Nearly 1 in 4 third graders failed Louisiana’s reading test last spring, but less than 3% were ultimately held back, according to data released this week.
Some students attended special summer programs to raise their scores, took the test one last time, and passed. Others qualified for “good-cause” exemptions, available to new English learners and students with dyslexia or other disabilities.
Louisiana public schools — under Act 422 — must hold back third graders who score in the lowest category, “well-below” grade level, on a standard reading screener and don’t qualify for exemption.
The Louisiana Department of Education said 1,388 students were ultimately held back under the law. Nearly 12,000 third graders were at risk of retention at the end of the last school year, before they took the test for the final time. The state did not provide the share of students who received exemptions.
The law, which took effect last school year, doesn’t apply to charter schools. It requires schools to screen students who are held back for dyslexia and provide them with extra reading help while they repeat the grade.
More than a dozen states have passed similar third-grade reading laws that require schools to hold back students who are behind in reading.
Some educators say third grade is the year when students go from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," and studies show that students who aren't proficient by then are more likely to struggle in school and drop out. Despite this, retention policies are still controversial.
"A lot of research indicates that withholding a student has detrimental impacts long-term, more so than a student who doesn't have foundational skills and gets moved on," said Juan D'Brot with the Center for Student Assessment in an interview last year.
Most of the benefit of this legislation is not in the decision to hold a student back, D'Brot said, but “in the requirements to try to intervene as early and often as possible."
Louisiana law requires schools to identify students starting in kindergarten who may need extra help, provide tutoring and other support, and notify their parents.
Gulf states surge
Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama have some of the most comprehensive reading policies in the country, according to Excel in Ed, an education policy group started by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 2008.
Florida is credited with starting the wave of third-grade reading laws in 2003, although Mississippi’s law, which passed in 2013, has attracted more attention recently due to the state’s dramatic growth in reading scores — though some schools still lag behind.
Once at the bottom in fourth-grade reading, Mississippi has gone from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013, to a top 10 state for fourth graders learning to read — even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else.
Adjusted for poverty and other student demographics, Mississippi is No. 1 for fourth-grade reading and math, and at or near the top in eighth grade, according to the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Louisiana and Alabama are climbing the ranks faster than any other states, too.
Like Louisiana, Mississippi trains its teachers in “the science of reading” and has invested tens of millions of dollars in tutoring. Schools are supposed to test students for reading difficulties as soon as they enter the system and closely monitor their progress. That way, if they need help, they can get it early.
Nearly 15% of Mississippi’s third graders failed the test on their first attempt when the law took effect in 2015. After two retests, more than 90% of students had passed. That year, Mississippi held back about 8% of its third graders because of the law and other factors.
The following year, lawmakers amended the law to raise the score students needed to pass starting in 2019. Roughly 75% of students passed on their first try. Alabama, which passed its law in 2019, recently increased its cut score.
