Quality Basic Education Act; $500,000.00 in matching grants for purpose of providing home reading programs for students in kindergarten through fourth grade; provisions
Summary
House Bill 912 amends the Quality Basic Education Act to create a new matching grant program for home reading programs serving students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Subject to available funding, the State Board of Education would provide grants to qualified local units of administration, with the Department of Education distributing the funds. The bill caps state matching grants at $500,000 per fiscal year and authorizes the state to receive and administer federal funds for the same purpose.
To qualify, a home reading program must be operated in partnership with a local school system by a nonprofit organization and meet a detailed set of requirements. Those requirements include weekly delivery or electronic access to leveled books, regular multilingual communications with parents or guardians, literacy-based exercises, individualized progress reporting, and collection and reporting of program data. The program’s total cost, including local matching funds, may not exceed $50 per student per semester.
Impact
The bill would add a new grant authority within the state education code, expanding the State Board of Education’s role in funding early literacy initiatives. It would create a specific statutory framework for matching grants, eligibility standards, data reporting, and administrative rulemaking, while also allowing the Department of Education to act as the state’s conduit for federal funds. Local school systems and nonprofit literacy providers would be the primary entities affected, as they would need to secure matching funds and comply with program and reporting requirements to participate.
Sentiment
The available context does not include committee testimony or recorded votes, so there is no direct evidence of support or opposition from the legislative record provided. Based on the bill text, the measure appears designed as a targeted early-literacy initiative and is framed in a policy-positive way, emphasizing parental engagement, evidence-based instruction, and data-driven accountability. The absence of recorded controversy in the provided materials suggests the bill was presented as a straightforward education funding measure.
Contention
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided committee or vote history. Potential areas of debate inherent in the bill’s design include the use of state matching funds, the requirement that nonprofits partner with local school systems, the detailed data collection and reporting obligations, and the $50 per-student-per-semester cost cap. Any concerns would likely center on administrative burden, privacy or data-sharing issues, and whether the program’s funding level is sufficient to have meaningful impact.
Provides grants to nonprofit organizations that provide eligible home reading programs that provide independent reading level books that are individually mailed to the residences of kindergarten through fifth grade students on a weekly basis.
Quality Basic Education Act; students significantly at risk of not achieving grade level reading proficiency or with characteristics of dyslexia; include provisions
"Quality Basic Education Act"; grants for educational programs; provisions relative to the teacher recruitment and retention tax credit program; revise
"Quality Basic Education Act"; the date by which a child must attain a certain age to be eligible for enrollment in kindergarten or first grade; revise
A bill for an act relating to education, including by modifying provisions related to summative testing in schools and the educational program provided to students enrolled in kindergarten through grade twelve.(See HF 2670.)