Subject to the availability of funds, beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, in cooperation with the State Department of Education and the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability, shall review and approve career-readiness assessments and assessment-based credentials that measure and document foundational workplace skills. Beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, the assessments shall be made available to all public school districts to be administered to students at the discretion of each school district's administration. The assessment-based credential shall be available to any student who achieves the prescribed level on the required assessments. If the public school district chooses to administer the assessments, the assessments shall be administered at least once to each student who chooses to take the assessment at no cost to the student. The assessments shall:

1. Be a standardized, criterion-referenced measure of broadly relevant foundational workplace skills;

2. Assess and document student readiness for a wide range of jobs;

3. Measure skills in the following areas, including but not limited to:

a.applied mathematics,

b.workplace documents,

c.graphic literacy, or

d.critical thinking and leadership collaboration;

4. Align with research-based skill requirement profiles for specific industries and occupations;

5. Lead to nationally recognized work-readiness certificates or credentials for students who meet the minimum proficiency requirements on the component assessments; and

6. Be available in paper- and computer-based formats.

Added by Laws 2019, c. 419, § 1, eff. July 1, 2019.