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Michigan education advocates and leaders urged the Senate Education Committee Tuesday to pass a bill to remove the controversial retention component from the state鈥檚 Read by Grade 3 law.

, sponsored by Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Dayna Polehanki (D-Livonia), aims to reform Michigan鈥檚 third-grade reading law by removing a mandate that requires schools retain third-grade students who are a grade level or more behind in reading based on the English Language Arts portion of the state鈥檚 standardized test, the M-STEP.

The bill passed out of the committee Tuesday and will next go to the full Senate. All Democrats on the committee voted to advance the bill, while Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) voted no and Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Groveland Twp.) passed on the vote.

The current , which was signed by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, also includes required interventions for struggling students, like literacy coaches and individualized learning plans. 

鈥淭he Read by Grade 3 law simply requires too much time spent justifying a determination of retention or not at the expense of focus on the children鈥檚 literacy needs in early elementary,鈥� said Michigan Department of Education Superintendent Michael Rice.

Rice, as well as other advocates for SB 12 who spoke to the committee, said there are some aspects to the current Read by Grade 3 law that they like, such as adding literacy coaches to schools, reading intervention services and evidence-based curricula and instructional services.

鈥淲hile we agree with the student reading support in the Read by Grade 3 law and other efforts to improve literacy, we are strongly opposed to the retention requirements,鈥� Rice said.

Rice also noted that repealing the retention component of the law 鈥渄oes not remove the ability to retain children in extraordinary circumstances.鈥�

鈥淭he most recent meta analysis on retention shows that there is actually zero effect on student achievement,鈥� said , director of Michigan State University鈥檚 Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC). 

Strunk notes that other studies show that students who are retained early in their education have lower social-emotional development, increased likelihood of disciplinary incidents, lower graduation rates and a higher likelihood of criminal activity later in life.

Strunk also cited a recent EPIC  that shows retention-eligible Black students were retained at higher rates than students of any other race or ethnicity in 2021-22 and were 2.4 times as likely to retain Black than white students.

The 2021-22 school year was the first year the law was in effect after being  a year due to concerns about COVID-19-related learning loss and a temporary federal waiver of standardized testing in March 2020. 

Retention-eligibility rates increased from 4.8% in the 2020-21 school year to 5.8% in the 202-22 school year. Despite nearly 6% of third graders flagged as retention-eligible, districts retained just .6%, or 545 students, of all tested students.

鈥淭he current law is one of the most inequitable education policies we have in place right now,鈥� said William Weir, a retired Detroit middle school teacher and member of 482Forward, a Detroit-based education advocacy group. 鈥淎nd the fact that this law is being applied disproportionately to Black and low-income students should be an immediate red flag showing that it needs reform.鈥�

Not everyone supported the change.

Damoose said during Tuesday鈥檚 committee hearing that now 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 seem to be the time to do anything to weaken our standards or limit accountability.鈥�

鈥淏ut I鈥檓 also concerned with schools鈥� abilities to provide these effective interventions,鈥� Damoose said. 鈥淗ow conceivable is it that schools even have the resources to provide effective individual intervention and tutoring?鈥�

Strunk said a partial solution to that problem would be to address the leaky teacher pipeline and invest in schools to make education a desirable profession for teachers and literacy coaches.

Education advocates across Michigan applauded the committee for taking action to repeal the retention component of the law.

鈥淲e鈥檙e encouraged by Sen. Dayna Polehanki鈥檚 leadership on this critical issue. As a teacher, Sen. Polehanki knows first-hand that a one-size-fits-all approach to retention is not sound education policy,鈥� said Peter Spadafore, executive director of the Michigan Alliance for Student Opportunity. 鈥淭he decision to retain a student should be made by parents, teachers and local education professionals, not by heavy-handed state laws that disregard the needs of the student.鈥�

Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan said Tuesday that 鈥渂y removing the law鈥檚 focus on punishing students that have fallen behind and allowing educators to instead partner with parents to design a recovery plan specific to their student, we will help kids across Michigan learn, grow and succeed once again.鈥�

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