Committee hears competing literacy proposals; lawmakers create working group and ask WDE for staffing funding

The Joint Education Committee heard extended testimony and public comment on a draft reading-assessment and intervention bill and related proposals Tuesday, with parents, literacy advocates, university faculty and state officials urging a more prescriptive, funded statewide literacy effort.

Testimony revealed broad agreement that Wyoming needs more consistent, evidence-based early-literacy practice and sustained state-level support — but disagreement over how prescriptive statute should be. Lawmakers asked the Department of Education and stakeholders to form a working group and approved a separate effort to fund a literacy function within WDE.

Tanya Heitrich of LSO summarized draft 26LSO-0092 (working draft 6), an education-readiness and intervention bill that would expand literacy screening, require district improvement plans and create a literacy division at the Department of Education with a placeholder appropriation. Heitrich flagged drafting choices for the committee, including whether screening should be K–12 or focused on earlier grades and whether the state superintendent should “license” or employ…