A 2012 Iowa law calls for third graders to repeat the grade if they are poor readers, but the policy wasn’t scheduled to go into effect until 2017. Senator Rita Hart, a Democrat from Wheatland, doesn’t want it to happen next year either. She says “state-ordered retention” is wrong.
Senator Bill Dotzler (DOTS-ler), a Democrat from Waterloo who is dyslexic, cried during a speech on the senate floor as he talked about being forced to repeat the fourth grade.
A bipartisan committee of House and Senate members last week voted to delay until 2018 the requirement of summer school for lagging third grade readers, because there’s no money in the budget for it. That means no third grader in Iowa would be forced to repeat third grade until the fall of 2018 if LEGISLATORS get their way. Tests last fall found nearly 25 percent of Iowa third graders cannot read at grade level.
