The Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) announced on December 5 that it has informed 85 school districts and charter schools about the status of their waiver applications for state-approved reading models for kindergarten through third-grade education. A minority of the programs the state has issued a determination on were approved.
Of those school districts, 17 met expectations or had their plans approved. An additional four partially met expectations, meaning they must add an additional component to their program. CSDE labeled the plans of 39 schools and school districts as transitional, meaning they must add or substitute specific components of their proposed curriculums. A further 25 plans were not approved.
Schools and school districts submitted the waiver applications along with evidence demonstrating their reading curriculum programs are “robust alternatives” to programs approved by CSDE’s Center for Literacy Research and Reading Success in keeping with Connecticut’s Right to Read law.
Passed in June 2021 as part of the 2021 biennium budget implementer bill, the Right to Read law requires local and regional education boards to “implement a reading curriculum model or program for grades prekindergarten to grade three.”
The law required the Center for Literacy Research and Reading Success to approve at least five reading curriculum models that are evidence based and focused on competency in oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, rapid automatic name or letter name fluency, and reading comprehension by July 1, 2022.
All schools are required to partially implement a reading curriculum by July 1, 2024, and fully implement a curriculum by July 1, 2025.
Currently, CSDE has approved nine plans that meet expectations, including plans from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw Hill. The department has also approved 10 compendium programs.
For a literacy plan to be approved, programs must meet requirements such as aligning to Connecticut’s Core Standards for English language arts (ELA), providing clear teacher instructions, engaging all learners in explicit instructions using frequent opportunities to practice, being accessible to all students, offering a variety of assessment opportunities, and including research showing their effectiveness. Programs that receive an overall rating of meets or partially meets expectations are considered for approval.
CSDE’s most recent round of waiver rulings came after a “thorough review” by Public Consulting Group reading research experts. The process also involved one-on-one interviews with school district representatives. The recent waiver review process resulted in the number of approved reading curriculum models being expanded.
When the Right to Read law goes into full effect in 2025, school districts will be required to submit comprehensive reports of their literacy programs every two years.
CSDE reported in a press release announcing the waiver notices that 2022-2023 data showed 54.5 percent of third-grade students are not proficient in ELA.
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