“I’m very glad to see a growing conversation about making sure that all students have strong foundational skills early on, because we know how important that is,” she said. “Though we might see them together in legislation, the science of reading has a very strong evidence base, and retention policies don’t,” Allison Socol, the vice president of P-12 policy, practice, and research for The Education Trust. The problem, experts point out, is that the retention piece doesn’t have nearly as much research consensus as the other components.
Not consequences for the students, but we have to make sure that teachers are equipped,” she said. “It’s making sure that there are consequences. Burk led the implementation of Mississippi’s reading law, which included a retention policy, as the state’s literacy director. These retention components are designed to be the stick that urges districts to take new mandates seriously, said Kymyona Burk, a senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd. But it also puts in place a retention requirement-as does a recently passed science of reading law in Tennessee. Alabama’s law requires that teachers use evidence-based approaches to literacy instruction and that struggling students receive extra help. The term refers to the body of research behind how children learn to read. Third grade retention is embedded in states’ ‘science of reading’ lawsĪlabama’s new law speaks to another trend that’s bringing these 3rd grade policies back into the spotlight : The retention requirement was part of a sweeping bill aimed at bringing the “science of reading” to the state. Alabama, for example, passed legislation that required 3rd grade retention in 2019, but decided to delay the enforcement of that policy until the 2023-24 school year. The debate around these policies is heating up again now, as states wrestle with when to restart them after many were suspended during the early days of the pandemic. Many studies show only short-term academic gains, while others demonstrate greater likelihood of adverse outcomes like bullying. Research findings on the policy are mixed, and have to be weighed against the negative social and emotional consequences of holding students back a grade. One landmark study found that students who couldn’t read on grade level by then were four times less likely to graduate high school on time than their peers who could.īut whether requiring struggling students to repeat that 3rd grade year will lead to better results is a different and more complicated question. Research has borne out that it’s harder for students to succeed if they’re not proficient by 3rd grade.
0 kommentar(er)
