmeier said she believed that the State Board of Education had a more reasonable goal for reading proficiency and that OPS is possibly motivated by an attempted “money grab.”

“In our state board, we have a goal of 75% of kids [at grade-level reading proficiency] by 2030, that seems like a more realistic goal [than OPS]. And I think that… it could be another money grab. I have never, ever heard that there’s enough money in education. It doesn’t matter how much money we give, it’s never enough.”

Data from OPS shows that the average lifetime cost to educate a single OPS student is nearly $250,000.

Tegtmeier suggested one reason for the failure is that OPS under Ray burdens its teachers with responsibilities that derail them from their core mission of instruction.

“When you talk to Matt Ray… They’re treating their schools as less like an academic institution and more like a social community center,” she said. “They bring in medical services to their schools. They bring in mental health. And so they’ve really, they’re really focusing the role of teachers on all these other things, and I firmly believe that teachers are not mental health practitioners, schools are not clinics.”

“When we try to do all these other things, we only have seven, seven-and-a-half hours in the day. And so we’re not getting to what schools were ultimately designed to do,” she added.

Other public policy observers who spoke to The Plains Sentinel expressed similar criticisms.

“Omaha taxpayers have every right to expect a strong return on investment when their property taxes go up, and right now, that’s not what they’re seeing,” Platte Institute CEO Jim Vokal told The Plains Sentinel.

“Omaha Public Schools has increased property tax collections by $107 million since the 2022–2023 budget, including a $28 million increase this year alone. On top of that, the district recently increased spending by another $38 million while also raising its levy rate and benefiting from rising property valuations,” Vokal added.

“If we’re going to continue asking taxpayers to contribute more, there needs to be a clear return for students. Right now, that return is hard to find.”

Vokal said OPS and Nebraska school districts should be looking to try and replicate the “Mississippi miracle” in Nebraska by implementing the policies they put in place.

“It’s encouraging to see school districts and states across the country trying to replicate the success of the Mississippi miracle. Every district should be doubling down on phonics, strengthening teacher training in literacy, and ensuring that focus on reading starts on day one of kindergarten.”

Equity vs Excellence

In its strategic plan, OPS lists “equity” as one of its five core values alongside joy, leadership, accountability, and results.

Paul Runko, a senior director of strategic initiatives at Defending Education, told The Plains Sentinel that districts like OPS struggle when they put equity initiatives above academic excellence.

“Academic excellence has to be the ruthless priority. Not equity. Not gender identity. Not social emotional learning,” Runko said. “Parents send their children to school to learn core academic subjects like reading, writing, and math. The districts that have succeeded in the South have kept that front and center, and the question for Omaha Public Schools is whether they’re willing to stay the course on what works, rather than chasing trends that pull attention and resources away from the classroom fundamentals.”

The Plains Sentinel contacted OPS to ask for a response from Ray to criticism of his stewardship of the school system. While Ray did not personally respond, OPS issued this statement:

“No one understands the need and opportunity before us better than Omaha Public Schools staff. Through input from hundreds of staff, students, families and partners, our Moonshot recognized the call to focus and adapt our approach to improve student outcomes.

“Our work is grounded in academic data and evidence-based best practices to do better every day. We publicly present that data throughout the year, highlighting the gains seen across many schools and where we need to deepen our supports. Literacy unlocks every other subject.

“Helping students read on grade level prepares them for success, and we are grateful for the ways our partners and community have joined this collective effort. When students are best prepared for life after graduation, our entire community, and Nebraska as a whole, benefit.”

— Ken Shepherd is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel. He is a former editor at Fox News Digital and the Washington Times.

— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.