COLUMBUS – Education officials, teachers and lawmakers are calling for the end of mandatory retention tied to Ohio’s Third-Grade Reading Guarantee because they say research shows it doesn’t help.
State legislators and the Ohio Board of Education are both considering measures that call for the provision to be eliminated.
The head of the state’s largest teachers’ union argues that keeping kids from advancing to fourth grade based on a test score drives a wedge between parents and teachers.
“It’s an outside hammer that gets in the way of true collaboration between the people who know those children best, along with the parent and the child. This policy is fundamentally disrespectful of the expertise of educators,” Ohio Education Association president Scott DiMauro said.
The OEA hosted a panel discussion Monday calling on lawmakers to end mandatory retention tied to third-grade standardized testing in Ohio.
Under the standard enacted in 2012, a student who fails to meet a minimum score on the state’s third-grade English language arts assessment cannot be promoted to the fourth grade.
Educators say Ohio’s reading score on the national assessments has remained stagnant since 2002, with a decline in years prior to the pandemic.
“Through data provided by the Ohio Department of Education, we now know retention has failed as an initiative and has, in fact, hurt children more than helped,” said Dr. Christina Collins, a member of the Ohio State Board of Education who put forth the board resolution calling on the General Assembly to change the law.
A bipartisan bill eliminating mandatory retention was passed by the Ohio House in June. The Senate must take up the bill and pass it when lawmakers return to session later this fall.