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John Crawford is sounding an alarm he fears some parents aren’t heeding: Thousands of third-graders in Arkansas could be forced to repeat the grade next school year.
A mixed response “tells me that some of my parents don’t understand the significance,” said Crawford, who runs the Huntington Learning Center in Russellville with his wife, Ashly.
Third-graders who fall short of Arkansas’ reading standard and lack a good-cause exemption will not be promoted to fourth grade under a rule taking effect this year as part of the LEARNS Act, the sweeping legislative package Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law in March 2023.
Education Secretary Jacob Oliva has said roughly 10,000 students would have been identified as at risk for being retained if the requirement had been in place during the previous school year. More than 35,000 third-graders attend public or open-enrollment charter schools across Arkansas.
Oliva said the retention rule should not come as a surprise. The law went into effect when the current batch of third-graders were in kindergarten.
Still, Crawford wondered how many parents might not know what’s coming.
“I’m afraid there’s going to be more parents surprised than what there should be,” he said.
Hilary Keahey said she was unaware of the rule until her son’s third-grade teacher at Wynne Intermediate School discussed the topic earlier this school year following a screening test for the state’s standardized exam.
“To us, it was just kind of like, ‘Oh, well, that was the first time we had ever heard about it,’ and it was a little bit shocking,” Keahey said.
She is confident in her son’s reading ability and believes the state is right to take aim at proficiency, but private school students should meet the same requirement, she said.
Students at private schools receiving taxpayer money under the state’s school choice program are not required to meet a reading standard to advance to fourth grade. Those schools are required to administer a norm-referenced test, which compares Arkansas students’ performance to a sample of peers from across the country.
“If we want all of our kids in Arkansas to be reading at grade level, it should apply to all of the students,” Keahey said.
The need for serious literacy intervention in Arkansas is “massive,” said Michael Barger, program director at AR Kids Read, a North Little Rock-based nonprofit group. Education officials tabbed AR Kids in December to lead the state’s campaign to boost third-grade reading scores.
Roughly 70% of Little Rock area students are not reading at grade level, he said. In some parts of southeast Arkansas, that rate reaches 90%, according to Barger.
“I think the reality of Arkansas is not desperate. It’s beyond desperate,” Barger said. “When I walk around Little Rock, if I’m in the middle of a grocery store and there’s groups of kids around me, I have to realize that seven out of those 10 kids probably are not on grade-level reading.”
A 2010 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation links the inability to read proficiently to higher dropout rates. Arkansas education officials say fourth grade marks the period when “learning to read” becomes “reading to learn.”
Students who aren’t reading proficiently by third grade are at risk of being “behind for the rest of their academic career,” Crawford said. But, he said, he worries about the “emotional stigma” for children who are held back.
By the time students finish third grade, they should have been flagged to receive academic support, and schools should have communicated to parents about their child’s performance, according to the law.
The Division of Elementary and Secondary Education assigns literacy coaches to public schools based on the results of literacy screeners for students in kindergarten through third grade. The coaches support teachers and administrators. Students who don’t meet the state reading standard or are flagged at-risk for reading difficulties are also eligible for a literacy tutoring grant of up to $1,500.
While some students can receive those services, the bulk are what Barger called “bubble kids.”
“They’re the kids in the middle,” he said. “They’re not ready to progress to the next grade level necessarily, but they’re also not qualifying for literacy services.”
AR Kids Read serves those students, especially first- and second-graders, Barger said. Many programs have shifted the focus to earlier grades, a move he described as “a great response.”
The nonprofit’s volunteers, including retired teachers, are working in nine districts across the state. The volunteers are trained online and in-person before tutoring, Barger said. The group also partners with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and other organizations, such as Goodwill Industries.
Districts already should have informed parents of third-grade promotion requirements, identified students not on track for reading proficiency and implemented literacy intervention based on students’ individual reading plans, according to updated state guidance provided to educators in a Jan. 15 memo. Districts should be determining summer programming, readying for spring exams and intensifying help for students still off track, the memo states.
The window is April 13 to May 22 for the department’s end-of-year test, which Oliva described as a “snapshot” of students’ reading performance. The department also opened a window for a “Grade 3 Retake” for English language arts May 26 through June 30. District administrators had asked the department for a chance to “take an additional snapshot” to determine whether a short period of intensive intervention helps students meet reading standards, according to Oliva.
“We thought that was a great idea,” he said.
Oliva emphasized that the assessment isn’t meant to be a high stakes, pass-or-fail determinant of whether a student may enter the fourth grade. He called it “one piece of a portfolio.”
“So if a student’s not passing the third-grade assessment,” he said, “that should trigger a conversation with the parents, the school counselor, the teachers, administrators to say, ‘We need to write an intervention plan together that’s going to be what’s best for this child, and this is what we’re going to commit to to ensure their success.’”
Retention is not new, said Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner of the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. District officials in Arkansas recently held back about 2,500 students from kindergarten through third grade, according to Smith. The law requires additional intervention for students who fall short of the reading standard by the end of third grade — including those who receive good-cause exemptions.
Students eligible for exemptions include those with less than three years of instruction in an English language learner program or who either consistently, demonstrably performed at grade level despite receiving a low score on end-of-year exams or have significant cognitive disabilities.
Mandated support for students who miss the reading mark includes at least 90 minutes of daily, evidence-based literacy instruction aligned to the science of reading, assignment to a highly effective teacher, providing parents with a “read-at-home plan” and priority to receive a literacy tutoring grant.
Bonnie Norwood, whose first- and third-graders are enrolled at Crestwood Elementary School, said the North Little Rock School District sent her notices about the new standard when her older child was finishing second grade and when he began third grade.
“You can just tell that they’re really focusing on it even in the earlier grades,” Norwood said. “It doesn’t seem like they’re just waiting until third grade.”
She said teachers seem to be giving students more leeway to read full books about what they enjoy, rather than reading for comprehension from short paragraphs of larger works. She said she is confident in her children’s reading abilities but understands some parents’ fears about their children possibly being held back.
At least 15 states and the District of Columbia follow a retention policy similar to Arkansas’, according to the Education Commission of the States. A study published last year suggests states with such policies see larger increases in test scores than those without them — but there’s a catch.
Academic intervention, rather than retention, drove significant improvement in reading achievement, according to the study, which evaluated Michigan’s third-grade retention policy. Researchers urged lawmakers to focus on literacy support.
In 2023, Michigan repealed the section of its laws that pertained to retention.
With support from the ADG Community Journalism Project, LEARNS reporter Josh Snyder covers the impact of the law on the K-12 education system across the state, and its effect on teachers, students, parents and communities. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette maintains full editorial control over this article and all other coverage.
