House tables education bill that would reset READ Act, shift MDE funding

Representative Bennett, the author of House File 6, summarized the bill’s aims on the House floor on March 11 in Saint Paul, saying the measure would refocus state reading policy and give local districts more flexibility. “House file 6 covers the following priorities, where literacy is learning, local control is innovation, and empowered parents are engaged parents,” Bennett said. He told members the bill would implement what he described as a “READ Act reset” and said “the reading instruction should be based on the science of reading, and that our children have the fundamental right to read.”

Bennett described three main articles in the 25-page bill: (1) a READ Act reset that would change state direction on reading instruction and repeal a requirement that literacy curriculum and instructional materials pass a state-sponsored cultural screening; (2) education innovation provisions that would create a new school performance report and shift funding from the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Center at the Minnesota…