(De)Constructing Deficiency: A Critical Analysis of the Colorado Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act

• In Event: 41.084 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 41.084-4 - Missed Opportunities: How Epistemologies Foster Inequalities Through Educational Reform

Abstract

In May 2012, state legislators passed the Colorado READ Act, with the goal that all students in Colorado be proficient readers by the end of third grade. The READ Act mandates the administration of state-approved early literacy assessments to all K-3 students in order to diagnose a “significant reading deficiency” (Colorado Department of Education, 2015). This study troubles such a designation. Drawing on Schneider and Ingram’s (1993; 1997) theory of social construction and policy design, I argue that the design and framing of the READ Act ensures not only the construction, but maintenance of a reading deficiency. Implications for culturally and linguistically diverse students, as well as students from economically disadvantaged communities, are explored.

Author

• Melia E Repko-Erwin, University of Colorado - Boulder