Arkansas 3rd-graders who fail literacy standards may be held back according to new public-school guidelines

Starting this fall, public schools in Arkansas may need to retain third-graders who cannot meet reading standards – although those “standards” haven’t been finalized, the state’s education department says.

“By the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, if a public school student has not met the third-grade reading standard, as defined by the state board, or the student does not have a good-cause exemption, as provided under this subsection, the student shall not be promoted to fourth grade,” states the LEARNS Act, which was passed in 2023.

However, strict proficiency standards could affect nearly two-thirds of the state’s third-grade population, notes Mary Hennigan for the Arkansas Times.

“This new requirement could have extreme implications, considering a 2024 assessment showed that only about 36% of the state’s third graders could read proficiently,” she wrote.

The Arkansas Department of Education has a nine-member board tasked with creating the rules associated with those literacy standards, said Alisha Price, the department’s associate legal counsel.

“These rules have not started the drafting process but will soon,” she explained. “It usually takes a few months to go on a board agenda for approval, then public comment, but I do not yet have an estimate on that date.”

Low performance on literacy tests 

From 2016 to 2023, the state had used ACT Aspire literacy assessments for students in third to 10th grades. 

However, the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS) replaced this system in 2024 and showed “most third graders had not achieved proficiency,” according to Hennigan. 

“Of 250 public school districts included in state ATLAS data, a dozen reported that at least half of its third graders tested at the lowest level for reading, meaning students showed limited skills.” 

In one example, Blytheville School District in Mississippi County achieved reading proficiency with only five of its 109 students. 

“State education officials have said the assessment created a new baseline that should not be compared to previous methods,” Hannigan wrote, noting the lack of “apples-to-apples comparisons” across states with differing curriculum standards. 

On a national level, however, literacy outcomes among public-school students continue to fall or remain stagnant. 

“No states saw improvements in reading scores among fourth graders from 2022 to 2019, and Arkansas students’ average scores decreased by three points,” explained Hannigan of the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. “The state’s decrease was on par with the national trend among all public school fourth graders.”