Panel backs bill on low reading scores

The Senate Education Committee unanimously supported Wednesday a bill that would require state involvement in school districts where students perform poorly in reading.

Beginning next school year, Senate Bill 349 by Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, would require the state Department of Education to provide “coordinated support” to public school districts where 40 percent of students score “in need of support” on the state’s reading assessment.

The department, under the bill, would provide “directed support” to districts where half of students score “in need of support” on the tests.

The bill is a heavily amended version of a proposal Clark filed earlier this year that received a significant amount of inaccurate media coverage and backlash on social media. That bill proposed decreasing the amount of National School Lunch State Categorical Funding a school district receives if for two years its students in the third through 10th grades perform worse on reading assessments than the year before. It would have stripped the funds completely if reading declined for a third straight year.

“The most important thing is that kids learn to read,” Clark said Wednesday, noting that the bill’s chief aim was never to take away school funding. The legislation now heads to the full Senate for consideration.