By Dan Carden, Times of Northwest Indiana
dan.carden@nwi.com
INDIANAPOLIS | A proposal to hold back third-graders unable to read at grade level was approved by a Senate committee Wednesday but likely faces a rough road ahead.
At issue is the estimated $48 million annual cost of retaining, retesting and tutoring third-graders unable to pass the reading portion of the ISTEP-Plus test.
Senate Bill 258, which Gov. Mitch Daniels endorsed Tuesday in his State of the State address, would keep those students in third grade for an additional year. During that year, those students would receive intensive reading instruction designed to help them read at grade level.
That specialized instruction, however, likely would require financial resources Indiana schools don't have. Daniels recently cut $300 million from kindergarten through 12th grade education to help balance a $1.8 billion state budget deficit.
"The fiscal deficit is so large that I don't see how we could possibly pass the bill out of the Senate with that in there," said state Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville. Kenley was one of three "no" votes on the legislation in the education committee.
The Appropriations Committee, which Kenley leads, also must approve the proposal before it can get a vote by the full Senate.
The cost of the legislation pales in comparison to the personal and societal costs of advancing children to fourth grade who don't know how to read, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said.
"If we don't address reading at the primary level, we're setting kids up for failure in the middle schools and high schools. We're setting the schools up for failure," Bennett said. "I think it's imperative that we address this."
State Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, a former teacher, was one of eight senators voting for the measure in committee. She said lawmakers need to find a way to approve the legislation.
"If you support the goals, and the things are admirable, let's find ways for us to work together to make certain that this gets done," Rogers said.
If the program was in effect last year, 18,929 students statewide would have been eligible for retention. Disabled students and those with fewer than two years of English proficiency classes would not be held back.