(1) The general assembly finds that: (a) All students can succeed in school if they have the foundational skills necessary for academic success. While foundational skills go beyond academic skills to include such skills as social competence and self-discipline, they must also include the ability to read, understand, interpret, and apply information. (b) Colorado has prioritized early learning through its investments in the Colorado preschool program, established in 1988, in the Colorado universal preschool program, established in 2022, and full-day kindergarten, and the general assembly recognizes that these investments can best be leveraged by adopting policies that support a continuum of learning from preschool through third grade and beyond; (c) It is more cost-effective to invest in effective early literacy education rather than to absorb costs for remediation in middle school, high school, and beyond; (d) A comprehensive approach to early literacy education can improve student achievement, reduce the need for costly special education services, and produce a better educated, more skilled, and more competitive workforce; (e) An important partnership between a parent and child begins before the child enters kindergarten, when the parent helps the child develop rich linguistic experiences, including listening comprehension and speaking, that help form the foundation for reading and writing, which are the main vehicles for content acquisition; (f) The greatest impact for ensuring student success lies in a productive collaboration among parents, teachers, and schools in providing a child's education, so it is paramount that parents are informed about the status of their children's educational progress and that teachers and schools receive the financial resources and other resources and support they need, including valid assessments, instructional programming that is proven to be effective, and training and professional development programs, to effectively teach the science of reading, assess students' achievement, and enable each student to achieve the grade level expectations for reading; and (g) The state recognizes that the provisions of this part 12 are not a comprehensive solution to ensuring that all students graduate from high school ready to enter the workforce or postsecondary education, but they assist local education providers in setting a solid foundation for students' academic success and will require the ongoing commitment of financial and other resources from both the state and local levels. (1.5) (a) The general assembly further finds that: (I) Reading is a critical skill that every child must develop early in the child's educational career to be successful; (II) Research shows that reading instruction that is focused around the foundational reading skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency including oral skills, and reading comprehension is highly effective in teaching young children to read; (III) Section 15 of article IX of the state constitution grants to the elected board of education in each school district the authority to have control of instruction in the public schools of the school district, and section 16 of article IX of the state constitution prohibits the general assembly and the state board of education from prescribing the textbooks to be used in public schools; (IV) However, section 2 of article IX of the state constitution requires the general assembly to provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, and section 1 of article IX of the state constitution vests the general supervision of the public schools of the state in the state board of education; (V) In interpreting these constitutional provisions, the Colorado supreme court has found that, because they are competing interests, none are absolute; these interests must be balanced to identify the contours of the responsibility assigned to each entity; and (VI) It is the general assembly that initially strikes this balance. (b) The general assembly finds, therefore, that ensuring that each child has access through the public schools to evidence-based reading instruction that is focused on developing the foundational reading skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency including oral skills, and reading comprehension is a significant component of ensuring that the system of free public schools throughout the state is thorough and uniform. In exercising its authority of general supervision of the public schools of the state, it is appropriate that the state board of education, supported by the department of education, hold local education providers accountable for demonstrating that the reading instruction they provide is focused on these five foundational reading skills. And, in maintaining control of the instruction in the classrooms of the public schools of their respective school districts, it is appropriate that each school district board of education select the core reading instructional programs and reading interventions to be used in those public schools, so long as they are focused on phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency including oral skills, and reading comprehension to ensure that the students educated in the public schools throughout the state consistently receive evidence-based instruction that is proven to effectively teach children to read. (2) It is therefore the intent of the general assembly that each local education provider that enrolls students in kindergarten or first, second, or third grade will work closely with the parents and teachers of these students to provide the students the instructional programming, intervention instruction, and support, at home and in school, necessary to ensure that students, by the completion of third grade, can demonstrate a level of competency in reading skills that is necessary to support them in achieving the academic standards and expectations applicable to the fourth-grade curriculum. It is further the intent of the general assembly that each local education provider adopt a policy whereby, if a student has a significant reading deficiency at the end of any school year prior to fourth grade, the student's parent and teacher and other personnel of the local education provider decide whether the student should or should not advance to the next grade level based on whether the student, despite having a significant reading deficiency, is able to maintain adequate academic progress at the next grade level. (3) The general assembly further finds that: (a) The purpose of this part 12 is to provide students with the necessary supports they need to be able to read with proficiency by third grade so that their academic growth and achievement is not hindered by low literacy skills in fourth grade and beyond; (b) It is a priority in the public schools of Colorado to provide high-quality instruction that enables each student to attain proficiency in English, regardless of the student's native language; (c) Research demonstrates that a person who has strong reading skills in one language will more easily learn and become literate in a second language; and (d) While the "Colorado READ Act", this part 12, is not designed to measure or support a student's acquisition of English as a second language, ensuring that a student has strong reading skills in his or her native language by third grade will help to ensure that the student will attain proficiency in English more quickly.
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