1. LEGISLATIVE & REGULATORY BACKGROUND

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1 US Department of Education Announcement of Final Priorities, Requirements, Definitions and Selection Criteria Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) Program 1. LEGISLATIVE & REGULATORY BACKGROUND On July 16, 2017, these priorities, requirements, definitions and selection criteria will replace the priorities, requirements, definitions and selection criteria contained in the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Notice published on March 10, These provisions, typically referred to as the implementing regulations, are important to the reading literacy community as they are expected to be applied to the new LEARN provisions, under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the Success for Every Student Act (ESSA) which became law in December ESSA is the current major federal legislation implementing federal policies for elementary and secondary education. When this legislation was signed into law by President Obama, the responsible federal agency (US Department of Education) issued implementing regulations. Such regulations may be issued from time to time in response to requests for clarification of the law. As you may recall, the US Department of Education issued regulations addressing State and LEA accountability prior to President Obama leaving office. However, when President Trump took office, he chose to take advantage of an existing law, the Congressional Review Act which permits Congress to invalidate regulations with a simple majority of both the Senate and the House. As a result, the House and Senate passed resolutions and legislation to invalidate the US Department of Education regulations related to state and local accountability. Although the Department is expected to issue additional guidance related to accountability, the regulations will be absent of federal mandates, leaving such decisions to the States. On May 16, 2017, the Department issued new regulations implementing the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) Program. These new regulations are referred to as the Final Priorities, Requirements, Definitions and Selection Criteria Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) Program. Although the focus of this document is on implementing the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program, in FY2018, SRCL will be replaced by the LEARN Act, already incorporated into the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The expectation is that

2 these regulations will also cover the new LEARN Act. The FY2017 appropriations is $190 million for SRCL, and the FY2018 appropriations request of $190 million will be directed to the implementation of the LEARN Act. This summary addresses key changes made by the US Department of Education in response to public comments received on the proposed priorities for the SRCL Program published in the Federal Register on June 20, 2016 (81 FR 39875). You are urged to review the complete regulations. 2. PURPOSE The purpose of the SRCL Program is to provide competitive grant awards to State educational agencies (SEAs) to advance literacy skills, including pre-literacy skills, reading and writing for children from birth through grade 12, with an emphasis on disadvantaged children, including children living in poverty, English learners, and children with disabilities. 3. SUMMARY OF NEW OR CLARIFYING PROVISIONS CONTAINED IN THE SRCL REGULATIONS o Provides a revised definition of disadvantaged child to explicitly include infants and toddlers with developmental delays and to differentiate between an infant and toddler with a developmental delay and a child with a disability o When referring to disadvantaged children, the population of children living in poverty should be specifically included (as are populations of English Learners and children with disabilities) o Revised the priority to specifically include children living in poverty as a group of disadvantaged children that applicants must serve in order to meet priority o Priority clarified to require that grantees must appropriately differentiate their literacy interventions according to the age of children to be served o Early language and literacy projects with programs for children in kindergarten through grade 5 must include a progressions of approaches appropriate for each age group o SEAs may update their existing State comprehensive literacy plan. However, plan must be informed by a comprehensive needs assessment conducted in the past 5 years. o The definition of professional development must include strategies that encompass early childhood education. SEAs must meaningfully consider the professional development needs of early childhood education personnel.

3 o Requirements have been strengthened for coordination between ED and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in conducting a national evaluation of the SRCL by including the successor to the SRCL via the Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) Program, the Department now required grantees to assure they will only fund subgrantees that provide a written assurance to cooperate with a national evaluation of the SRCL program o The definition of evidence-based in ESEA, as amended by ESSA, has been incorporated, although not statutorily bound. The Department determined that sufficient evidence exists at the moderate and strong levels to warrant an approach for this program that incorporates only the two highest levels of the ESSA definitions of evidence-based. (ED has removed references to the definition of moderate evidence of effectiveness and strong evidence of effectiveness in the 34CDR 77.1 and substituted the term strong evidence and moderate evidence.) o SEAs must ensure that the comprehensive literacy instruction programs are supported by moderate evidence or strong evidence o The Department has determined that there should be a definition of English Learners, and has incorporated a definition consistent with ESEA, as amended by ESSA o SEA monitoring plan selection criterion must include a focus on differentiated local strategies that are appropriate o Local literacy plans must be aligned with the State comprehensive literacy plan o High-quality plans must ensure that local projects serve the greatest numbers or percentages of disadvantaged children o SEAs must prioritize local literacy plans that align pre-literacy strategies for children age birth through five with pre-literacy and literacy strategies for students from kindergarten through grade five o High-quality applications must ensure that SEAs provide support and technical assistance, based on an assessment of local needs, to subgrantees to ensure improvement in the literacy and pre-literacy achievement of children from birth to grade 12 and ensure effectiveness in addressing the needs of disadvantaged children o Requires an independent peer review process for awarding subgrants to prioritize awards to eligible subgrantees that propose a high-quality comprehensive literacy instruction program and are supported by moderate or strong evidence.

4 4. SUMMARY OF KEY PROVISIONS IN THE LEARN ACT CONSISTENT WITH SRCL IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS o Provides federal support to states to develop, revise, or update comprehensive literacy instruction plans that ensure high-quality instruction and effective strategies in reading and writing from early education through grade 12 o Authorizes federal funding to states to provide targeted sub-grants to early childhood education programs and local educational agencies and their public or private partners to implement evidence-based programs that ensure high-quality comprehensive literacy instruction for students most in need o Provides a definition of comprehensive literacy instruction, including requirements for linking literacy instruction to the state academic standards o Establishes eligibility for LEAs that serve a high percentage of high-need schools, including LEAs with the highest number or percentages of students compared to other LEAs in the state, including the number or percentages of students reading or writing below grade level based on state academic assessment data; or LEAs serving a significant number or percentage of schools that are implementing comprehensive support and improvement activities and targeted support and improvement activities under section 1111(d) o Establishes eligibility for LEAs or consortiums of LEAs acting in partnership with 1 or more public or private nonprofit organizations or agencies that have a demonstrated record of effectiveness in improving literacy achievement and providing professional development in comprehensive literacy instruction o Requires state grant reservations to include not more than a total of 5 percent for national activities, including a national evaluation, technical assistance and training, data collection and reporting (Not addressed in the SRCL regulations) o Requires state awards to be for a period of not more than 5 years; but may be renewed for an additional 2-year period upon the termination of the initial period of the grant if the grant recipient demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Secretary that 1) the State has made adequate progress and 2) renewing the grant for an additional 2 year period is necessary to carry out the objectives of the grant (Not addressed in the SRCL regulations) o Requires state education agencies to collaborate with the state agency responsible for administering early childhood education programs and the state agency responsible for

5 administering child care programs in the state in writing and implementing the early childhood portion of the grant application o Requires state applications to include a needs assessment that analyzes literacy needs across the state and in high-need schools and LEAs that serve high-need schools, identifying the most significant gaps in literacy proficiency and inequities in student access to effective teachers of literacy, considering each of the subgroups of students as defined in (ESSA, section 1111 (c)(2)) o Requires state applications to include a description of how the state education agency, in collaboration with the state literacy team, if applicable, will develop a state comprehensive literacy instruction plan or will revise and update an already existing state comprehensive literacy instruction plan o Requires state applications to include an assurance that the state education agency will use implementation grant funds for state and local comprehensive literacy instruction programs: a. Not less than 15 percent for children from birth through kindergarten b. Not less than 40 percent allocated equitably among the grades of kindergarten through grade 5 c. Not less than 40 percent allocated equitably among grades 6 through SUMMARY OF KEY PROVISIONS RELATED TO LEARN STATE GRANTS o States must assure that they will give priority in awarding grants to an eligible entity that serves children from birth to grade 5 who are from families with income levels at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line; or is an LEA serving a high number or percentage of high-need schools o In awarding grants under this section, the Secretary shall give priority to state education agencies that will use the grant funds for evidence-based activities (Sec 8101(21)(A)(i)) o State education agencies may reserve not more than 5 percent for activities identified through the needs assessment and comprehensive literacy plan, including 1) providing technical assistance, or engaging qualified providers to provide technical assistance, to eligible entities to design and implement literacy programs; and 2) to coordinate with institutions of higher education in the state to provide recommendations to strengthen and enhance pre-service courses for students preparing to teach children from birth through grade 12 in explicit, systematic, and intensive instruction in evidence-based literacy methods; 3) reviewing and updating, in collaboration with teachers and institutions of higher education, state licensure or certification standards in the area of literacy instruction in early education through grade 12; 4) making publicly available

6 information on promising instructional practices to improve child literacy achievement; 5) administering and monitoring the implementation of sub-grants. After carrying out the activities above, the state education agency may use any remaining amount of the 5 percent to 1) develop literacy coach training programs and train literacy coaches; and 2) administer and evaluate. 6. SUMMARY OF KEY PROVISIONS RELATED TO SUB-GRANTS TO ELIGIBLE ENTITIES IN SUPPORT OF KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE 12 LITERACY o The term of the sub-grant shall be determined by the state education agency and shall in no case exceed 5 years o Local applications shall be submitted to the state education agency at such time and in such manner as determined by the agency; and shall include for each school that the eligible entity identifies as participating: o A description of the needs assessment conducted to identify how the funds will be used to inform and improve comprehensive literacy instruction at the school; o A description of how the school, LEA or provider of high-quality professional development will provide ongoing high-quality professional development to all teachers, principals, specialized instructional support personnel, and other school leaders; o A description of how the school will identify children in need of literacy interventions or other support services; o An explanation of how the school will integrate comprehensive literacy instruction into a well-rounded education; o A description of how the school will coordinate comprehensive literacy instruction with early childhood education programs and activities and afterschool programs and activities in the area served by the LEA. 7. ALLOWABLE USE OF SRCL/LEARN FUNDS Priority In awarding grants, the state education agency shall give priority to an eligible entity that will use the funds to implement evidence-based activities Local Uses of Funds for Kindergarten through Grade 5 Develop and implement a comprehensive literacy instruction plan that serves the needs of all children, including children with disabilities and English learners, especially children who are reading or writing below grade level

7 Provide intensive, supplemental, accelerated and explicit intervention and support in reading and writing for children whose literacy skills are below grade level Support activities that are provided primarily during the school day, but that may be augmented by after-school and out-of-school time instruction Provide high-quality professional development opportunities for teachers, literacy coaches, literacy specialists, principals, other school leaders, specialized instructional support personnel, school librarians, paraprofessionals, and other program staff Train principals, specialized instructional support personnel, and other LEA personnel to support, develop, administer, and elevate high-quality kindergarten through grade 5 literacy initiatives Coordinate the involvement of early childhood education program staff, principals, other instructional leaders, teachers, teacher literacy teams, English as a second language specialists, special educators, school personnel, and specialized instructional support personnel in the literacy development of children Local Uses of Funds for Grades 6 through 12 Develop and implement a comprehensive literacy instruction plan for children in grade 6 through 12 Train principals, specialized instructional support personnel, school librarians and other LEA personnel to support, develop, administer, and evaluate high-quality comprehensive literacy instruction Provide time for teachers to meet to plan evidence-based adolescent comprehensive literacy instruction Coordinate the involvement of principals, other instructional leaders, teachers, teacher literacy teams, English as a second language, paraprofessionals, special educators, specialized instructional support personnel, and school personnel in the literacy development of children Allowable Uses (in addition to above) include: Recruit, place, train and compensate literacy coaches Connect out-of-school learning opportunities to in-school learning in order to improve children s literacy achievement Train families and caregivers to support the improvement of adolescent literacy Provide for a multi-tier system of supports for literacy services Form a school literacy leadership team to help implement, assess, and identify necessary changes to the literacy initiatives in 1 or more schools to ensure success

8 Provide time for teachers (and other literacy staff as appropriate, such as school librarians or specialized instructional support personnel) to meet to plan comprehensive literacy instruction 8. NATIONAL EVALUATION AND INFORMATION DISSEMINATION The Director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall conduct a national evaluation of the grant and sub-grant programs to include high-quality research that applies rigorous and systematic procedures to obtain valid knowledge relevant to the implementation and effect of the programs and shall directly coordinate with individual State evaluations of the programs implementation and impact. Program Improvement ESSA requires the Secretary of Education to provide the findings of the evaluation to SEAs and sub-grant recipients for use in program improvement; make the findings publicly available; submit the findings to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; and make publicly available best practices for implementing evidence-based activities.