Earlier this year the Legislature passed the Read Act. The new law seeks to undo the legacy of Minnesota’s vast reading gap by requiring schools to teach reading in new ways. The act gives $70 million to schools to pay for training and curriculum from a menu of approved options. In a state that has traditionally left curriculum choices to individual districts, the law is unprecedented.

Some schools have partnered with companies to implement the use of pouches that students are required to put their phones into at the beginning of the day and that don’t unlock until the final bell rings, while others are threatening punishments including suspension if a student is caught with their phone, even at lunch time.

While critics of the proposed updates said they are borne of good intentions—the proposal states that science has “sometimes been used by those in power to oppress and abuse others"—they also said that injecting the materials into a middle school science curriculum could distract from conventional scientific principles and could jeopardize science education.

Date & Time: Thursday, March 14th at 2 pm ET <br><br> Attend this webinar with a panel of district leaders who will discuss some proven ways to close the gap between curriculum, standards, and assessment, and meet accountability standards, in this increasingly complex K-12 environment, where test scores are declining to the lowest levels in decades and new accountability measures are being adopted.