About 3,000 Indiana students are repeating third grade this school year for not meeting the state’s reading proficiency standards.

by the Indiana Department of Education showed 3.6% of the 84,000 children who took the statewide IREAD exam were retained in third grade under the first enforcement of a .

Those 3,040 retained students are more than seven times the 412 children held back in third grade two years ago.

Education Secretary Katie Jenner credited improved performance by students in the IREAD exam given last school year with the retention figure being lower than anticipated when the literacy requirement was being debated.

“The numbers that were being thrown out is that it would be 7,000 to 10,000 that this law would trigger retention,” Jenner told State Board of Education members. “But, in fact, a huge shout out to our teachers and our people, we have thousands of kids who are now readers.”

Education officials announced in August that — about 73,500 out of more than 84,000 students statewide — demonstrated proficient reading skills in 2024-25. They hailed the nearly five percentage point improvement from the previous school year as the largest year-to-year jump since the state began IREAD testing in 2013.

That left about 10,600 children who didn’t meet the standard, with almost 7,000 being given “good cause exemptions” to avoid retention. Nearly 75% of those given exemptions were special education students and about 24% are English learners with less than two years of specific literacy services.

Anna Shults, the Department of Education’s chief academic officer, said the new retention requirement was having its intended effect.

“We are now ensuring that students that are promoted on to grade four are doing so with an ability to read and show mastery of key foundational reading skills,” Shults told the State Board of Education.

The Department of Education will have an online dashboard providing breakdowns of the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination assessment, or IREAD, by school district and individual schools, including charter schools and nonpublic schools.

Officials noted about 670 children who didn’t meet the literacy standards were not enrolled in Indiana schools this year, saying they likely moved out of state or were being homeschooled.

Jenner said a determination would need to be made about those students if they returned to Indiana schools.

“That’s a question that we’ll need to sort through, because some may move back into Indiana, or if they left for homeschool may come back in,” Jenner said. “Because we’re looking at every unique student, I think we’ll try to figure out exactly where they are.”

According to 2023 data, 13,840 third-graders did not pass I-READ-3. Of those, 5,503 received an exemption and 8,337 did not. Of those without an exemption, 95% moved onto 4th grade while only 412 were retained.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.

Students who started school during or after the COVID-19 pandemic have a harder time saying goodbye to their parents when they drop them off, Plains Independent School District Superintendent Robert McClain said.

Third graders are behind in their reading, teacher Heather Harris said, so the district hired a reading specialist to work with their youngest students.

They’re also struggling in math, San Antonio ISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino said.

“When I go into classrooms of students who are currently fourth graders or fifth graders who were either kindergarten or first grade [during the pandemic], you can see that there is a lack of mathematical fluency around basic facts,” he said.

Texas school administrators, educators and education policy experts say they’re seeing troubling signs that students in the earliest grades are not doing as well academically as children who started school before the pandemic. State and federal officials devoted significant resources to help students affected by the pandemic but they mostly focused on older children whose schooling was disrupted. Experts worry that the state’s youngest students will have a harder time catching up without intervention.

A recent by Curriculum Associates Research looked at national academic growth trends in the last four years and compared them with pre-pandemic data. It found younger students — like those who were enrolled in kindergarten or first grade in 2021 — were the furthest behind in both reading and math compared to their peers before the pandemic.

According to the report, those students may be struggling because of disruptions in their early childhood experiences, difficulties building up foundational skills like phonics or number recognition, problems engaging with virtual learning during the pandemic or insufficient resources being devoted to help children in the earliest grades.

Aquino, San Antonio ISD’s superintendent, said attendance in early grades is lower than before the pandemic, which is impacting foundational learning.

“We told families to stay home during the pandemic. Now we’re sending the message: You have to be in school,” Aquino said.

Low pre-K enrollment during the pandemic may be another factor. Children who attend pre-K are nearly twice as likely to be ready for kindergarten, said Miguel Solis, president of the education research nonprofit Commit Partnership.

In the school year 2019-2020, there were 249,226 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten in Texas, according to state data. This number dropped by nearly 50,000 in the following year.

Low academic attainment can compound in ways that become increasingly difficult to fix. Harris, the Plains ISD teacher, said it’s hard for third-grade students who fall behind to catch up because their teachers will likely not be able to spend much time helping them develop foundational skills they already should have learned.

“Pre-K through second, you’re learning to read, and then third grade on up, you’re reading to learn. So there’s that huge switch of what you’re teaching,” she said.

Mary Lynn Pruneda, an education analyst at the public policy think tank Texas 2036, said the Curriculum Associates Research study raises concerns about young learners but it’s difficult to pinpoint the impact in Texas because of a lack of data.

“We have very limited data on how younger students are doing that’s consistent across grade levels,” Pruneda said.

Without data to help diagnose the problem, students are being set up for continually low results in the state’s standardized test, she said.

There are some indications of how the problem might be manifesting in Texas. In Dallas County, for example, declines in math and reading scores between 2023 and 2024 were most acute among third graders, who would have been in kindergarten during the pandemic, Solis said.

Solis said the state needs to start collecting literacy data for early grades to identify students who are not on track and intervene. He’s hopeful because some lawmakers in both the Texas House and Senate have already expressed interest in taking a close look at how young students learn foundational skills, he said.

“We can’t wait until the third grade STAAR to see how younger students are progressing,” he said.

Pruneda said one step Texas can take to start reversing the trend is raising spending in public education — something educators are desperate for — to help school districts hire and retain the best teachers possible. The superintendents of both Plains and San Antonio ISDs said it is imperative for the Texas Legislature to approve a significant funding boost next year after lawmakers failed last year to do so amid .

High-impact tutoring, like the one legislators mandated for grades 3-8, may also help early-grade students, she said.

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A proposed literacy policy in Maryland could have third-grade students held back for a year if they don’t achieve certain reading scores on state tests, or “demonstrate sufficient reading skills for promotion to grade 4.”

Maryland would join more than half of states that allow third-grade students to be held back if the policy is adopted. The Maryland Department of Education is accepting public comments on the plan until July 19.

It comes as the state Board of Education and the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Accountability and Implementation board recently voted on to boost student achievement for the state, which ranks 40th in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known at the Nation’s Report Card. The goal is to put Maryland in the top 10 by 2027.

“It has been noted in several research studies that literacy is considered one of the key and pivotal priorities in education if we expect our communities, our states to prosper,” Tenette Smith, executive director of literacy programs and initiatives in the state Department of Education, said Tuesday. “We have to make sure that we are addressing kiddos’ needs, as well as their access to high-quality education. It becomes an equity issue.”

The proposed would implement a reading intervention program for students in kindergarten through third grade who are identified with a reading deficiency or “need for supplemental instruction in reading.”

Students in those grades would be screened about three times, which includes for dyslexia, throughout the school year. They can also receive before- or after-school tutoring by a person with “specialized training grounded in the science of reading,” which focuses on teaching students based on phonics, comprehension and vocabulary.

The policy will also call for professional development for staff, which for free as part of the science of reading program.

A parent or guardian would receive written notification if their child exhibits any reading challenges during the school year. Students who are kept back in the third grade would receive more dedicated time “than the previous school year in scientifically research-based reading instruction and intervention,” daily small group instruction and frequent monitoring of the student’s reading skills throughout the school year.

The proposal includes a “good cause exemption” that would let students advance to the fourth grade if they are diagnosed with a disability described in an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). It would also apply to students with a Section 504 plan who are diagnosed with a disability and need “reasonable accommodation” to participate in school and school-related activities.

A good-cause exception could also be made for students who fewer received less than two years of instruction in an English-language development program.

Any student who received such an exception would continue to receive intensive reading intervention and other services.

No student could be retained twice in third grade, according to the policy.

Smith said the policy is similar to one drafted in Mississippa, where she worked with current Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright. But a few main differences that focus on Maryland include the and state regulations to support students with reading difficulties.

‘Have to be creative’

According to a January from the Education Commission of the States, about 26 states and Washington, D.C., implemented policies that require retention for third-grade students who are not reading proficiently, or allow those decisions at the local level. That report came out two months before Indiana joined the list, when the legislature in March approved a to retain third grade students who don’t pass a statewide assessment test or meet a “good cause” exemption, similar to the proposed Maryland policy.

A 2013 report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation noted that students who don’t read proficiently by the end of the third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma. The gap could increase if a student comes from a low-income family, is Black or Latino, the report said.

Smith said there’s “a slight shift” in expectations when students enter fourth grade, and begin assessing multisyllabic words and doing more independent reading.

“When you are making that shift, you are providing more academic language and asking children to access or bear a heavier cognitive load. Kiddos are asked to do more word work,” Smith said. “As they progress from one grade to the other, third grade becomes that key grade level, that sort of gateway to being a fluent reader with the ability to analyze the text they are reading.”

Maryland State Education Association President Cheryl Bost, who at the end of the month, said the state needs to assess who would provide the tutoring during the school day and before or after school.

“We are still in a [teacher] shortage. How we can retain staff and bring staff is going to be key to all of this,” she said Monday.

She also said reading intervention during the school day is “more desirable” than making tutoring before or after school the only option.

“When we do that though, we can’t pull kids out of the arts,” Bost said. “We have to be creative in scheduling because those other subject areas are important. Some kids really shine in those areas.… They have to learn reading in other context not just in what might be called a reading class.”

The policy is scheduled to be discussed by the state Board of Education on July 23. For those interested in taking the survey can go , or send an email to literacy.msde@maryland.gov by July 19.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on and .

Mandatory retention will no longer be required under Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

A parent will now be able to request a student be promoted to fourth grade — even if they are not reading at grade level, according to the state budget that Gov. Mike DeWine recently signed.

Now a student’s parents must consult with the reading teacher and principal before a decision is made, and the student would continue to receive reading intervention until they are reading at grade level — something educators see as a win.

“We think it’s a very positive step forward to return decision making regarding how best to serve students who might need extra support in reading to the parents and educators who know those kids best,” said Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro.

The Third Grade Reading Guarantee was enacted in 2012 and requires third graders pass a reading test to advance to fourth grade.

“Because there was so much pressure put on those tests, that created a whole lot of test anxiety for kids,” DiMauro said.

A do not meet the Third Grade Reading Guarantee’s promotion threshold, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

About 1% of third grade students did not meet the promotion threshold for the 2021-22 school year; 1.38% for the 2020-21 school year; 1% for the 2019-20 school year; 5% for the 2018-19 school year; 5% for the 2017-18 school year; 6.1% for the 2016-17 school year; and 6.6% for the 2015-16 school year.

Melissa Kmetz, a third grade teacher in Lakeview Local Schools in Trumbull County, thinks changing the retention piece of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee will ultimately better help students struggling with reading.

“Allowing parents, teachers and administrators to sit together and look at multiple data points, student testing anxiety and looking at an array of features together, will really help a family and the school make a decision that’s in the best interest of the child,” she said.

Educators said providing early reading intervention and additional support for students who may be struggling to read would be more helpful then holding them back.

“Let’s not put 100% of the focus on one test on one day,” DiMauro said. “Let’s allow the people that know our children best and can see how they perform throughout the year with the autonomy to make decisions about what’s in the best interest of the kids.”

Kmetz has seen how the Third Grade Reading Guarantee hangs like a dark cloud over students and parents all year long.

“It’s a lot of stress on little kiddos,” she said. “Is it just anxiety across the board. … It’s just sad to see so much pressure put on a little child about one test when it doesn’t need to be that way.”

She’s had parents email her the night before the test saying how their child is so nervous they are crying, and she’s seen strong students who are poor test takers stress over the exam. Third graders also worry about their friends passing the test and being able to go to fourth grade together.

“I understand that they want to make sure the kids aren’t too far behind before moving to fourth grade, which I completely agree with, but just basing it on one test is not the way to do it,” Kmetz said.

Karen Carney, a fourth grade teacher in Northeast Ohio, remembers overhearing students stress over the Third Grade Reading Guarantee during the first year of implementation.

“That’s such a burden for an eight and nine-year-old to have to carry and worry about,” she said. “It was almost like you’re setting these kids up to fail. … you’re just totally destroying them. … You cannot judge a student on one moment in time.”

Retention can have lifelong consequences, Kmetz said.

“Kids really internalize that and they tie their worth and their intelligence to being able to pass a test,” she said. “It’s just a vicious cycle.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

A new bill would eliminate retention under Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee and is almost identical to a previous bill that died in the last General Assembly.

House Bill 117 was introduced last week by state Rep. Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, and state Rep. Phil Robinson, D-Solon.

“I have nothing against retention,” Manning said. “But we just feel that a parent should have a voice in that.”

The Ohio Third Grade Reading Guarantee, which was enacted in 2012, requires third graders pass a reading test to advance to fourth grade. Third grade students need to score at least a 685 on the test for this current school year to move on to fourth grade. For English language arts, the scale scores range between 650 and 850.

Manning, who was a teacher for 37 years and taught third grade for most of her career, said the English Language Arts Assessment would still be administered once a year under HB 117.

“Retention in kindergarten or first grade isn’t as noticeable and isn’t as detrimental to a child,” she said. “But a lot of those (third graders) if they’re retained, it’s extremely difficult for them. Kids are making fun of them years later.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said on Tuesday that it’s important to focus on early childhood literacy, “so the issue of retention does not come up in a student’s life.”

“There is just no reason that we cannot get a lot more of our students reading at grade level by third grade,” he said.

A do not meet the Third Grade Reading Guarantee’s promotion threshold, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

About 1% of third grade students did not meet the promotion threshold for the 2021-22 school year; 1.38% for the 2020-21 school year; 1% for the 2019-20 school year; 5% for the 2018-19 school year; 5% for the 2017-18 school year; 6.1% for the 2016-17 school year; and 6.6% for the 2015-16 school year.

Ohio educators support HB 117

Both of Ohio’s teacher union associations are in favor of HB 117.

“What we don’t want to be doing is sucking the joy out of learning, particularly sucking the joy out of learning to read for our students,” said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association. “We don’t want the pressures of a single test on a single day and all the things that go into how a student performs to outweigh what teachers who work with kids everyday in the classroom know what their kids are able to do.”

Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, fears holding students back because of a standardized test could have unintended consequences.

“You’re putting a student on the pathway to dropping out further down the road because they’re further behind their peers,” she said.

Studies show holding students produces short-term academic gains that wain over time. Studies also show that students who repeat a grade are , and students who are old for their grade are more .

Cropper thinks the emphasis should be on literacy, not standardized testing.

“What we need to be doing is focusing on what we are teaching children, making sure that they have the proper supports that they need, and focusing less on standardized testing, and more on making sure that we have enough intervention specialists and enough resources and supports to be able to give students the individual help that they might need,” she said.

Manning and Robinson co-sponsored the previous iteration of the bill — , which passed 82-10 in the House of Representatives in June, but never made it of out the Senate.

Even though the bill died last session, Manning is optimistic the bill will pass this time around.

“We’re hoping we just ran out of time when we got over to the Senate,” she said. “I’m hoping that if we can get it over there early enough, we’ll have enough time to get it done before they break.”

State Rep. Riordan McClain, R-Upper Sandusky, voted against HB 497.

“Reading is foundational to educational success and I have concerns about the effects of removing its prioritization,” he said in an email.

that would make all public, nonpublic, and homeschool students in grades K-12 eligible for a state scholarship that would be funded through an education savings account (ESA) to go to a participating nonpublic school or receive home schooling. Parents could use the ESA to pay for tuition, fees, uniforms, and books.

Ohio’s English Language Arts test

The percentage of students who tested at least proficient in Ohio’s third grade English Language Arts test has fluctuated in recent years, but the number of students tested also dipped, according to ODE.

About 61% of students scored at least proficient in 2017-18; 66.7% in 2018-19; 44.2% in 2019-20; 51.9% in 2020-21; and 59.8% in 2021-22.

In December 2021, DeWine signed a bill that exempted school districts from the retention requirements of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee for the 2021-22 school year. Students may still have been held back if their parents, principal, and teacher agreed that the student was reading below grade level and not prepared for fourth grade.

administered by the National Center for Education Statistics. Ohio’s fourth graders reading proficiency dropped from 38% in 2019 to 33% in 2022, and the eighth graders also went from 38% in 2019 to 33% in 2022.

DeWine’s focus on literacy

DeWine’s proposed budget that he and includes a $162 million science of reading proposal that includes $64 million for science of reading curricula, $43 million each year for the next two years to offer science of reading instruction for educators and $12 million to support 100 literacy coaches in schools and districts.

The science of reading is decades of research that shows how the human brain learns how to read.

“Unfortunately, we still have some schools in the state of Ohio, they’re not following the best science,” DeWine said. “We need to make sure that every child in the state of Ohio has that opportunity to read based on the best science.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

“​​In the midst of the pandemic — even without a learning disability —  you can’t get a 6-year-old to sit in front of a laptop,” said Tamara Miles, Faith’s mother. “Her attention span is not that long.”

Now in third grade, Faith is among the nearly 3,900 students in the Metro Nashville Public Schools — and thousands more throughout Tennessee — who risk failing the state reading test this spring.  That means they could be impacted by a — taking effect this year — that requires proficiency to move onto the fourth grade.

Pressure has been building on state lawmakers to amend the law as testing season approaches next month. Parents, advocates and educators say it’s unfair to base the decision on one assessment, especially for students who were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit. But state officials and Republican legislators argue it’s wrong to promote students who aren’t ready.

“We’re living with this COVID two years for the next 12 years of our life, trying to get these kids caught up,” Rep. Scott Cepicky, chairman of the House Education Instruction Committee, said last week during a hearing on the issue. “We cannot keep doing this and condemning these kids to a life of possibly poverty, incarceration, drug abuse, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, gang violence.”

Legislators are currently considering Cepicky’s amendment to tweak the law to allow students who score in the “approaching expectations” range to advance to fourth grade if they score in the 50th percentile on a literacy “screener” test. The law already offers opportunities to retake the state test as well as summer school, tutoring and ultimately, an appeals process. But some district leaders are still opposed. 

“Some of our parents will not take advantage of the resources that you’ve set in place,” Clint Satterfield, director of the Trousdale County Schools, told lawmakers during another hearing last month. “They will choose to take retention and that is sad. That’s an unintended consequence.”

Cepicky’s amendment would also require students who are retained in K-3 to receive tutoring. That the law didn’t already include such a provision, he said, was one of its “shortcomings.” The Senate Education Committee passed similar legislation, but it would require students to receive tutoring in fourth grade if they pass the screener test.

J.C. Bowman, executive director and CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee, called the proposed amendment a “positive step” because it bases retention on more than a single test score. But with such a short timeline, he said districts need to ensure parents understand all the options.

Seeking ‘adequate growth’

State lawmakers approved the 2021 legislation — officially called the Tennessee Learning Loss Remediation and Student Acceleration Act — alongside a complementary law that overhauls how the state teaches students to read. Districts must now use a phonics-based curriculum, and the state has spent the last two summers training teachers in the so-called “science of reading.” 

But Sonya Thomas, executive director of Nashville Propel, a parent advocacy group, questioned why schools didn’t have children repeat kindergarten instead of waiting until third grade.

“At that point, school districts knew who was behind,” she said, “What have they been doing since then?”

As the law currently stands, students who score in the “approaching” range — and don’t reach proficiency when they retake the test — can attend summer school or participate in tutoring in fourth grade. In summer school, they must have 90% attendance and make progress in reading.

Those who score “below expectations” have to participate in both tutoring and summer school. But some question whether six weeks of summer learning camp will be enough to prepare students for the demands of fourth grade.

“It’s not just like we’re going to eat popsicles and play outside,” said Jean Hesson, elementary supervisor for the Sumner County Schools. But she said it’s also unrealistic to expect a student who is two years behind to reach grade level just because of summer school. “We would love to see adequate growth.”

Director Satterfield said even if families take advantage of all the opportunities for extra help, their children might still be too far behind.

“Are we really going to fail those students?” he asked the committee.

Retention research

Lawmakers in other states have been asking similar questions. Retention opponents in Ohio, including the Ohio Education Association, unsuccessfully pushed for of that state’s law last fall. In Michigan, however,  both the House and Senate have passed that ends third grade retention Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign. 

When the Michigan law went into effect last school year, only 1% of students eligible for retention were ultimately held back, from Katharine Strunk, a Michigan State University professor tracking the law’s implementation. She argues that the costs of making students repeat a grade outweigh the benefits and that retention predominantly affects low-income and minority students. 

But former Mississippi state chief Carey Wright and former literacy director Kymyona Burk told Tennessee lawmakers that retention was one important trigger that led to what some have called a In 2019, Mississippi was the only state to show gains in fourth grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. 

They highlighted a recent Boston University showing students who repeated third grade in 2014-15 had higher English language arts scores in sixth grade. ExcelinEd, an advocacy organization where Burk is now senior policy fellow for early literacy, commissioned the report. 

“Retention will have a far greater positive impact than moving along a student who just isn’t ready,” they wrote in a recent op-ed for The 74 about the research.

Another found that Indiana fourth graders who repeated third grade scored higher on state math and reading tests than third graders who barely passed. Retained students continued to outperform those who weren’t retained through seventh grade and were not more likely to have problems with absenteeism or behavior.

Some experts acknowledge that retention can lead to short-term gains, but warn it has  serious consequences later. 

In a chapter for a on education policy and literacy, Gabriel DellaVecchia, a researcher at the University of Michigan, reviewed evidence from linking retention in Texas to higher high school dropout rates — especially among Black and Hispanic girls.  

“If their grades go up in sixth grade, but they hate school so much that they drop out the moment they turn 16, it is difficult to label the policy as a success,” he told The 74.

He added that when states like Tennessee provide tutoring and summer school,  in addition to improving reading instruction, it’s hard to isolate the benefits of retention itself. 

“Those same supports could just as easily be provided to a fourth grader,” he said, “without removing the child from their peer group or stamping them with the stigma of being retained.”

Even those with students not yet in third grade have been following the debate.

“It’s like the biggest talk in the city,” said Teaira King of Nashville, whose daughter, 6-year-old Journi Wilson, attends Purpose Preparatory Academy, a charter school. 

Based on her own experience, King agreed that schools shouldn’t promote students if they can’t read. But she’s  not in favor of retaining students if all they get is a repeat of previous instruction. 

She didn’t realize she was a struggling reader until she got to college. She eventually dropped out.

“I don’t want my kids to feel the way I felt when I graduated and I couldn’t read,” she said. “I wasn’t ready for the world.”

Amid statewide complaints about Tennessee’s third-grade retention law, legislative Republicans are likely to butt heads over efforts to tweak the measure in 2023.

House Education Administration Committee Chairman Mark White, an East Memphis Republican, said this week he hopes to find middle ground between the new state law and school districts, which are complaining about the reading initiative passed in a 2021 special session.

“Most of the districts are pushing back on where we are on that third-grade retention,” White said, adding the Legislature will need to deal with bills filed on the matter.

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Asked if the law gives the state too much authority and removes school districts from the equation, White said he believes the Legislature needs to “listen to the locals.”

Yet he pointed out the state passed a third-grade retention bill in 2010 leaving the matter up to school districts. Eleven years later, the situation is no better, White said, pointing out too many unprepared students are passing to the fourth grade.

In Tennessee, only one in three third-graders is reading at grade level, based on the state’s main standardized test.

“I don’t think the answer is leaving it totally to the locals, and it’s not entirely with what the state wants to do,” White said. “We might need to find some type of compromise.”

The lawmaker, who is attending the Southern Regional Education Board meeting in Florida this week, said nearly every state is dealing with the same problem. Some discussion at the conference is focused on dialing back the types of laws adopted in Tennessee since children dealt with two years of COVID-19 when some districts used online teaching and many closed schools and took extended breaks because of illness breakouts, White said.

The Legislature passed the third-grade retention law after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic to force school districts to ensure their young students could read at a third-grade level before moving on to the fourth grade.

To avoid repeating the third grade, students can take summer classes, then retake the test, or go through tutoring in the fourth grade or do both depending how much help they need.

While White wants to broker a compromise on the law, Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg believes the state should keep it intact.

He believes the third-grade retention law is a “solid piece of legislation and a solid policy.”

“If we leave it all to localities, no one is going to be held back,” he said. “But more importantly, the pressure that we’re putting, hopefully, on these schools and teachers to improve first through third grade shouldn’t be replaced.”

Lundberg could hold the education chairmanship or be named chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is focusing on both of those positions in advance of the 2023 session.

Department of Education officials contend summer classes and tutoring enable the state to avoid holding back large numbers of third-graders. They also point out that new rules recently adopted by the Joint Government Operations Committee allow parents to challenge a decision to require students to repeat the third grade.

Legislators such as Sen. Page Walley, R-Bolivar, and Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, questioned the law before a recent vote on state rules to be used in conjunction with it. The measure narrowly passed after the Senate side of the committee rejected it but the House side of the panel gave approval.

Numerous school boards, including those in Anderson County and Metro Nashville, have publicly opposed the law, sending resolutions to lawmakers urging them to give more autonomy to teachers, administrators and parents. Hamilton County School Board, however, reportedly adopted the law as its policy.

Lundberg acknowledges receiving resolutions from school boards across Tennessee, yet he points out children are offered opportunities to keep moving forward through summer school and tutoring.

The goal is not to force students to repeat a grade but to “set them up for success,” Lundberg said.

School districts are likely hearing negative comments about the law from parents and “putting a political judgment” on it, he said. At the same time, school districts realize they’ve promoted too many third-graders over the years when they weren’t prepared, which causes long-term problems for the student and school system.

“Eventually, they know they’re going to be held accountable,” Lundberg said, when they haven’t put enough emphasis on literacy.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on and .