(1) The general assembly finds that:
(a) All students can succeed in school if they have the foundational skills
necessary for academic success. While foundational skills go beyond academic
skills to include such skills as social competence and self-discipline, they must also
include the ability to read, understand, interpret, and apply information.
(b) Colorado has prioritized early learning through its investments in the
Colorado preschool program, established in 1988, in the Colorado universal
preschool program, established in 2022, and full-day kindergarten, and the general
assembly recognizes that these investments can best be leveraged by adopting
policies that support a continuum of learning from preschool through third grade
and beyond;
(c) It is more cost-effective to invest in effective early literacy education
rather than to absorb costs for remediation in middle school, high school, and
beyond;
(d) A comprehensive approach to early literacy education can improve
student achievement, reduce the need for costly special education services, and
produce a better educated, more skilled, and more competitive workforce;
(e) An important partnership between a parent and child begins before the
child enters kindergarten, when the parent helps the child develop rich linguistic
experiences, including listening comprehension and speaking, that help form the
foundation for reading and writing, which are the main vehicles for content
acquisition;
(f) The greatest impact for ensuring student success lies in a productive
collaboration among parents, teachers, and schools in providing a child's education,
so it is paramount that parents are informed about the status of their children's
educational progress and that teachers and schools receive the financial resources
and other resources and support they need, including valid assessments,
instructional programming that is proven to be effective, and training and
professional development programs, to effectively teach the science of reading,
assess students' achievement, and enable each student to achieve the grade level
expectations for reading; and
(g) The state recognizes that the provisions of this part 12 are not a
comprehensive solution to ensuring that all students graduate from high school
ready to enter the workforce or postsecondary education, but they assist local
education providers in setting a solid foundation for students' academic success
and will require the ongoing commitment of financial and other resources from both
the state and local levels.
(1.5) (a) The general assembly further finds that:
(I) Reading is a critical skill that every child must develop early in the child's
educational career to be successful;
(II) Research shows that reading instruction that is focused around the
foundational reading skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary
development, reading fluency including oral skills, and reading comprehension is
highly effective in teaching young children to read;
(III) Section 15 of article IX of the state constitution grants to the elected
board of education in each school district the authority to have control of
instruction in the public schools of the school district, and section 16 of article IX of
the state constitution prohibits the general assembly and the state board of
education from prescribing the textbooks to be used in public schools;
(IV) However, section 2 of article IX of the state constitution requires the
general assembly to provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough
and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, and section 1 of
article IX of the state constitution vests the general supervision of the public
schools of the state in the state board of education;
(V) In interpreting these constitutional provisions, the Colorado supreme
court has found that, because they are competing interests, none are absolute;
these interests must be balanced to identify the contours of the responsibility
assigned to each entity; and
(VI) It is the general assembly that initially strikes this balance.
(b) The general assembly finds, therefore, that ensuring that each child has
access through the public schools to evidence-based reading instruction that is
focused on developing the foundational reading skills of phonemic awareness,
phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency including oral skills, and reading
comprehension is a significant component of ensuring that the system of free
public schools throughout the state is thorough and uniform. In exercising its
authority of general supervision of the public schools of the state, it is appropriate
that the state board of education, supported by the department of education, hold
local education providers accountable for demonstrating that the reading
instruction they provide is focused on these five foundational reading skills. And, in
maintaining control of the instruction in the classrooms of the public schools of
their respective school districts, it is appropriate that each school district board of
education select the core reading instructional programs and reading interventions
to be used in those public schools, so long as they are focused on phonemic
awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency including oral skills,
and reading comprehension to ensure that the students educated in the public
schools throughout the state consistently receive evidence-based instruction that
is proven to effectively teach children to read.
(2) It is therefore the intent of the general assembly that each local
education provider that enrolls students in kindergarten or first, second, or third
grade will work closely with the parents and teachers of these students to provide
the students the instructional programming, intervention instruction, and support,
at home and in school, necessary to ensure that students, by the completion of third
grade, can demonstrate a level of competency in reading skills that is necessary to
support them in achieving the academic standards and expectations applicable to
the fourth-grade curriculum. It is further the intent of the general assembly that
each local education provider adopt a policy whereby, if a student has a significant
reading deficiency at the end of any school year prior to fourth grade, the student's
parent and teacher and other personnel of the local education provider decide
whether the student should or should not advance to the next grade level based on
whether the student, despite having a significant reading deficiency, is able to
maintain adequate academic progress at the next grade level.
(3) The general assembly further finds that:
(a) The purpose of this part 12 is to provide students with the necessary
supports they need to be able to read with proficiency by third grade so that their
academic growth and achievement is not hindered by low literacy skills in fourth
grade and beyond;
(b) It is a priority in the public schools of Colorado to provide high-quality
instruction that enables each student to attain proficiency in English, regardless of
the student's native language;
(c) Research demonstrates that a person who has strong reading skills in one
language will more easily learn and become literate in a second language; and
(d) While the Colorado READ Act, this part 12, is not designed to measure
or support a student's acquisition of English as a second language, ensuring that a
student has strong reading skills in his or her native language by third grade will
help to ensure that the student will attain proficiency in English more quickly.