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Editor, News-Register:
I have been up most of the night deeply concerned about what is about to happen in local schools in West Virginia -- particularly as the Third Grade Success Act reaches implementation this coming 2026-27 school year. It is very much modeled on the Mississippi Miracle in reading, which recent reports claim to be smoke and mirrors.
Mandatory third-grade retention and reading laws carry several negative effects, primarily centered around emotional harm, social disruption, and long-term academic risks.
Emotional and Social Impacts
Lower self-esteem: Holding students back can make them feel inferior, stigmatized, and trigger a deep sense of personal failure.
Peer disruption: Grade-repeating students are cut off from existing friendships and face higher risks of social alienation, teasing, or bullying.
Increased anxiety: High-stakes testing and retention threats place intense psychological pressure on young children starting as early as kindergarten
Long-Term Academic and Life Risks
Higher dropout rates: Research consistently links grade retention in school to an increased likelihood of dropping out before high school graduation.
Fading academic gains: Initial boosts in test scores often fade over time as repeaters fall back behind their permanently promoted peers.
Mandates frequently hit marginalized groups hardest, including low-income students, English language learners, and minority students.
No one asked the third graders if they want adults who feel they know best to have a lasting impact on these young learners. The tears of those who will be held back have yet to shed and parents' pain of helpless yet felt.
In mid-2022, the Ohio Legislature gutted the Third Grade Reading Guarantee that it had made earlier to students of the Buckeye State. News reports from that summer cited many reasons -- the teachers’ union, the school administrators, and displeased parents of students who were being retained in their current classroom or offered Saturday tutoring or summer school that require a 90% attendance rate.
This all can be traced back to when President Barrack Obama in his 2011 State of the Union Address used the phrase “This is our generation’s Sputnik Moment” as American children’s test scores were somewhere in the middle of the 34 nations for the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development while Shanghai lapped everyone by large margins in reading, math, and science.
Those Charleston education experts do not live in the local school district.
I stand with the children's parents who recognize the ills in this law that was crafted by elite Charleston Bureaucrats. I rise to speak on behalf of the children.
I want to be clear I am opposed to the Third Grade Success Act because in the long run, it will do more harm than good.
It was not that long ago I stood in the tiny shoes of a struggling third grader.