#3: Understanding Federal & State Literacy Legislation

Hi everybody, it’s me again, back with more information on literacy! This time we are tackling legislation. What laws currently exist that guide literacy instruction? How do we implement in the classroom? As a literacy specialist, it’s my job to be aware of all of the different literacy requirements. I’ll share with you a look at what is required, and how we can make that happen in our school. One thing that’s important to remember is that we need to look at both federal and state legislation as both have a say in their students’ educational experience. Because I live and work in Minnesota, I’ll focus on Minnesota’s state legislation in this post.

Here we go!

Federal Legislation:

The current federal legislation is called Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA), and was signed into law by President Obama in December of 2015. It replaced 2002’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Both acts had built on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.

Here are some highlights of ESSA:

• Protects disadvantaged and high needs students.
• All students are held to high standards.
• Annual statewide assessments are administered to provide progress updates to families, schools, and communities.
• Commits to high quality preschool.
• Ensures that low performing schools have a plan in place for positive change.

ESSA gives freedom to the states to make many decisions for themselves such as the development of high quality standards.

Here is a pamphlet from the U.S. Department of Education that does a great job explaining the requirements of ESSA and how it affects parents: https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/essa/essa-flex.pdf While it is written for parents, the simple question and answer format provides a great summary of this act without getting bogged down in all the minute details (that’s my job!).

The big ideas to remember are that each state is responsible for developing high quality standards and having an assessment system in place for those standards. The assessment results will determine if a school qualifies for improvement funds and programs. All results are communicated with families and the community.

Minnesota State Legislation:

Now that we have looked at the federal legislation, let’s see how MInnesota has chosen to follow ESSA.

One of Minnesota’s big goals is that all students will be reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade. In order to reach this goal, students will be monitored, and students not making adequate progress will be identified for additional interventions. These interventions should be specific to their personal gaps. All of this information is also required to be communicated with their families.

Does this sound unrealistic to you? Working in a middle school, I know that we have students in our classrooms who are reading below grade-level. So what are we going to do about that? Well, one provision is that schools need a local literacy plan for how we are going to bridge the gap. We also need to make sure that we are providing ample professional development opportunities for our teachers so that we are well versed in the latest best practices in literacy. That’s where I come in! Teachers will receive training on the different literacy areas such as fluency and vocabulary. I’ll also train teachers on evidence-based intervention strategies that can be used in the classroom.

References

Minnesota Legislature. (2018). Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Retrieved from https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/120b.12

U.S. Department of Education, & DeVos, B. (2018, August). Understanding the Every Student Succeeds Act: A parent’s guide to the nation’s landmark education law. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/essa/essa-flex.pdf

U.S. Department of Education. (2019). Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Retrieved from https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=policy