New LEAP tests results – showing a decline in literacy – have one state lawmaker saying “I told you so”, after his literacy & retention bill failed to pass this year. Mandeville Republican Representative Richard Nelson’s bill to hold 3rd graders back a year if they continuously failed reading assignments failed to win passage. He says, despite objections from colleagues, the same law worked in our neighbor to the east.
“It was modeled off a bill Mississippi brought, and a program they instituted in 2013 that’s been very successful…and as a result, they’ve gone from actually below us in their 4th grade reading scores, to kind of blowing us out of the water,” Nelson says.
The LEAP results show 41-percent of 4th grade students read below their grade level. Mississippi adopted the same law in 2013, and has seen its students excel and surpass Louisiana’s in literacy. Nelson says it’s imperative that reading-challenged students get the help they need before they leave 3rd grade.
“They really don’t teach reading from 4th grade through graduation. You’re just going to struggle the whole time. Research shows that a lot of those kids end up dropping out if they can’t read successfully. And so, it just causes a lot of problems throughout society.”
Under Nelson’s proposal, 3rd graders held back due to literacy would get intensive instructional help to assure they were prepared, and have the reading proficiency to move up in grade level. Critics argued the law would unfairly punish minority students, but Nelson says the bill would have done just the opposite.
“If you look at the data, this is really the best way to HELP those struggling students to get the help they need to target the actual problem…so that they can read, and actually excel later in life.”
Nelson’s bill failed by a narrow margin, and he says he WILL bring it back in the next legislative session.
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