By Emma Murphy, Oklahoma Voice
OKLAHOMA CITY — Heading into his second year as Oklahoma House Speaker, Kyle Hilbert, hopes to pass reforms to education policy and regulate data centers.
With education initiatives among his top priorities, Hilbert, R-Bristow, said he wants to see legislation passed that permanently bans cellphones in schools and that improves early childhood literacy and reading scores.
“For too long, we as Oklahomans have just accepted, frankly, failure on the part of the education system and being at or near the bottom of education rankings and outcomes for our kids, and I just think that’s unacceptable,” he said. “We’ve got to strive for excellence.”
Hilbert, who leads the lower chamber, said he filed legislation aimed at improving literacy that is modeled after what’s known as the “Mississippi Miracle.” This refers to a series of policies in Mississippi that were focused on improving childhood literacy, including student supports, a focus on phonics, tutoring, accountability metrics and teacher training programs. The program’s success was bolstered by a $100 million donation to create it.
House Bill 4420 would align colleges of education in teaching the “science of reading,” emphasize early identification of literacy deficiencies, and create a third grade retention standard.
“The goal, though, is not to retain a bunch of kids in the third grade,” Hilbert said. “The goal is that we have this accountability metric that says if you don’t pass the third grade, you’re retained. But the hope is for school districts to identify students if they’re behind in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, to have those earlier interventions and meet with parents, meet with students, and let them know you know their students behind, and so we can catch them up sooner.”
Hilbert said he also wants to pass legislation to permanently expand the state’s school cellphone ban.
The Legislature passed a law in 2025 that banned cellphones in schools for one year. Hilbert said it was very effective.
The law required all public school districts to comply with the cellphone ban for the 2025-26 school year and gave local school boards control over continuing the policy afterward.
Hilbert said he expects regulation of data centers to be another major topic of conversation at the Capitol this session. He said he was working on legislation, as were other lawmakers, on ensuring data centers “pay their own way” in Oklahoma.
The goal of the legislation would be to protect consumers in Oklahoma from having to pay for increased energy capacity to support data centers, he said.
Data centers currently qualify for an ad valorem reimbursement program, where manufacturers coming to Oklahoma are exempt from paying property taxes for the first five years with the state paying instead, Hilbert said.
“If they’re going to come to Oklahoma, taxpayers should not be subsidizing that,” he said. “They should pay their own way in terms of utility rates and in terms of the tax structure.”
The number of data centers have been growing with a need to keep up with demand for energy from artificial intelligence use. These centers have been under increased scrutiny as their presence often drives up costs of energy for the consumer.
