LINCOLN- Last Wednesday, State Sens. Lynne Walz and Lou Ann Linehan accompanied Nebraska Commissioner of Education Matt Blomstedt to outline a few potential legislative opportunities to address the state's declining test scores.A few of these specific areas include chronic absenteeism, special education, early child literacy, and the widespread teacher shortage in Nebraska. As of now, it's unclear exactly how these issues will be addressed by the Nebraska Legislature, but the three lawmakers laying out the plan believe these areas are a good place to start.

On that same Wednesday, statewide test scores were released to the public, showing a 6-percentage-point drop in math scores during the 2021-2022 school year over 2018-2019, the last reliable comparison year prior to the pandemic. Similarly, English scores saw a 5-point drop, with proficiencies hovering around 47%. Sen. Linehan, a member of the Education Committee, believes putting more money toward teacher training in early literacy may help curb the declining scores.

"If we make sure kids learn to read between kindergarten and third grade at their grade level, if at all possible at the end of third grade, it solves a lot of our achievement problems," believes Linehan. Linehan also stated that, in the last ten years, new information on the science of reading has been released, and believes teachers should be made aware of it.

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