LANSING – On Wednesday the House Education Committee sent to the full House one of the most sweeping reforms of the state’s schools: a package of bills that would affect every school by requiring the retention of third-graders who do not test proficient in reading and creating a letter grading system of the state’s schools.

HB 5111 , the third-grade retention bill, as well as companion legislation HB 5144 , which would require a variety of reading programs to help students before the third grade, received votes of 10-3 and 15-0.

On the first bill, Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton (D-Huntington Woods), Rep. Theresa Abed (D-Grand Ledge) and Rep. David Knezek (D-Dearborn Heights) voted no. Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills), Thomas Hooker (R-Byron Center), Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) and Collene Lamonte (D-Montague) abstained. On the second bill McMillin and Abed abstained. There are a total of 17 members of the committee.

The approved H-1 substitute version of HB 5111 would first affect those in first grade in the 2014-15 school year once they reach the third grade, and allows the public school district board or academy board to permit a student to enter the fourth grade with an insufficient reading score based on good cause, including if the student has a disability or performs proficiently in a different approved reading exam.

“Of all the reforms we’ve done over the last couple of years, the one that will be the most transformational in a student’s life, I think will be this reading bill,” said Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons (R-Alta), chair of the committee. “We put a lot of emphasis in making sure there is early intervention and detection for students who are going to need extra help in reading.”

Rep. Thomas Stallworth III (D-Detroit) sponsored HB 5144, which would deal with the early intervention, and require the Department of Education to recommend or develop reading programs to help improve proficiency in elementary students’ reading.

“One of the most important tasks for a child is to become a good reader so they can succeed in school, and in the workplace and pass on this critical skill to their own children,” Stallworth said in a statement. “Sadly, too many Michigan children, and too many students in my district’s schools, score poorly on our reading assessment test.”

HB 5112 and HB 4154 would repeal the department’s accreditation program and create a letter grading system for the state’s schools, and were sent to the full House with votes of 11-4 and a 17-0. Brinks and Lamonte abstained. McMillin, Hooker, Lipton and Abed voted no on the first bill.

The approved H-3 substitute version of HB 5112 would allow the department to create other grading systems, remove the bell curve the bill as initially introduced required, provide a transparency dashboard to be posted on the department’s website and allow the department to still identify reward, priority and focus schools as required by the U.S. Department of Education.

The metrics for K-8 schools when determining the letter grade would be 50 percent student proficiency, 25 percent student growth for all students and 25 percent student growth for those students in the bottom 30 percent. For high school students, 50 percent would come from proficiency, 25 percent from student growth in the bottom 30 percent and 25 percent from graduation rates.

“It strikes a nice balance with transparency on issues or areas that parents might care about that may not be a part of the letter grading,” Lyons said. “But it also provides the accountability and the simplicity of a letter grade versus a color, which I think is very important.”

Also on Wednesday, the bills were put on Second Reading, with a vote possible as early as Thursday. Lyons said there is still some work to do before the bills get a vote in the full House.

“The magnitude of the reform is very large, it’s the right reform, the issue is right,” she said. “But we do need to make sure out members are informed as to what’s really in the bill we’ve heard a lot of opposition from back home in the district. But that’s opposition from what … how (the bills) were initially introduced.”

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