LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – During the House Education Meeting on Tuesday, Education Experts from Michigan presented studies about Michigan’s Third Grade Reading Law and offered counsel about removing the retention requirements. 

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State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Michael F. Rice, and Michigan State University Professor and Director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) Katharine Strunk offered findings from EPIC and their own conclusions which entailed asking for more state funding to support individualized reading tutors and personal endorsements of Senate Bill 12 which would remove the retention requirement if a student cannot read up to grade level. 

The study presented at the committee meeting included data from 2014 until 2019, because tests were not administered during COVID-19, and the new data that was received a couple months ago has not yet been published according to Strunk.  

Key findings in the report found that the other aspects of the RBG3 Law, including teacher professional development and literacy coaching support for students were effective as more than three quarters of teachers utilized the support.  Data showed that 25% and fewer of teachers opted to use summer reading camp support for students according to Strunk.  

Data from EPIC showed that while between five and six percent of 3rd graders are retention eligible, less than 1% were retained.  In 2018-2019, roughly 4 percent were eligible as compared to 2020-2021 when nearly 5% were eligible.  2021-2022 had the highest retention eligibility with nearly 6% of students, but less than 1% were retained according to Strunk. 

Florida was one of the many states that was used as a reference during the hearing, partially because they have had the program for longer and can provide more data, as were other states such as New York, Indiana, and North Carolina.  

“[Florida] not only had smaller class sizes but they had far more coaches for the students that they had, so it was a much more expensive law.  They put a lot more money into it than michigan has done with their read by grade 3 law and as a result can get far more supports including smaller class sizes,” Strunk said, “The data  out of Florida do show positive effects of retention on short term outcomes but tend to taper off over the longer term, and there has been some evidence which shows retention has negative effects on student socio-emotional understanding of themselves, their self efficacy, as well as longer term effects that lead to higher rates of dropout from high school, and lower credit hours.” 

One graph from Strunk’s slides showed that only 25.7% of polled teachers found retention to be effective, while 9% of principals and 7.6% of superintendents found retention effective.   

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Retention is very expensive according to Strunk, who reported that some cost effectiveness studies of retention have estimated the cost to be $42,000 per student over a student’s lifetime- Strunk admitted that this statistic was on the higher end. 

“We have started to look at this under our study in Michigan – we are not done yet,” Strunk said, “So I am going to couch this by saying this is a very preliminary estimate: but out work  we show there is about  maybe $6,640 in direct public expenditures per student for a student who is retained, and about $24,000 in private expenditures for about a total of $30,000-ish over a students lifetime.” 

House Education Committee Vice Chair and Representative Jaime Churches (D) Wyandotte asked Strunk whether her team had researched curriculum and if there was any correlation with literacy coaches and developing phonemic awareness in these young kids. 

“Were you able to do a curriculum audit, and understand which pieces – if you’re using Orton Gillingham, if you’re using units of study – Lucy Calkins model- if you’re using Journeys, these are really important pieces, have you developed a suggested model that districts can go by because some districts have curricular resources and coaches have access to those and some districts don’t,” Rep. Churches said. 

Strunk acknowledges that there were 100s of curricula used across the state and that Michigan is a local control education state and while districts are not told what to do, Strunk recommended What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) which knows which curriculum are effective in helping student literacy, but many districts in Michigan are not using those curricula. 

Minority Vice Chair and Rep. Jaime Greene (R) Richmond, inquired as to what would happen to the students who would not be retained. 

“If we are not going to retain them, then what are we going to do?,” Rep. Greene said, “we gotta do something.” 

Strunk admitted that the statistics for positive effects of retention in Michigan on long term achievement  are not yet available, other state statistics show that retention isn’t as helpful as one on one instruction with a qualified educator, and more time in the classroom.   

State Superintendent Dr. Michael Rice later added his conclusions after Professor Strunk’s remarks.” 

“We are strongly supportive of the reading supports currently included in the Read by Grade Three law for students struggling with reading: (1) staffing, (2) reading intervention services, and (3) evidence-based curricula and instructional materials,” Rice’s slide presentation said. 

Furthermore, Rice encouraged an expansion of LETRS Training to be made more available to elementary and special education teachers throughout the state, greater dyslexia instruction for teachers and screening at earlier ages, an expansion of after school and summer programs for students on the edge, an expansion of diversity in classroom libraries to increase student interest in reading, and increasing pre-school access to all. 

“There is nothing more important to literacy achievement than an extra year of education in that 0 to 5 year period of time, it is enormously supported in research,” Rice said, “Supporting the Governor’s call to have all four year old children having access to at least a year of high quality preschool, it’s not just supported relative to educational outcomes, but also life outcomes.” 

While supporting Senate Bill 12 to remove the requirement of retention, Rice acknowledged that to remove the requirement for retention in the law does not mean that children can’t be retained, but it does mean that the default is no longer retention of third grade students, prior to a consideration of good cause exemptions.