Education group official tells lawmakers retention program results ‘mixed’

DES MOINES - A controversial third-grade retention proposal continues to draw a critical eye from lawmakers, who are expected to wrap up work on their education reform plans in the coming weeks.

Members of the Senate Education Committee heard a presentation Wednesday from the vice president of the Education Commission of the States, who told committee members that results from states that have third-grade retention programs are “mixed” at best.

“You can have five experts all in the same room, and they'll all disagree,” said Kathy Christie, who serves as chief of staff for the nonpartisan commission.

Gov. Terry Branstad's education plan calls for a statewide reading initiative for early grades. A key component of his plan is a requirement that third-graders pass a reading assessment for promotion to fourth grade, based on a program initiated in Florida.

The House amendment to the governor's plan delays the implementation of the retention program until 2016. The delay, said Rep. Royd Chambers, R-Sheldon, is to give the state time to put in place underlying support systems for children who struggle with reading lessons.

The Senate package allows for retention, but mandates that teachers take into consideration other factors than the reading scores. The Senate plan also requires that a child's parent or guardian meets with school officials before the child is held back.

“I think what she said is very consistent with what we've heard from other sources,” said Sen. Herman Quirmbach, chairman of the Senate Education Committee. “The scientific result on third-grade retention is very mixed. There does seem to be a pretty strong consensus that early intervention is necessary and you need to identify problems early and do something and not wait until the third grade.”

Christie's presentation was offered as something of a counterpoint to an expert who testified in front of the House Education committee two weeks ago.

Matthew Ladner, senior adviser for policy and research for the Foundation of Excellence in Education, told House members that the reading retention program was a success and it raised reading scores in some instances by as much as 41 percent.

Quirmbach asked Christie if it was correct to place all the success of the Florida scores on the retention or if those could be attributed to any number of the programs that the state put in place.

“It's like if I have cold so I go to a full medicine cabinet and take one of each pill,” he said. “How can I tell which pill did the job? It's a question of causality.”

She responded that it is difficult to separate the programs. “Florida does good policy work, just straight forward,” she said. “It isn't so much the retention as the early identification and the immediate intervention.”