ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate overhauled one of the state House’s top priorities for the year, passing an amended version of the Georgia Early Literacy Act Tuesday.
But the measure that the Senate approved unanimously maintains nearly all the core elements that were in House Bill 1193 when it passed the House 170-2 in February.
The main pillar, employing a literacy coach in every K-3 school, remains in the bill, but the funding method changed.
Instead of using the state’s education funding formula to reimburse school districts for employing 1,313 literacy coaches, the Senate would pay for it with a $70 million grant, with new money to be appropriated each year.
Also, school districts would have to use curricula vetted by the state, and the state would help cover the schools’ costs for acquiring it.
A literacy task force would be empaneled to oversee the process and collaborate with the state education board.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said literacy rates in the lower grades have been far lower than high school graduation rates. That could only mean that Georgia schools have been giving diplomas to students who cannot read well, said Hickman, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
“Now we know the graduation rates were not reflective of the true answer,” said Hickman, an architect of the state’s approach to literacy over the past few years. “The true answer was our children could not read.”
Georgia lawmakers have gradually steered schools toward teaching literacy using mainly phonics, part of a broader approach dubbed the “science of reading.”
The best methods for teaching literacy have been subject to debate in academia for decades, but successes in other Southern states, including Alabama and Mississippi, led Georgia to adopt their approach, first with small steps and, should HB 1193 become law, a major step.