In elementary school classrooms across Michigan this month, teachers are scrutinizing students to gauge their understanding of words, sentences and meanings.

They are trying to answer a critical question: Can this child read?

In recent years, the answer more often than not, has been no. At least not at a level that the state considers proficient.

Test scores released last month show that 55% of third graders didn't meet state standards for reading, a deficiency that hamstrings learning not only in language, but in other subjects that are acquired by reading textbooks.

A new law targets that deficiency with an ultimatum of sorts: Learn or else.

Third-graders who can't read at state standards after this school year could be forced to repeat the grade, a prospect that worries educators, parents and students alike.

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Schools are trying to limit the number of children held back by retraining teachers, adding literacy coaches, giving extra help to struggling students and reaching out to parents to alert them to the law's potential and enlist them in the effort to improve literacy.

Supporters say those efforts are proof the law is forcing schools to place increased emphasis on early literacy.

"Educators are digging down and understanding now, not only the law, but how to improve literacy on a system-wide basis," said former state Rep. Amanda Price, R-Park Township, who sponsored the bill that was signed into law in 2016 and takes full effect this year. "There's some really cool stuff going on around the state and the places that are doing cool stuff on literacy, I'm really seeing improvement."

But most educators oppose the approach. They acknowledge that Michigan must boost literacy, but they argue retention is not the answer.

"We agree with the majority of the law except for the retention," said Detroit School Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. "Right now, I think a lot of people in the education community are feeling the same way."

Vitti said the law places too much emphasis on the state reading test.

"It's punitive on the student side," he said. "That just contradicts what we know as best practice and really what's best for children. We should never use a standardized test as a way to punish children."

Need to improve

No one denies the need to boost literacy in Michigan schools.

In Detroit Public Schools Community District, 11.9% of third graders passed the reading portion of the test. In Pontiac, 12.2% passed. In Mount Clemens, the figure was 9.6%.

Many outstate schools struggled as well. In Monroe Public Schools, 27.4% passed. In Caseville in the Thumb, 34.3% passed. In the Upper Peninsula's Ontonagon Area Schools, 37.5% passed.

The debate has been over the best way to improve.

"We believe in the spirit or the intention of the law to increase our students' literacy skill," said Pam Fry, executive director of curriculum in the Warren Consolidated School District in Macomb County, where 39.2% of third graders are proficient. "We do believe that that part of the law has been very beneficial for the students. One part of the law we completely disagree with is the retention piece, because there is no research out there that shows that retaining third graders will increase their literacy."

Wiggle room

Despite the low passage rates on the test, state education officials don't expect huge numbers of children to be retained, said William DiSessa, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education.

The mandatory retention portion of the law applies only to students who are more than a year behind. The test is administered annually in April, so a student approaching the end of third grade would have to be reading at a level of a second-grader to be flagged as a potential hold-back.

"The law does include some wiggle room," DiSessa said. "The original legislation going back was pretty punitive or harsh in nature. It was basically, if you weren't proficient, you were going to be held back. We thought that those decisions should be done on a case-by-case basis."

DiSessa said the ultimate decision on whether to hold back a student will be made by the superintendent of the school district, who can use what the law calls "good faith exemptions."

Among the exemptions are for students who:

Are enrolled in special education with an individualized education plan.

Have limited English with less than three years of instruction in an English language learner program.

Been enrolled in their current school for less than two years and evidence that the child was not provided with an individual reading improvement plan.

Parents and teachers also must agree to retain a student.

"We are actively going to use the exemption that a parent and or a teacher have to agree with the retention," Vitti said.

Some kids do poorly on standardized tests so districts also can use other measures. They can compile a portfolio of work from the student in a variety of subjects that can qualify them for an exemption as well.

Vitti said that this year's test data shows about 20% of Detroit third graders would initially be identified for possible retention for being more than year behind.

When the English language learners, the special ed students and students previously retained are taken out of that group, the number shrinks considerable.

"So we've had about 3% of third graders historically being retained, I think we'll end up at that 3% to 5% number," Vitti said.

Other districts said the same thing.

"We will be utilizing all of the good cause exemption provisions to support placement of our learners in grade four next year, while continuing the myriad interventions based on their needs," said Livonia Public Schools Superintendent Andrea Oquist.

In Livonia, about 56% of third graders passed the test and the district is providing additional support to the rest. Oquist doesn't anticipate holding kids back.

"The detrimental impact of retaining a third grade child is significant, with long range implications for their future as a student and as a citizen," she said.

Gabriel Dellavecchia is a doctoral student in education at the University of Michigan who co-founded Don't Leave Us Behind, an advocacy group that opposes mandatory retention. He agrees with Oquist.

"Retention has a long and inglorious history, so there is a deep and consistent body of research on it stretching back over 90 years," Dellavecchia said. "The great bulk of research on retention says that it is a neutral intervention, at best, and harmful, at worst."

Dellavecchia said retention should be one option to improve performance, but it shouldn't be mandatory.

Other ways to improve

Schools across the state have been beefing up their efforts to boost literacy to get ahead of the retention mandate.

The state has provided about $20 million a year in grants for districts to provide additional instruction time to students. Another $7 million a year goes to pay for literacy coaches who help kids learn to read. The state also has provided about $9 million to pay for reading assessments.

Educators say the money can help, but it doesn't come close to covering the additional costs they've incurred trying to boost literacy.

The districts have been hiring literacy coaches who specialize in teaching reading to young kids. They've developed individual plans for kids to improve their reading. They've reached out to parents, in some cases providing books to them to read to their children, all in an effort to improve the numbers.

In some higher performing districts, those steps have been in place for years. In Lake Orion Public Schools in Oakland County, 73.5% of third graders passed the state test. The district's director of curriculum, Kerri Anderson, credits early help for the numbers.

"Lake Orion has done a really nice job with intervening with students at an early age," she said. "Students who might be struggling in reading, we get support for them early, kindergarten, first and second grade. So this implementing the law hasn't been a huge issue for us."

Anderson said the biggest change in her district has been the creation of the individual reading plans and alerting parents within 30 days of school starting.

"That's not the first thing you want to show a kindergarten parent is, 'Oh, look, they didn't score well,' " Anderson said. "But now we're bound to by law to say, 'yes, here it is.' "

Detroit schools conducted dozens of community meetings in recent months to alert parents to the impact of the law.

"I think there's a general awareness that there is a law, and that is connected to reading and that there's this retention component of it," said April Imperio, executive direct of K12 literacy and early learning for the Detroit Public Schools Community District. "A lot of times, parents are feeling fear, like, 'how is this going to impact my child?' And then there's a lot of curiosity around, 'what are you doing as a district?' And, 'what can I do with my family in order to to ensure that my child is reading on grade level?' "

While Detroit's scores remain low, they rose last year at a rate that outpaced most the average growth around the state. Imperio credits the district's revamped curriculum and increased training for teachers for moving the numbers.

Think, pair, share

Michelle Ballard teaches third grade at the Charles H. Wright Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Detroit public school near Seven Mile and Telegraph.

During a lesson Friday morning, she urged students to think, pair and share.

"Think about the learning target, pair it with information you already have and share it with your partner," she told about two dozen students in her second-floor classroom.

She posted a paragraph on her board and underscored two words: "notice" and "wonder." Students were asked to figure out the meaning of the words, discuss it with a friend and then share it with the class.

The kids quickly figured it out, and then she used a smart board to get them to string together concepts. She posted a photo of a group of children, then a birthday cake and then a party hat.

She asked the students to make an inference about what the pictures meant when considered them as a group.

"One of the children is having a birthday party," a child answered.

"That's right," she said. "You're making an inference."

Ballard has been teaching for almost 28 years and her school, Charles H. Wright, has improved at a faster ran than any other school in the district in recent years.

In 2017, 24.8% of students there passed the state reading test. Last year, 29.6% passed. This year, 48.6% passed.

Ballard said retaining students might be appropriate in kindergarten through second grade, but even then, it would be better to provide additional support to those children so they don't have to be retained.

"Do I think that there is an appropriate time to hold children back? Yes," she said. "Do I think third grade is that appropriate time? No. The third grade is a bridge year. It's the year where students are ending that learning to read, and they're beginning reading to learn."

Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely