Legislation to jump-start children's’ early learning and reading passes Senate

A bill that could improve reading skills among young children in Alaska schools has passed the state Senate without opposition and is now in the state House.

Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Mat-Su, is one of the key architects of the bill, which is sponsored by the Senate Education Committee. Sen. Tom Begich, D-Anch., also played a major role, as did Sen. Roger Holland, R-Anchorage, who chairs the Senate Education Committee.

Senate Bill 111 may be one of the most important bills before the Legislature this year. Alaska fourth grade children now score among the lowest in the nation for reading ability at grade level. Having adequate reading skills at fourth grade is important because from that grade on children must be able absorb increasingly difficult academic material, and without adequate reading skills they are likely to fall behind their peers in school.

The senate-passed bill may face critical scrutiny in the state House, however, where some rural legislators have complained that the bill, at least in earlier versions, doesn’t do enough to meet the needs of Alaska Native students in rural schools.

Begich said he believes many these concerns are met in the latest version of SB 111 that passed the Senate. The bill gives school districts wide flexibility to use alternative methods in teaching reading, and requires that one of the reading specialists to be hired by the state Department of Education and Early Development to assist school districts be fluent in an Alaska indigenous language.

“Reading is the key by which every other subject is unlocked,” said Holland, who managed development of the bill in the education committee, combining other bills introduced by Hughes and Begich.

Begich agrees with this: “Reading is the foundation of all learning and research shows that if a student isn’t reading well by grade 3, they are more likely to drop out of high school and have lower quality life outcomes.” he said.

“Knowledge gleaned from our own Dyslexia Task Force tells us that many struggling readers experience some form of dyslexia. Early screening is essential to helping our students get the attention they need,” Begich said.

Holland said, “This is an effort to improve reading skills through increased accountability, well placed resources, and by recognizing that students must be ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. Our students and their teachers must be given the proper tools to succeed, and we are uniquely poised to provide those tools at this moment,” Holland said, because of the state’s improved finances.

The bill seeks to improve outcomes through several avenues, he said. “First, SB 111 recognizes that students must be ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. That is why the Reads Act establishes a financial incentive for districts to improve the quality of their early education programs by allowing districts to include students of high-quality early education in the (state) foundation formula,” which provides state funds to school districts.

For the first time schools will be able to pay for pre-school instruction with state funds. However, to get the money a pre-school program must be approved by the state. In this way, parents can be assured that their childrens’ pre-schools are quality programs, Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Mat-Su has said previously. The bill also creates a targeted grant program for low performing districts that need to develop or improve their early education programs, Holland said.

School district participation is voluntary, however.

Holland said,“The Reads Act calls on the Department of Education and Early Development (or DEED)to establish assessment tools, as those described in the nationally acclaimed “Florida Model,” also known as the ‘Read By 9 Program,’ to identify students that are falling behind.

This model directs school districts to provide reading intervention services for those students that need it. There is no “high stakes testing,” where one test determines whether a child advances from the fourth grade. Legislators working on the bill are careful to call it ‘assessment,’ because of the sensitivity of parents over a high-stakes test.

In addition to the assistance provided to students, the Reads Act helps teachers. “The bill adds six reading specialist positions at DEED that will work directly with teachers across the state to improve the quality of reading instruction. It also requires the Board of Education to establish training and testing requirements in evidence-based reading instruction,” Holland said.

SB 111 also creates a “virtual education consortium,” managed by DEED, a priority for Hughes, who proposed the idea in a separate bill that it now part of SB 111.

“Such a consortium has been under consideration even before the 2020 pandemic, but this effort will leverage the recent investments in virtual learning,” Holland said.

“It will allow students that did well working remotely to continue to do so and will modernize the way Alaska’s teachers access professional development courses,” he said.

“We know that when a parent or guardian is involved, the student does better,” Begich said. “This bill is full of parental notification and opportunities for engagement. SB 111 also contains an expanded definition of parent and guardian, thus we are ensuring that the adult who cares for the student, such as a step-parent, grandparent, or uncle, oversees their student’s academic career.”