Need proof that Reading First is working in classrooms throughout the United States? Need to see for yourself that teachers have embraced the law and the impact it is having on students? All you have to do is check out the throngs of teachers and school leaders assembled here in Nashville for the National Reading First Conference.
In Tennessee this week, representatives from RF districts across the nation are here to continue to learn and improve their practice. They are here to ensure that research-proven practice will continue to permeate the schools. They are here to continue building on their understanding of the research base. And they are here to celebrate the law.
Eduflack will be posting observations from the conference throughout the week. We have First Lady Laura Bush addressing the assembly today. Noted reading researcher Tim Shanahan is slated to discuss ELL. But the important discussions will be in the breakouts and the hallways, as these passionate educators share their personal experiences with one another, turning the entire week into an extended teaching moment.
Hopefully, this isn’t the swan song for RF. If Congress continues its ways, and fails to pass the FY2009 budget, Reading First will receive an additional year of funding (albeit at the lower FY2008 funding level). And maybe, just maybe, a new President and a new EdSec will find a way to save the law. We owe that glimmer of hope to each and every educator gathered here this week, who refuse to give up and remain committed to ensuring every student gains the reading skills they need to succeed.
Year: 2008
Higher Expectations, Lower Funding
For years now, the education establishment has debated the value and impact of charter schools throughout the United States. In cities like Washington, DC, we have seen the positive impact such schools can have. The number of charters continues to grow. They are a valuable piece of the public education infrastructure in the city, and as such their oversight has greatly improved over the last decade. Heck, now we even have the DC Archdiocese converting many of its Catholic schools to public charters to better serve the families of our nation’s capital.
Yes, charters have come a long way. But we still see many defenders of the status quo set their ire onto these community schools. Most recently, the attack has been that charters are not academically outperforming the traditional public schools they were intended to replace. Why, the critics say, would we move more public funds over to these schools if they aren’t an improvement?
The issue of improvement is up for great debate. Throughout the nation, many charter schools have demonstrated they can succeed where old-school publics have failed, or at least struggled. In larger urban centers, we’ve seen charter schools change the culture and mindset of both the students and the communities. And as a result, we see improvement in terms of student achievement. So how do these charters stack up against the schools they are designed to supplement (or supplant, depending on who you speak with)?
Last week, the Center for Education Reform released its comprehensive survey on charter schools. http://www.edreform.com/_upload/CER_charter_survey_2008.pdf There is a great deal of interesting information in the survey. But what is most interesting is the statistic that public charter schools receive, on average, 40 percent less funding that other public schools.
Imagine that. Held to the same academic standards by the school district and state. Teaching the same pool of students (or possibly the most difficult students in the pool). Tied to the same real estate, utility, and staffing costs as other schools in the city. Yet these charters are only getting 60 cents on the dollar to deliver BETTER results than those fully-funded schools.
If we expect our public charter schools to outperform our old-school public schools, moving more students to academically proficient and getting more students on the pathway to success, they need the resources to do so. If the status quoers are correct, and public charters are only doing as well as other publics today, imagine what may be possible if those public charters were able to increase their budgets by 25 or 35 percent.
No, money doesn’t buy achievement. But it does help in employing effective teachers. It helps in acquiring research-proven instructional materials. It helps provide learning interventions to those who need it the most. It helps to provide after-hours learning opportunities. It helps providing facilities that are conducive to teaching and learning.
The next great chapter of the charter achievement discussion is likely to come from DC, as we witness of the success of the Center City effort to transform those great Catholic schools into public charter schools. Here’s hoping that those Center City schools get the full funding they need to achieve the lofty goals they have set. Then, we can continue a real, meaningful discussion of how public charters stack up against the old-school publics.
What is Achievement?
In today’s education reform era, student achievement is king. We want to see our kids succeeding. We want to see test scores rise. We want to know we can better compete against foreign nations on things like PISA and TIMSS. We want assurances our students are getting a top-notch education measure by results, and not by processes.
But what, exactly, is achievement? Eduflack and a close friend have been debating this very issue this week, and it really has me thinking. Do we, as a nation, now believe that student achievement is only measured based on state-offered standardized tests? And if not, what else qualifies as a measurement tool?
When the State of Maryland announced earlier this year that student achievement had dramatically increased in many at-risk schools across the state, Mike Petrilli and the folks over at the Fordham Foundation quickly pounced, correctly noting that reducing a standard so more kids make it does not mean students are achieving. The same could be said in NYC. NYCDOE’s recent test score boastings are indeed impressive. But how does this year’s yardstick measure with the previous years, those years when fewer students hit the mark?
And what about those subjects not measured by the state tests or by national measures like NAEP? Is there no student achievement in subjects like foreign languages or the arts or, in some cases, social studies? Clearly, that isn’t the case.
I recognize these are some odd questions coming from me, particularly when I have long argued that we know programs like Reading First work because we have the student performance data to show it. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that. In core subjects like reading and math, we have decades of data that demonstrate student performance. As long as the measurement tools are the same (as is the formula to calculate achievement) we know effectiveness or not.
I’ve heard myriad of stories of how elementary school music classes have boosted student math ability and how “non-core” classes have had a real impact on student interest and ability in the three Rs. With the recent push of STEM (science-tech-engineering-math) programs in our K-12s, we often talk about how social studies and other course electives can help strengthen a student’s STEM ability. Can we quantify such impacts? How do we claim more than just causal relationships between X course and student achievement?
A relative first for me, I’ll admit, but I don’t have all of the answers here. I know that student achievement should be our primary focus, and that we must ensure that all students are performing at the necessary levels in all subjects. I know that national standards are key to delivering on this promise, providing a singular yardstick by which to measure all students in all 50 states. And I know that such measures in reading/ELA, math, and science are the most important ones to provide us a real benchmark on where our students are … and where they need to go.
But I also recognize there is more to it than just that. How do we benchmark other subjects, particularly those that are not mandated as part of the state assessment or graduation requirements? How do we make sure that the year-on-year yardstick doesn’t move from 36 inches to 33, giving us a false reading in a given year? How, exactly, do we make sure our kids are really learning and achieving?
“Legacy”
For years now — well before the lawsuits, the IG investigations, and the delays in reauthorization — Eduflack trumpeted that No Child Left Behind could and should be this Administration’s domestic policy legacy. Like it or not, NCLB had the opportunity to transform and improve public education in the United States for decades to come.
I can hear the belly laughs already, but think about it. The largest federal investment in K-12 education in history. A commitment to improving student achievement. Unmatched accountability. Proven-effective, research-based instruction. Content-based professional development. Supplemental education and school choice for those in struggling schools. Every child reading at grade level by fourth grade. Education that was results based, not process based. A sea change from the status quo.
The opportunities to cement that legacy have been there. When Margaret Spellings took over in 2005. When high school improvement gained attention from ED in 2005 and 2006. The release of the NCLB Commission report in early 2007, following by genuine congressional interest to reauthorize and strengthen the law. There was even the moment when Spellings declared the law 99.99% pure. All were opportunities, and virtually all were squandered. Opportunities lost, legacies missed.
In today’s USA Today, Greg Toppo quotes our educator in chief — First Lady Laura Bush — as stating that NCLB will indeed be a legacy of her husband’s Administration. The question today, though, is what type of legacy will it become? In 2005 or 2006, the opportunity was there to demonstrate the enormous benefit the law — or at least the intent of the law — could have on K-12 education throughout the nation. Today, that legacy has the strong possibility of being cloaked in negativity, leaving a lasting mark for unfunded mandates, high-stakes testing, and teacher-proof instruction.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Spellings and her team have six months remaining to leave the legacy the law should have, the legacy deserved by the good folks who created NCLB nearly seven years ago. Even without reauthorization (which none of us expect to see before a new edsec takes the helm at Maryland Ave.), there is one last chance to do it right.
Continued flexibility for the states is a good start. Marketing recent reading and math gains for the students who needed NCLB the most helps too. Spotlighting the teachers and schools who have improved under the law reminds us all of what is possible. Reminding us that NCLB is about more than just elementary school, as evidenced by ED’s American competitiveness work goes a long way, as does promotion of the law’s investment in teachers and their continued training and development. And who can argue with the value of better data and better understanding of data, allowing our schools to use such information to make better spending, leadership, and instructional decisions.
Of course, Eduflack would personally like to see a metaphorical charge up San Juan Hill to save Reading First, reminding the world that literacy skills are needed to succeed in school, career, and life, and the only way to gain those skills is to ensure that our classrooms are using only the very best and the very proven instructional approaches.
So what comes next? Spellings and company have six months. They lose two of them for the election, and lose a few more weeks in January for transition. That leaves three months for a legacy campaign. Hard, yes. Impossible, not quite. But the clock is ticking. The question remains … is anyone at ED watching the clock?
The Neverending Quest for Good Data
Why is it so hard to find good, meaningful scientific data to prove the efficacy of an education reform? Do we know what good data is? Is it too expensive to capture? Is it deemed unnecessary in the current environment? Is it out-of-whack with the thinking of the status quoers?
EdWeek’s Kathleen Manzo has been raising some of these issues over on her blog — Curriculum Matters. (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/) And no, Eduflack has no qualms whatsoever with her taking me to task on whether the proof points I use to demonstrate Reading First is working are truly scientifically based proof points. To the contrary, I appreciate the demand to “show me” and have greatly enjoyed the offline conversations with Manzo on what research is out there and whether that research — the good, the bad, and the ugly — meets the hard standards we expect.
For the record, I am not a methodologist, a neuropsychologist, nor an academic to the nth degree. I learned about research methodology and standards and expected outcomes from NRPers like Tim Shanahan and Sally Shaywitz and from NICHDers such as Reid Lyon and Peggy McCardle. My knowledge was gained on the streets, so take it for what it is worth.
When NCLB and RF were passed into law, the education community took a collective gasp of concern over the new definition of education research. The era of squishy research was over. The time for passing action research or customer satisfaction surveys as scientific proofs of effectiveness had met its end. Folks starting scratching their heads, wondering how they would implement (and fund) the longitudinal, double-blind, control-grouped studies defined as scientifically based education research.
The common line in 2002 and 2003 was that only two reading programs, for instance, met the research standards in SBRR. Those two? Direct Instruction and Success for All. Not Open Court. Not Reading Recovery. Not Voyager. Only DI and SFA.
So what has happened over the years? In 2002, the fear was that every educational publisher would have to adopt a medical model-style research network a la NICHD. Millions upon millions of dollars would need to be spent by the basals to prove efficacy. It was to be a new world order in educational research.
Where are we today? As Manzo correctly points out, five years later there is little (if any) research out there that is now really meeting the standard. Even the large IES interim study of RF effectiveness — that $31 million study of our RF districts — fails to meet our standards for high-quality, scientific research (if you listen to the researchers who know best). Why? Why is it so difficult for us to gather research that is so important?
First, we have interpreted the law the way we want to interpret the law … and not the way it was written or intended. Those being asked to implement the research models simply didn’t want to believe that Reid Lyon and Bob Sweet really wanted them to pursue such zealous and comprehensive research. So it was interpreted differently. Neither consumers (school districts, teachers, and parents) nor suppliers (basals, SES providers, etc.) saw the necessity of longitudinal, control-grouped, double-blind, peer-reviewed research. We settled for what we could get. We knew that documents such as the NRP report of the previous National Research Council study met the requirements. So instead of doing our own research, in the early years of RF we simply attached the NRP study as our “research base” to demonstrate efficacy. Forget that the ink on the instructional program wasn’t dry, it was “scientifically based.” And there were no checks or review process to prove otherwise.
Second, we are an impatient people, particularly in the education reform community. Take a look at the NICHD reading research network, and you’ll see it takes a minimum of five years to see meaningful, long-term impact of a particular intervention. RF grants were first awarded in 2002, with most early funders using the money for the 2003-04 school year to start. That means just now — for the 2008-09 school year — would we truly be able to see the impact of RF interventions. But have we waited? Of course not. We declared victory (or defeat) within a year or two of funding. If test scores didn’t increase after the first full academic year, the nattering nabobs of the status quo immediately declared RF a failure, simultaneously condemning the need for “good” research.
We need to see results. If our second grader isn’t reading, we want her reading by third grade, tops. We don’t have the patience or the attention span to wait five to seven years to see the true efficacy of the instruction. We need a research model that provides short-term rewards, instead of measuring the long-term effects we need. A shame, yes, but a reality nonetheless.
The final side to our research problem triangle is the notion of control groups. In good science, we need control groups to properly measure the effects of intervention. How else do we know if the intervention, and not just a change in environment or a better pool of students, should be credited or student gains? That is one of the great problems with the IES interim study. We are measuring the impact of RF funding, but were unable to establish control groups that did not benefit from RF materials, instruction, and PD (even if they didn’t receive any hard RF dollars).
But in our real-life classroom environment, who wants their kid to be in that control group? We all want the best for our children; we don’t want them to get the sugar pill while all the other students are getting scientifically based reading and a real leg up on life. How do you say to teachers — in our age of collective bargaining — that these teachers on my right will get scientifically based professional development, but these two on my left will get nothing? How do we say these students on this side of the district will get research-based instruction and materials, but this cluster here will get instruction we know to be ineffective. Politically, our schools and their leaders can’t let real scientifically based research happen in their schools. Too much grief. Too many problems. Too little perceived impact.
So where does this all leave us? At the end of the day, we all seem to be making do with the research we can get, hoping it can be held to some standard when it comes to both methodology and outcomes. We expect it to have enough students in the study so we can disaggregate the data and make some assumptions. We expect to do the best we can with the info we can get.
Today, we see that most “scientifically based” research is cut from the same cloth. No, we aren’t following the medical model established by NICHD’s reading network, nor are we following the letter of the law as called for under NCLB and RF. Some come close, and I would again refer folks to the recent RF impact studies conducted in states such as Idaho and Ohio. The methodology is strong, the data is meaningful. And it shows RF is working.
What we are mostly seeing, though, is outcomes-based data. School X scores XX% on the state reading assessment last year. This year they introduced Y intervention, and scores increased XX%. Is it ideal? No. But it is a definite start. We are a better education community when we are collecting, analyzing, understanding, and applying data. Looking at year-on-year improvement helps us start that learning process and helps us improve our classrooms. It isn’t the solution, but it is an important step to getting there (particularly if we are holding all schools and students to a strong, singular learning standard).
Yes, Kathleen, we do need better research. We know what we need, we know how to get there. But until we demonstrate a need and a sense of urgency for the type of research NCLB and IES are hoping for, we need to take the incremental steps to get us there. Let’s leave the squishy research of days of old dead and buried. We’ve made progress on education research over the past five years. We need to build on it, not destroy it.
“Good For You!”
Why is it so hard for some people to see the benefit of national education standards? It seems like a such a common sense issue — identifying a common standard for all U.S. students and then doing what it takes to get all students to meet it. Maybe it is just too simple a concept, particularly since it seems to face such disdain or disenchantment from a significant number of people who should know better.
A perfect example of this was on display this past weekend on NBC’s Meet the Press. For those who missed it, Obama surrogate U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill was asked a throw-away education question following 20 minutes of questions on Iraq, gas, and the economy. Host Tom Brokaw asked Missouri’s junior senator about No Child Left Behind and the seemingly bipartisan opposition to the law.
McCaskill set her sights on the issue of national standards. NCLB is too inflexible, expecting too much from too many. She believes — as many Democrats do — that having one bar for all students to clear is somehow unfair. We should recognize all schools who demonstrate improvement. When they improve, she said, “good for you.” If they don’t improve, then we have a problem.
Where do we start with all of this? Should we really applaud those schools that increase from 10% to 14% proficiency in 4th grade reading or math? Is that really worth celebrating? All that does is tee up the states to reduce their individual “standards” each year to allow for a couple of percentage points increase year on year. Then all schools can have that “good for you.” Don’t believe me, take a look at how some states have “readjusted” their standards in recent years.
At the end of the day, standards should be inflexible. Standards are rigid. Just today, I was talking with a former urban educator who, without doubt, falls into the “liberal” side of the puzzle. She was saying that the best thing about NCLB was it held all students to one expectation. Didn’t matter if they came from a low-income family. Didn’t matter if their parents were educated. Didn’t matter if they were an only child or the youngest of eight. Didn’t matter the language spoken at home or in the neighborhood. We should expect all students to be proficient. And we shouldn’t be celebrating anything until they reach that level.
That is the ultimate root of the concept of abolishing the soft bigotry of low expectations that governed the establishment of NCLB. That bigotry consists of the excuses we make for failure. The socioeconomic reasons. The family structure. The neighborhood strife. The lack of resources. We’ve replaced the Horatio Alger story with a “But, if” story. We celebrate process, without worrying about the end results. And that’s just a cryin’ shame.
We’d all like to believe that all of the schools in McCaskill’s Show Me State are reading and computing at proficient levels, and all can get that pat on the back and the “good for you” that she wants to hand out along with increased federal appropriation. But we all know that’s not the case. We need to set a national standard because we need something for the nation to aspire to. We need a bar that means something, a common bar that every single student in the United States must clear to demonstrate effective learning. Is that really asking for too much?
No Literacy Crisis?!?
It now seems we are in the full funeral procession for Reading First. In today’s USA Today’s dueling editorials, the nation’s newspaper of record calls for Reading First to be brought back from the dead. USA Today notes (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/our-view-on-lit.html#more) that the program works, evidenced by the growing number of statements from educators and from recent studies — such as those released last month by CEP — that demonstrate improvement. And RF offices in states from Idaho to Ohio to Alabama have added their voice to save the necessary program.
The latest defense of the program can be found in yesterday’s Boston Herald (http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1105503), in a passionate piece from the head of the Bay State Reading Institute.
Eduflack has said it once, and I’ll say it again. RF works. It has boosted student reading achievement, as demonstrated by student assessments in states across the nation. It has improved reading teacher development, empowering teachers to use data to target specific interventions at the students who need them. And it has focused SEA and LEA spending on programs that work, demanding solid, research-based proof. After flatlining for decades, achievement is on the rise, and improvements are due, in large part, to the direct and indirect impact of Reading First and the embrace of scientifically based reading.
Unfortunately, such results don’t seem to be enough for some people. Case in point — Stephen Krashen’s opposition-editorial (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/hooked-on-phail.html#more) to USA Today’s cogent stance. Krashen reheats many of the same misguided stances of years past. He embraces the urban legends and conspiracy theories of NRP attacker Elaine Garan. And he reiterates the fallacy that RF is all about phonics, and nothing about reading comprehension (an untruth we all should know to be false).
Krashen raises two points, though, that merit continued discussion. The first is the notion that 99 percent of Americans (adults and kids) can read and write at basic levels. He uses this to say there is no literacy crisis, and thus no need to change the way we teach or increase our worry about student reading achievement. 99 percent? Really?
First, we must look at his term “basic.” In our 50 states, we define reading ability by students who are proficient or better. Basic does not mean proficient. It means a fourth grader reading at a first grade level, or an adult with third grade literacy skills. In today’s society, basic doesn’t cut it. We need proficient readers. And like it or not, 40 percent of today’s fourth graders are not proficient readers. That should signal crisis to every teacher, parent, business leader, or elected official in this country.
More disturbing, though, are Krashen’s closing comments. Of course he applauds the death blow to RF. In doing so, he advocates that the money should be spent on libraries in urban areas. A noble goal, yes, but it demonstrates a complete naiveté when it comes to federal appropriations. The death of RF means the elimination of federal reading funding. It does not mean we get to propose new programs to fund. Nor does not mean we now have a bucket of $300 million or $1 billion of education funding that can now be spent on other programs. The checkbook is closed. The well is dry. This is a bad thing.
For more than a decade now, reading instruction has received hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government. Funding started under the Clinton Administration and America Reads in 1997. It increased in 2002 with the passage of RF. Since then, billions of dollars has been directed to the LEAs to improve reading instruction in the communities that need it most.
Over the past two years, that money has been cut. This year, Congress is zeroing out the funds. For the first time in more than a decade, the federal government will not be supporting reading instruction in this country. And that is a cryin’ shame. For folks like Dr. Krashen — who have dedicated their professional lives to literacy — they should be embarrassed that RF has been defunded. They should be offended that reading instruction is no longer a federal priority. Instead of celebrating their defeat of RF, they should be outraged that a program supported by everyone from the IRA to the U.S. Department of Education has prematurely come to end. They should be fighting to save reading funding for teachers and schools, not throwing parties because a program supported by their opponents in the faculty senate has been dealt a defeat.
But why should we expect that? That would put kids and teachers above research dollars, professional reputations, and “ideological” camps.
Is Opinion Research?
For nearly a decade now, “research” has been the buzz word in education reform. It comes in many flavors, and it usually comes with a number of adjectives — scientifically based, high quality, effective, squishy, and such. And by now we all know that “scientifically based research” is in the NCLB law more than 100 times.
With all of the talk about research, we know there is good research and there is not so good research. We have action research passed off as longitudinal. We have customer satisfaction studies passed off as randomized trials. We have people mis-using, mis-appropriating, and downright abusing the word “research.”
Through it all (at least for the past seven years or so), the U.S. Department of Education was supposed to be the arbiter between good and bad research. IES was founded to serve as the final, most official word on what constitutes good education research. Dollars have been realigned. Programs have been thoroughly examined. Priorities have been shaken up.
So where does it all leave us? In this morning’s Washington Post, EdSec Margaret Spellings launches a passionate defense of the DC voucher program. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070702216.html (Personally, I’m still waiting for such a defense of Reading First, a program helping millions upon millions of more students in schools beyond our nation’s capital, but what can you do?)
It should come as no surprise that Spellings sought to use research to demonstrate the effectiveness and the need for the DC voucher program. Without doubt, vouchers have had a real impact on the District of Columbia. It has reinforced the importance of education with many families. It has opened doors of schools previously closed off to DC residents. It has forced DC public schools and charters to do a better job, as they seek to keep DC students (and the dollars associated with their enrollment) in the DCPS coffers. And, of course, we are starting to see the impact vouchers are having on student achievement among students who previously attended the most struggling of struggling schools.
Spellings points out all of this in her detailing of the research validating the voucher program. But there is one “research” point Spellings uses that just has Eduflack scratching his head. From the EdSec’s piece — “The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) found that parents of scholarship children express confidence that they will be better educated and even safer in their new schools.”
Such a statement is downright funny, and quite a bit concerning. In all of the discussions about scientifically based research, high-quality research, the medical model, double-blind studies, control groups, and the like, I don’t remember public opinion surveys meeting the IES standard for high-quality research. Parents feel better about their children because of vouchers? That’s a reason to direct millions in federal funding to the program?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for public opinion polling and the value of such surveys (along with the focus groups and other qualitative research that helps educate them). But it is one of the last things that should be used to validate a program or drive government spending on educational priorities.
If DC is to keep vouchers, it should keep them because it is driving improvement in student performance and is giving a real chance to kids previously in hopeless situations. It should be saved with real data that bears a resemblance to the scientifically based research we demand of the our programs and that we expect our SEAs and LEAs to use in decisionmaking. It should be actionable research, with a clear methodology that can be replicated.
Otherwise, we’re just wrapping up opinion in a research wrapper. That may be good enough for some for-profit education companies and others trying to turn a quick buck on available federal resources, but it shouldn’t make the cut for the government — particularly the branch of ED that is in charge of high-quality research. Ed reform should be more than a finger-in-the-wind experiment. And Spellings and IES should know that by now.
Punishing Those We Should Be Helping
Last year, Congress slashed funding for Reading First, citing the Inspector General’s report on the program and concerns from critics about the management of the program and its “political priorities.” At the time, folks in the know saw it as a warning shot. Popular thinking was that the 65% cut would be restored at the end of the day, once EdSec Margaret Spellings issued a mea culpa and promised to run a tighter ship. After all, even House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey’s home district in Wisconsin saw demonstrable gains because of Reading First. Clearly, he wasn’t going to deny his own schools, would he?
Of course, the funding was never restored, and RF is now a funding shell of its former shelf. That was bad news for the program, but worse news for the countless schools across the nation that boosted student reading achievement because of RF support and programs. Now, we’re moving into disaster.
Last week, House appropriators moved to eliminate the Reading First program entirely. They want to zero out the program, putting an end to what was a signature component of NCLB. One can’t blame, them, really. The program has been a high-profile effort of the Administration. There is plenty of blame to go around on the stumbling blocks and problems that arose during its early implementation. And after the release of the IG report, the Department has done little — if anything — to promote the law, perhaps fearing greater attention or critique. It’s become the bastard stepchild of NCLB.
Let’s forget — for a second — that RF works. Let’s forget the data released last week — prepared by American Institutes for Research for the U.S. Department of Education — that shows the effectiveness of the program. Forget that RF increased reading comprehension proficiency for first graders in 44 of 50 SEAs. Forget that it boosted reading success of second graders in nearly 4 out of 5 SEAs. Forget that third graders in 70% of reporting SEAs saw test scores increase. And forget the similar positive impact it is having on both English Language Learners and students with disabilities. Forget all of it.
Forgetting it all is the only way one can justify action to eliminate the program. Student proficiency increasing in first, second, and third grades (the very grades targeted by RF)? Interventions that work with all students, including ELL students? Funds for results-based teacher professional development? Real interventions that work with virtually all students? No, we don’t need any of that.
Yes, Spellings deserved (and deserves) to have her wrist slapped. The problems with the implementation of RF happened under her watch, first as quarterback over at DPC and then over at the building of little red schoolhouses. The proverbial buck has to stop somewhere, and it should be at her desk. She has to take responsibility. More importantly, she has to fix it. The data is clear — the program works. She needs to whatever it takes to keep the mission, vision, and goals of this necessary law in place. She’s been fighting to save NCLB for the past year, demonstrating flexibility to bring more states and their politicians into the fold. She should be doing the same thing for RF.
If she can’t, then she’s just letting Congress punish the wrong people. When House and Senate leaders choose to zero out RF, the only people they are punishing are the teachers and students who depend on the funding and who are making demonstrable gains because of the guidance and support it provides. They’re hurting those elementary school students who now finally gaining the reading skills they need to succeed in both school and life. And they are penalizing those schools that have made a success of RF, despite the problems at the national level.
I’m all for strong rhetoric with real teeth. Congress should demand more accountability for RF and NCLB programs. They should expect the problems highlighted in the IG report to be remedied. And they should use the stick when the carrot isn’t working. But they also need to remember why we committed $1 billion a year to effectively teach reading. They need to look at both the letter and intent of the RF law, and ensure it is implemented with fidelity. They need to fulfill their commitment to our schools and beginning readers across the nation.
It’s easy to throw up our hands, get out the red pens, and draw and X through RF. It’s far, far harder to teach kids to read. If Reading First works (and even the recent Center on Education Policy data shows it does), we need to support it, not sentence it to a slow, political death. Otherwise, we’re just punishing those kids that are picking up their first book … or it may be their last.
Closing the Achievement Gap?
When No Child Left Behind was implemented back in 2002, one of its prime goals was to close the achievement gap. Then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige made it the cornerstone of his stump speech, focusing much of the law’s early days on how to help low-income and minority students in struggling schools. Supplemental funds were geared, in large part, to addressing the achievement gap issue. Reading First funding was gift-wrapped for schools struggling with the problem. Even Highly Qualified Teacher provisions were developed to ensure that urban (read minority) schools were getting qualified, effective teachers.
The multi-billion-dollar question out there is did it work? Has NCLB made a difference in closing the achievement gap. Critics of the law have made NCLB all about inflexibility and high-stakes tests and unreachable expectations. And they’ve been successful, in large part, because many believe the law hasn’t worked (basing their beliefs on the opinion pages and coffee clatchs, instead of real, hard data).
This week, the Center on Education Policy released its comprehensive study, “Has Student Achievement Increased Since 2002?”
The findings are just fascinating. USA Today draws out the highlights (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-24-no-child_N.htm).
What does all this tell us? First and foremost, the tenets of NCLB seem to be working. Several states — including Texas and Arkansas — showed moderate to large gains in both reading and math. Others — including Tennessee — showed similar gains in reading. And others more — such as New Jersey and Ohio — showed those gains in math. Scores are rising. The achievement gap between white and black students is shrinking. And states are far more serious about data collection and accountability today than they were six years ago.
We’re a far, far ways away from declaring “mission accomplished” with NCLB. But we are starting to see its impact (and it is a positive one to boot). Once we move beyond the rhetoric and vitriol of NCLB, and start looking at the resources it provides, the supports it offers, and the roadmap it lays forward, we can still see the positive impact the law can have if implemented correctly.
Sure, NCLB is the furthest thing from the collective mind of Congress. And yes, it is far easier to kill the law rather than improve it. But if our goal is to improve student achievement, particularly among low-income and minority students, it is hard to ignore this CEP data or the continuous roll call of teachers, parents, and students who speak on the positive impact the law has had on them.
And just imagine the success it could have if it went from being the education community’s Stretch Armstrong doll and once again enjoyed the bi-partisan support and encouragement it received in 2002?
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 