Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A plan to raise reading requirements for third-graders survived the Mississippi Senate by one vote Wednesday.

Senators voted 25-24 to pass Senate Bill 2157, which would require third-graders to score higher than they have to now on a reading test to advance to fourth grade.

The bill was held over for more debate in the Senate before it moves to the House, which is considering its own proposal.

State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright wants to raise requirements because students now must score at only a basic level, meaning some pass without reading proficiently.

"We'd like all our students to be reading," said Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, R-Oxford.

Some Republican senators oppose the bill because it writes current reading teacher training into law, allowing the state to contract with the provider without seeking competing proposals.

"We're going to codify a specific vendor?" asked Sen. Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula. "This would exempt them from a (request for proposals) moving forward."

After the vote, Tollison said the state Department of Education had asked for the vendor to be written into law, after a third-party study found the training has been effective.

Many Democrats oppose the bill because they're worried that many children will fail, especially if the state doesn't spend more money on tutoring and improving reading instruction. The new rule would begin for current kindergartners, who would be third-graders in spring 2019.

At least 92 percent of third-graders scored at or above the basic level required after retests last spring, and local districts may have promoted additional students to fourth grade using legal exemptions. Republican Gov. Phil Bryant has repeatedly hailed the third-grade reading law as a success.

The higher bar could catch many more third-graders. Scores from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of Colleges and Careers test given to Mississippi third-graders last spring suggest the number in danger of scoring in the lowest two tiers could be about 35 percent. That could change because Mississippi is adopting a new test this year and must still set scoring expectations.