Oregon Lawmakers Make a Full-Court Press on Literacy

This session, House Bill 3040 will amend Oregon’s Early Literacy Success Initiative to address key gaps.

The initiative, a 2023 legislative effort to increase literacy for students from birth to third grade, provides funding for districts to use on things including tutoring, curriculum and teacher training. It came as a response to Oregon’s dismally low reading scores—only 42.5% of students posted as proficient in English and language arts in 2023-24—and as a response to a nationwide shift to embrace the science of reading.

At a Wednesday hearing on the bill, members of the governor’s office and the Oregon Department of Education emphasized that the new bill will help strengthen and refine the initiative. It will increase the emphasis on approaches that have worked in other states, instructing ODE to support school districts in selecting evidence-based curriculum and expanding professional development opportunities (to train teachers on how to teach that curriculum).

“Having served on the governor’s council on literacy in dealing with our teacher prep institutions, this is the piece that was missing,” Rep. Boomer Wright (R-Coos Bay) said at a Wednesday hearing on the bill. “This is important that we get into the classrooms and give our teachers the practice and the training they need to make sure they know how to deal with the science of reading.”

The bill will also instruct ODE to study early literacy and strategies to help students learn how to read. It has garnered a number of supporters, including the Oregon Education Association, the statewide teacher’s union, the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, and Stand for Children, an education advocacy nonprofit.

But a number of literacy advocates opposed the bill in written testimony, writing that as long as school districts get to dictate how their money is spent, Oregon won’t see the turnaround in literacy that other states have.

At issue for most is that districts aren’t currently mandated to fund teacher training—they can spend dollars on a number of things. Education experts who spoke with WW widely agree teacher quality is the top factor in ensuring student success.

Angela Uherbelau, the founder of Oregon Kids Read, a group that advocates for literacy statewide, wrote the legislature should require schools to fund K-3 teacher training.

“Other states that have increased literacy rates have invested in their educator workforce through professional development that includes a minimum number of training hours, rigorous evaluations of learning throughout the course, end-of-course assessment and documentation of successful completion of the course,” she wrote.

Uherbelau added that more than 100 educators statewide have signed on to a call from Oregon Kids Read to mandate teacher training. “Oregon teachers are hungry for this knowledge.”

Dr. J. Schuberth, an educator and parent also affiliated with Oregon Kids Read, added states that have seen success in reading (like Mississippi or Colorado), have streamlined teacher trainings statewide. As it currently stands, they warn that Oregon’s definition of teacher training allows “university education departments that have no cohesive or comprehensive training for K-3 teachers” to count.

Schuberth also took issue with ODE committing more time and resources to studying early literacy. They noted that there’s already an understanding of what helps kids read: strategies other states are already using. So such work is redundant. ODE, they added, does not have the capacity to undertake such work.

“HB3040 continues to privilege local control over mandating that districts use literacy funds (and other funds) in ways that have been shown to improve literacy outcomes in other states,” Schuberth wrote.