Petition
Decoding Dyslexia Georgia Statement on HB538 Universal Reading Screeners and the Upcoming Georgia Board of Education Vote
Don’t Compromise Our Children’s Future
December 10, 2024: We urge the Georgia Board of Education to approve only the 4 top-tier screeners: Amira ISIP (1), EPS Reading Assistant (2), STAR Universal Reading Suite (3) and mClass with DIBELS 8th Edition (4).
Georgia is at a critical juncture in its literacy journey. The Georgia Early Literacy Act (the “Act”) lays out a plan that should drastically improve literacy for Georgia’s children. If implemented poorly, however, it will not do so. Every decision that is made with respect to the Act will move us closer to getting all of Georgia’s kids reading or will condemn us to continue with the staggering rates of low literacy and illiteracy that currently plague our state.
The impact of the decision before us now as to which screeners will be used to screen Georgia’s public school children in grades K-3 cannot be overstated. Proper identification of struggling readers is crucial to improving literacy because data drives instructional change to support students’ needs. In support of and compliance with the Act, the Sandra Dunagan Deal Center convened a group of literacy experts, the Literacy Screener Advisory Group (LSAG), to rigorously evaluate numerous universal reading screeners through an exhaustive vetting process. On 11/26/24, LSAG recommended four top-tier screeners that they had carefully selected based on their alignment with evidence-based practices, reliability, validity, and suitability for Georgia’s student population.
On 12/6/24, Superintendent Woods published an alternate list of screeners that the GADOE recommends for adoption by the GABOE. This list removes the LSAG’s #2 ranked screener (EPS) from the list and adds both iReady and MAP Reading Fluency to the list. The four LSAG-recommended screeners had a score range from 133.2-142.6. LSAG’s #5 ranked screener was iReady, which scored 13 points BELOW the #4 ranked screener, creating a large and clear break between it and the group of four screeners which scored the highest. In fact, both iReady and MAP were inferior to the four LSAG-recommended screeners in all categories that the committee evaluated. The inclusion of these two screeners in the Superintendent’s Recommendation, purportedly based on how many Georgia school districts are already using them, is baffling. Current screener usage rates are not included in the Act’s criteria and should not be a factor considered in this screener decision, unless we are satisfied with the current abysmal literacy rates in Georgia.
We urge the Georgia Board of Education to approve only LSAG’s four top-tier screeners: Amira ISIP (1), EPS Reading Assistant (2), STAR Universal Reading Suite (3) and mClass with DIBELS 8th Edition (4).
There can be no compromise on our children’s future.