Background:

Building Bridges Program.

Legislation enacted in 2007 established the Building Bridges Program to award grants to local partnerships consisting of schools, families, and community-based organizations for the purpose of developing dropout prevention, intervention, and retrieval systems.

The Building Bridges Program must, through local partnerships, provide each of the following programs or activities:

a system that identifies individual students at risk of dropping out from middle or high school, and provides timely interventions for students and dropouts;
coaches or mentors for students, as necessary;
staff responsible for the coordination of community partners;
retrieval or reentry activities; and
alternative educational programming.

Statewide Assessments—Generally and Second Grade Reading Assessments.

The Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), in consultation with the State Board of Education, maintains and revises a statewide academic assessment system to measure student knowledge and skills on state learning standards and for purposes of state and federal accountability. The state assessment system covers the content areas of reading, writing, mathematics, and science for elementary, middle, and high school years.

Federal requirements also govern assessment practices in Washington. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to assess students based on state learning standards in reading and mathematics in each of grades 3 through 8 and in one high school grade, as well as in science in at least one grade in elementary, middle, and high school.

In addition to statewide assessments administered in grades 3 and higher, a reading assessment must be administered by school districts each fall to students in the second grade. The purpose of the assessment is to provide information to parents, teachers, and school administrators on the level of acquisition of oral reading accuracy and fluency skills of each student at the beginning of second grade. Provisions governing the assessment direct the SPI to identify a collection of reading passages and assessment procedures that can be used to measure second grade oral reading accuracy and fluency skills. In administering the assessment, districts must use an assessment selected from the collection adopted by the SPI.

The assessment procedures and reading passages in the collection must meet specified requirements, including:

providing a reliable and valid measure of a student's oral reading accuracy and fluency skills;
having been approved by a panel of nationally recognized professionals in the area of beginning reading, and
assessing student skills in recognition of letter sounds, phonemic awareness, word recognition, and reading connected text.

The SPI has financial duties related to the assessments. The SPI is required to develop a per-pupil cost for the assessments in the collection of reading passages that details the costs for administering the assessments, booklets, scoring, and training that is required to reliably administer the test. To the extent funds are appropriated, the SPI must pay for the cost of administering and scoring the assessments, booklets or other assessment materials, and training required to administer the test.

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Summary of Second Substitute Bill:

Building Bridges Program.

Provisions governing the Building Bridges Program are modified to specify that a Building Bridges Program must, through local partnerships, provide one or more, rather than all, of the following programs or activities:

a system that identifies individual students at risk of dropping out from middle or high school, and provides timely interventions for students and dropouts;
coaches or mentors for students, as necessary;
staff responsible for the coordination of community partners;
retrieval or reentry activities; and
alternative educational programming.

Second Grade Reading Assessments.

Provisions directing the SPI to identify a collection of reading passages and assessment procedures for use by districts in measuring the reading skills of second grade students are removed.

Provisions establishing the purpose of the second grade reading assessment are modified to include a reference to comprehension. With that inclusion, the specified purpose of the assessment is to provide information to parents, teachers, and school administrators on the level of: (1) acquisition of oral reading accuracy, (2) comprehension, and (3) fluency skills of each student at the beginning of second grade.

The passages used for the assessment must meet specified criteria, including having been approved by nationally recognized professionals, rather than a panel of nationally recognized professionals, in the area of beginning reading, and must be administered according to the publishers' guidelines. Also, additional references to "comprehension" are added to criteria governing requirements for the assessment.

The assessment-related financial duties of the SPI are modified. Rather than being directed to develop a per-pupil cost for the assessments, the SPI is authorized to provide an estimated per-pupil cost for assessments aligned to state learning standards. To the extent funds are appropriated, the SPI, rather than paying for the assessment costs, must instead provide districts with funds to purchase assessment materials and professional learning for educators who are needed to implement the district's reading assessment system.

Personalized Learning.

Provisions related to "personalized learning" are established. "Personalized learning" is defined as a delivery method of basic education instruction where learning is tailored for each student’s strengths, needs and interests. Personalized learning also enables student choice in what, how, when, and where they learn in order to provide flexibility and supports for meeting state learning standards.

School districts may implement personalized learning through a variety of methods or settings including, but not limited to, project-based learning, mastery-based learning, individualized education programs, career and technical education, reengagement schools, magnet schools, and other innovative programs.

The personalized learning provisions are not intended to alter the discretion that school districts may exercise in using available school funding models to support the implementation of personalized learning, including but not limited to, personalized learning experience courses.

When the delivery method for personalized learning is provided in whole or in part independently from the regular classroom schedule, the course must comply with provisions governing alternative learning experience courses.

Second Substitute Bill Compared to Original Bill:

The second substitute bill makes the following changes to the original bill:

removes provisions that allow civics content and instruction that is embedded in a qualifying career and technical education course to satisfy a stand-alone civics course requirement;
establishes a statutory definition of "personalized learning";
specifies that school districts may implement personalized learning through a variety of methods or settings;
specifies that there is no intent to alter the discretion that school districts may exercise in utilizing available school funding models to support the implementation of personalized learning; and
specifies that when the delivery method for personalized learning is provided in whole or in part independently from the regular classroom schedule, the course must comply with requirements governing alternative learning experience courses.