COLUMBUS — The Ohio business community is pushing back against a legislative proposal that would do away with a state law requiring third-grade students who fail to demonstrate competency in reading to be held back for another year.
The language was slipped into the $88 billion, two-year general fund budget passed with bipartisan support in April and is now pending in the Senate.
Business leaders on Thursday cited a study that they commissioned and was conducted by the Ohio Education Research Center at the Ohio State University. It showed that third-graders who were held back due to reading struggles performed much better in language arts and math in fourth through seventh grades than their counterparts who’d barely passed the test and had been promoted on schedule.
“Anecdotes are one thing,” said Pat Tiberi, a former congressman now heading the Ohio Business Roundtable. “The research is tragic, quite frankly. The scores are heartbreaking. It’s a crisis today, not just in our state but in many other states.
“There’s no more significant benchmark in education than ensuring students are proficient readers before they leave elementary school,” he said.
The so-called “third-grade reading guarantee” was created in 2012 under Republican Gov. John Kasich.
Under the House budget language, students could not be held back in the third grade just for failing to score at a minimum level on reading tests beginning with the next school year. There was no such language in Gov. Mike DeWine’s original budget proposal.
Under the budget, schools would be required to continue offering remediation for students going into the fourth grade while still reading below the expected third-grade level.
The fall English language arts test would be eliminated, although a federally mandated spring test would continue.
The Senate is expected to put its first stamp on the House-passed plan on Tuesday. A final Senate vote is expected on June 15 with a bill required to reach Mr. DeWine’s desk by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.
“We have to have kids reading at grade level, being proficient readers, not just in third grade,” said Lisa Gray, president of Ohio Excels, a coalition of business leaders focused on education. “Kids are being promoted who continue to struggle to read. ... This state needs to be urgent in its response to helping kids learn to read.”
Standardized test scores tanked during the heart of the coronavirus pandemic while many students were being instructed online. Reading proficiency dropped from 67 percent in the 2018-19 school year to 51.9 percent in 2020-21, according to statistics from the Ohio Department of Education.
Lawmakers passed and Mr. DeWine signed a law in 2021 that temporarily exempted students from the reading retention requirement because of the pandemic. Students could still be held back if parents and school officials agreed they were not ready for fourth grade.
Previously, between 2.5 percent and 4 percent of third-graders had been held back each year for this reason since the 2013-14 school year.
Rep. Gayle Manning (R., North Ridgeville), a retired elementary school teacher, recently introduced House Bill 117 with Rep. Phil Robinson (D., Solon) which would do away with mandatory retention altogether for reading.
“The high-stakes nature of the third grade English Language Arts test can be intimidating for these young students,” Ms. Manning told the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee. “The threat of retention causes anxiety for students who may not be strong test takers.
“A student, who is normally a good test taker, could be having trouble at home which can influence how they perform on a high-stakes assessment,” she said.
A similar bill passed the House last session but failed in the Senate.
First Published June 1, 2023, 5:04 p.m.
