From the Arkansas Advocate:
Arkansas students entering the third grade at public schools and open enrollment charter schools this fall will be the first cohort to be retained if they don’t meet literacy expectations, a policy established by the 2023 LEARNS Act.
“By the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, if a public school student has not met the third-grade reading standard, as defined by the state board, or the student does not have a good-cause exemption, as provided under this subsection, the student shall not be promoted to fourth grade,” the law states.
This new requirement could have extreme implications, considering a 2024 assessment showed that only about 36% of the state’s third graders could read proficiently.
Would the state of Arkansas really require all but 36% of the state’s public school third graders to be held back? It’s currently unclear.
State education officials haven’t yet set the new literacy standard by which third-grade reading will be measured for the 2025-2026 academic year.
Kimberly Mundell, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Education, didn’t answer specific questions about how the policy would play out.
“The law affects this school year’s second graders, who will be third graders next year,” Mundell said. “More information and details will be provided in the future.”
The LEARNS Act — a 2023 law that overhauled K-12 education with increased teacher pay, a controversial school voucher system and new volunteer requirements for public school students — tasked the State Board of Education with establishing the literacy standard for third graders.
Alisha Price, associate legal counsel for the state education department, said the nine-member board hasn’t yet crafted rules related to the literacy requirements, but it will be discussed this year.
“These rules have not started the drafting process but will soon,” Price said. “It usually takes a few months to go on a board agenda for approval, then public comment, but I do not yet have an estimate on that date.”
As with other requirements set by the Arkansas LEARNS Act, mandatory retention for third graders who fail to meet reading standards applies only in public schools. Private school and homeschool students are exempt.
Annual comprehensive testing typically occurs in April and May, near the end of the academic year. The current round of testing is expected to end Friday.
While the standard for next year isn’t set, data from an existing assessment — the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS) — showed that most third graders had not achieved proficiency, and had only a basic literacy understanding in 2024.
ATLAS replaced the ACT Aspire assessment that was used from third to 10th grade from 2016 through 2023. Last year was the first time school districts used ATLAS. State education officials have said the assessment created a new baseline that should not be compared to previous methods.
Of 250 public school districts included in state ATLAS data, a dozen reported that at least half of its third graders tested at the lowest level for reading, meaning students showed limited skills. Low reading scores also typically correlated to low English language arts (ELA) scores, another component of literacy testing within ATLAS.
Among the lower performers was Blytheville School District in Mississippi County, where 70% of its 109 students showed a limited understanding of reading and another 26% showed a basic understanding. According to last year’s state ATLAS data, only about five Blytheville third graders could read proficiently. The same data was reported for the school’s English language arts scores.
Last week, Education Secretary Jacob Oliva said he intended to recommend to members of the State Board of Education that Blytheville School District should receive the highest level of state support due to declining enrollment and administrative challenges, the Arkansas Advocate reported.
Little Rock School District, which had the highest number of third graders in the state in 2024 — more than 1,500 — reported one in three children had only limited reading skills last year. The district’s English language arts scores matched within a few percentage points of its reading results. How those figures will compare to new literacy standards remains to be seen.
States have authority over day-to-day operations and curriculum standards in schools, making apples-to-apples comparisons among states tricky. Though that process leads to varying standards nationwide, the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as “the nation’s report card” — tracks average reading scores and how they change over time. These national reports focus on fourth grade reading attainment, rather than third.
The congressionally mandated program within the U.S. Department of Education reported that no states saw improvements in reading scores among fourth graders from 2022 to 2019, and Arkansas students’ average scores decreased by three points. The state’s decrease was on par with the national trend among all public school fourth graders.
While the literacy standard the State Board of Education has been tasked to establish will apply to most third graders in public schools, there are some exceptions.
The education board has already adopted rules outlined in the LEARNS Act to set good-cause exemptions for promotion to the fourth grade, such as limited English proficiency students and those with individualized education programs or 504 plans. Other exemptions include students who were previously held back, kids on an intensive literacy intervention program, or those who have received a special education referral.
According to the Pew Research Center, roughly 16% of Arkansas public school students, K-12, have a learning disability. Dyslexia is among the most common learning disabilities, and state law requires school districts to screen each student in kindergarten through third grade for dyslexia, then provide appropriate resources for their academic success.
The State Board of Education further describes the third grade retention policy in the Right to Read Act, which outlines what public school districts or open enrollment charter schools should provide for students who don’t meet the reading standard or are promoted with good-cause exemptions.
The literacy improvement plan extends beyond the classroom and into students’ homes.
According to the rules, schools must provide 90 minutes of evidence-based literacy instruction each school day, assign the students to a high-performing teacher and send legal guardians a “read-at-home” plan.
Students will also be given priority to receive a literacy tutoring grant, and have the option to participate in additional programming.
This story was first published by the Arkansas Times and is republished here by permission.
