The Alaska State Senate unanimously passed the Alaska Reads Act Tuesday, a comprehensive education bill designed to increase the student reading outcomes by third grade.<\/p>\n
“(Senate Bill 111) was not a rushed effort but used the last eight years of work,” said Sen. Roger Holland, R-Anchorage, chairman of the Senate Education Committee. “The result is a compromise that garners support from across the political spectrum.”<\/p>\n
The act creates three-year grants for school districts to establish pre-K programs, establishes a screening and intervention process for students’ reading skills and offers additional financial support to struggling districts.<\/p>\n
The Department of Education and Early Development is required to assess the programs annually, and all the programs within the act will automatically end after 10 years.<\/p>\n
Under the law, the state will be required to hire and retain reading specialists, increase teacher training on reading instruction and provide a screening tool to help identify students who are struggling with reading and allows for interventions strategies such as customized reading plans.<\/p>\n
The law would also allow the state to hold underperforming students back a grade, but allows for mid-year promotions if students’ performance increases.<\/p>\n
The bill now heads to the House.<\/p>\n
The Alaska Reads Act was originally introduced in 2020 — a joint effort between Senate Minority Leader Tom Begich, D-Anchorage, and Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy — and creates several programs focused on improving reading. That bill wasn’t passed during the session and the bill had to be re-submitted in 2021, when a competing reading bill from Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, was also introduced.<\/p>\n
The two bills were eventually combined into the bill passed Tuesday which at the start of the Senate floor session was known as the Academic Improvement and Modernization <\/a>Act<\/a>. The only amendment to the bill was from Begich renaming the bill the Alaska Reads Act, which passed without objection.<\/p>\n Senators voted unanimously for the bill, though four members of the body were absent; Sens. Donny Olson, D-Golovin; Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River; Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, and Natasha von Imhof, R-Anchorage.<\/p>\n