NJ's literacy solution: longer school day for kindergarteners?
My blog has been quiet of late. Due to some health problems, I've had to scale back a bit on my workload. Nothing life-threatening, mind you, just enough for me to reprioritize for a little while. But I'm on the mend, and there's no better day to start back up than New Year's Day.
This week marks the end of the current NJ legislative session. Newly elected officials will soon be sworn in, but there's a bill coming before the Assembly Education Committee next week that has me scratching my head.
A4779, sponsored by Ams. Reed Gusciora (D-15) and Asw. L. Grace Spencer (D-29) says:
a. The Commissioner of Education shall declare an educational state of emergency for a school district in which, for at least 75 percent of the schools in the district, 65 percent or more of the students in the school to whom a State assessment was administered have not achieved proficiency in the English language arts/literacy subject area of the State assessment.
b. Upon declaring an educational state of emergency pursuant to subsection a. of this section, the commissioner is authorized to distribute supplementary State aid to the school district, which shall be in addition to the State aid payable to the district pursuant to P.L.2007, c.260 (C.18A:7F-43 et al.) or any other law. The supplementary State aid shall be used for the specific purpose of establishing a mandatory after school program for students in grades kindergarten through three, the duration of which is two and a half hours from the end of the school day, which is designed to increase student proficiency in English language arts and literacy. The supplementary aid shall also be used for establishing voluntary literacy programs for students in other grades, including after school programs and summer programs.
c. When an educational state of emergency is declared for a school district, the executive county superintendent of schools shall hold a public meeting of interested stakeholders for the district including, but not limited to, parents, Marie Corfield: NJ's literacy solution: longer school day for kindergarteners?: