Lawmakers tweak 3rd-grade reading proficiency law

DES MOINES - The Iowa House voted 97-0 to approve changes in how students underperforming in reading proficiency are evaluated before they are required to repeat third grade.

Between 20 percent and 25 percent of Iowa third-graders last school year failed reading tests required under the state's reading and retention law, according to the Iowa Department of Education. Those results came from the first school year in which schools were required to give new reading tests to students in kindergarten through third grade.

Beginning in the spring of 2017, parents, teachers and others will meet to determine a plan to aid any student deemed 'persistently at risk in reading” - a change from 'substantially deficient” - at the end of third grade. That likely would include an intensive summer school program, said Rep. Quentin Stanerson, R-Center Point.

HF 2413 calls for the student to receive 'intensive reading instruction,” including periodic universal screening and annual testing, before the child is retained in third grade. If parents don't send their child to summer school, the student would repeat third grade, Stanerson said.

Funding for the summer programs will be addressed by the governor and lawmakers next year, ahead of the 2017 implementation of the requirement.

Also Monday, the House:

' Voted 74-23 to remove the requirement that vintage vehicles, as defined by Iowa law, have a front license plate. 'It's a pretty big thing when it comes to collector cars,” said Rep. Josh Byrnes, R-Osage.

Opposition came from law enforcement groups. Car dealers and rental car companies supported the change.

Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, a retired Iowa State Patrol trooper, warned the bill is the first step in trying to make the front plate exemption universal.

' Voted 95-0 to establish clear criteria for terminating parental rights of a rapist when the rape results in a pregnancy.

' Split largely along party lines, 54-43, on HF 2390, an attempt to require the Board of Regents to follow a state law regulating competitive bids for public improvement contracts.

The board has claimed it is exempt from the law that requires boards and commissions to follow a traditional 'design-bid-build” process, which obliges an engineer or architect to prepare plans and specifications, estimate project costs and then make those plans and costs available to other bidders interested in building the project.