Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA)

The Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA) is a Mississippi law that was introduced and passed in 2013 in Mississippi, focusing on improving early literacy, particularly in children before the end of third grade. The law mandated that students with low test scores had to receive specialized instruction aimed at improving their literacy. The primary objective of this law was to withhold students who were in third grade who were not up to grade-level literacy levels. This was combined with substantial efforts to focus on students who were behind grade-level literacy in grades K-3. Additionally, instructors were mandated to create Individual Reading Plans for each student who was struggling, which outlined which skills were lacking and how the instructor could work with the student's guardian to ensure that the student could rise to grade-level literacy:.

The law was created out of the desire to improve the reading scores of students in the state. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in 2013, Mississippi was ranked 49th in reading and 50th in math among students at grade four in the U.S.; In 2024, 11 years later, they are 9th in reading and 16th in math . These considerable improvements in youth education across Mississippi became known as the Mississippi Miracle.

Provisions

Mississippi Senate Bill 2347 (2013)

SB 2347 Section 1

The first section of Senate Bill 2347 lays the foundation for the educational promotion titled the "Literacy-Based Promotion Act". The first section is divided into four subsections, each of which aims to center academic progression through literacy proficiency.

1. States that each public school must make efforts to make sure that students in grades K-3 become proficient in reading. Additionally, guardians of the student must be "informed of the student's academic progress".
2. Mississippi public school students who perform worse than expected on their reading scores must receive specialized, literacy-based instruction.
3. Mississippi public schools must administer a reading assessment within the first 30 days of the school year to the student body. Students will be considered reading deficient if they have poor performance on the reading assessment or poor performance on another reading assessment, with substandard reading skills observed by the instructor. Students identified as reading deficient must receive additional support to improve their literacy. Students who showed deficient reading skills may be required to retake the reading assessment halfway through the year. If they continue to test below grade-level, then the student may be required to retake the assessment again at the end of the year.
4. The students who receive additional support must receive instructions specific to their reading deficiency which has been indicated by the reading assessment.

SB 2347 Section 2

This section defined the required information that must be relayed to the parent or legal guardian of a student who has tested to have a reading deficiency in K-12. The parent or legal guardian must receive the following information:

• The student is recognized to have a reading deficiency.
• The current tactics the school is using to educate the students.
• The additional instruction the student will receive to combat their identified reading deficiency.
• If the reading deficiency is not corrected by the end of third grade, they will be prohibited from advancing to grade four.
• Methods the parent or legal guardian can use to foster students' literacy skills.
• Even if the student is identified to have a reading deficiency according to the reading assement, there are alternative ways the student can advance to grade 4. For example, via alternative assessments.

SB 2347 Section 3

Mississippi must create a Mississippi Reading Panel that works along with the states Department of Education to make decisions that help integrate this law and its numerous provitions into public schools. The Mississippi Reading Panel must create alternative assessments that can be used to justify a student's promotion to the fourth grade. They must also determine which schools are most in need of literacy-promotion and help take steps to transition those schools into instructing this Reading Intervention Program. The panel must consist of the six following members:

• The State Superintendent of Education or someone appointed by the State Superintendent of Education. They will represent the Chair of the Panel.
• The Chair of the House Education Committee or someone appointed by the Chair of the House Education Committee
• The Chair of the Senate Education Committee or someone appointed by the Chair of the Senate Education Committee
• Someone appointed by the Governor
• Two members appointed by the State Superintendent of Education.

SB 2347 Section 4

The Mississippi Department of Education must create a standard used to measure which schools are most in need of literary intervention based on the two lowest levels of the reading assessment that will aid the Mississippi Reading Panel in selecting schools that will follow the Reading Intervention Program. They must also assign a position within each of the selected schools that will help in administering the Reading Intervention Program.

SB 2347 Section 5

Mississippi public schools must not assign grade levels based solely on age or other societal factors. Additionally, if the student continues to have a reading deficiency (according to the reading assessment or alternative criterion) by the end of third grade, they will not be allowed to advance to fourth grade.

SB 2347 Section 6

The section outlines numerous other ways that students who continue to have a reading deficiency even after the third grade may be promoted to fourth grade. This excpetional case is defined as "good cause," and it can be achieved in multiple ways. Exceptions are made for students who:

• Students whose primary language is not English and have less than two years of instruction in an English Language Learner (ELL) program.
• Students with disabilities whose education is specialized outside of the Reading Intervention Program.
• Students with disabilities who are in the Reading Intervention Program but have had two or more years of "intensive remediation in reading".
• Students who have shown grade-level proficiency in reading via other standardized testing.
• Students who have received two or more years of specialized instruction and have been held back for two years in K-3.

Any student who takes this alternative path to fourth grade must continue to receive specialized reading instruction.

This section also outlines a way that a parent or guardian can petition the school to allow their student to move on to fourth grade by providing documentation that proves that they qualify for one of the aforementioned exceptions. After review by the principal and superintendent, the student may be recommended to advance to fourth grade. The parent or guardian can also choose to keep the student in the third grade for one additional year, even if one of the previous exceptions applies.

SB 2347 Section 7

Mississippi public schools must make additional efforts to ensure that students who are kept from advancing to fourth grade are progressing towards grade-level proficiency in reading. These additional efforts are as follows:

• For a minimum of 90 minutes, during the duration of a regular school day, each student still showing signs of reading deficiencies must be given supplementary reading instructions. These instructions must have a focus on "phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, and other strategies prescribed by the school district"
• Schools must notify the parent or legal guardian of the student why they were held back, why the student does not qualify for the good cause exception, and what methods the school will use to improve the literacy of the kept student.
• Reading-deficient students must be placed under instruction with a "high-performing teacher", defined as teachers whose students score above average reading scores.
• Schools must involve the parent or legal guardian of the reading-deficient student by creating a "Read at Home" plan and providing it to the parent or legal guardian.

SB 2347 Section 8

Any student who is being kept in third grade and has been kept previously in any grade K-12 must be placed into an "intensive acceleration class". This class must aim to improve the students' reading level by two levels in one year.

SB 2347 Section 9

After the end of the school year, the school board of each school district must publish a report containing the following content:

• The strategies they use to determine which students should be kept back at their current grade level.
• Test score data for each grade level.
• The number of students kept from advancing to the next grade level, K-8.
• The number of students who advanced to the next grade level based on good cause.
• Any changes in the approach to the reading intensive program compared to the previous year

SB 2347 Section 10

This section outlines instructions for the State Board of Education, the State Department of Education, and each school district. The State Board of Education must make rules to implement the intensive program, the State Department of Eduction must help train teachers and implement the program into schools, and each Mississippi public school district must update their policies to include the reading intensive program.

SB 2347 Section 11

Simply mentions that the provisions in this law are subject to legislative funding and approval.

SB 2347 Section 12

This section updated the current Mississippi Compulsory School Attendance Law to include five-year-old children already attending public kindergarten.

SB 2347 Section 13

The provisions stated in the various sections are to be implemented after the passing of this law.

Mississippi Senate Bill 2157 (2016)

The core of this amendment to the LBPA is adding an "Individual Reading Plan" (IRP). This is designed to create a document that outlines the specific categories the student is struggling in, and methods that the instructor will use to tackle the students challenges.

SB 2157 Section 1

This section of the bill requires schools to create an IRP for each student who has a reading deficiency. The document must contain:

• The particular skills that the student is deficient in.
• Goals for the student to reach.
• How they measure progress.
• The specialized instruction that the student will receive.
• Methods that will be used to tackle "the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, 47 vocabulary and comprehension."
• Steps that parent or legal guardian can take to help the struggling student.

SB 2157 Section 2

When a parent or legal guardian is notified of their student's reading deficiency, the notification must also include the Individual Reading Plan document.

SB 2157 Section 3

This section made minor changes in the phrasing of the law to clarify the assessments and tools the Mississipi Reading Panel may use.

SB 2157 Section 4

Broadened the definition of a reading deficiency to also include students who score in the two lowest levels of the reading assessment.

SB 2157 Section 5

Students who advanced to the fourth grade via good cause are required to have an IRP.

SB 2157 Section 6

Required that the methods of instruction are those that are outlined in the IRP.

SB 2157 Section 7

States the provisions in this bill begin July 1, 2016.

History and Ratification Process

Senate Bill 2347 (SB 2347), whose principal author is Angela Burks Hill, was referred to the Education Committee in the Mississippi House of Representatives on January 21, 2013. The original version of the bill centered around prohibiting any student in the third grade from moving onto grade four until the student "reads at or above grade level". The bill proposed many provisions that aimed at improving literacy among students to ensure that they are able to move on to the fourth grade. On February 7, 2013, the Mississippi Senate Education Committee substituted the original bill with a version that included provisions to amend the existing Mississippi Compulsory School Attendance Law— which defines absences, consequences for absences, school staff positions, and who is responsible for "compulsory-school-age children"—to apply to five-year-olds who are enrolled in public kindergarten. On that same day, the bill passed unanimously in the state Senate, and the next day it was passed on to the Mississippi House Education Committee.

The Mississippi House made amendments to SB 2347 before sending it back to the Senate for concurrence, but it was then denied by the state Senate. In April, a conference committee was created so that the two chambers of the Mississippi Congress could concur and settle on a version of SB 2347 that they could pass. Over the course of late February and Early March, they made modifications to the bill before it finally passed in both chambers on April 8, 2013, and was sent to the Governor.

The version of the bill that was passed in the state Congress included the following modifications

• Added Section 4, which mandated the State Department of Education to select the lowest performing schools and prioritize them first, as well as create a "supervisory position" at each selected school to implement the intervention program.
• Modified Section 10, which mandated the State Department of Education to also train teachers and other staff in ways that may help with the intervention program.
• Add Section 11, which mentions that the clauses in sections 1-10 are subject to funding from the state Senate.
• Modify Section 13 so that the act must take action immediately after passing instead of on July 1, 2013.

On April 18, 2013, SB 2347 was approved and signed by the then-Mississippi governor Phil Bryant.

In 2016, Senate Bill 2157 (SB 2157) was introduced with the goal of amending the original Literacy-Based Promotion Act and adding more guidelines to help instructors facilitate an environment that improves student literacy. The bill quickly passed in the state Senate, was ammended by the state House, and then passed again in the state Senate before being approved by the governor on April 20, 2016.

The core of SB 2157 revolved around the creation of the Individual Reading Plan document for each student who required additional literary help. Instructors were required to document the following

• Which categories is the student struggling in
• Literary goals
• A plan to reach those goals
• How progress will be measured
• "The research-based reading instructional programming the teacher will use to provide reading instruction, addressing the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension"
• How the student's guardian is recommended to assist in the student's learning

SB 2157 also required that when a student is withheld from moving on to fourth grade, their parent or legal guardian must receive this report for their child.

References

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