reprinted from nytimes.com
December 23, 2007
Connecticut
But because the brain is programmed for speech, not for reading, educators must use a teaching approach based on proven research to make sure our children learn to read. Since Connecticut’s teachers are among the best educated and highest paid in the country, this should not be a problem.
Think again. More than half of Connecticut’s fourth-grade students are unable to read at or above proficiency, as measured by the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress. The Connecticut Mastery Test reading scores are more encouraging, but in 2007 still showed 43 percent of fourth graders unable to read at goal (a standard somewhat lower than the national test’s proficiency level). These dismal scores on both the national and state tests have remained more or less constant for 10 years.
This is Connecticut’s unacceptable status quo. Our students’ inability to read well has become a crisis, one that, if left unresolved, will hamper them for the rest of their lives. If children do not become competent readers by age 9 — when most are in fourth grade — it is far more likely that they will read poorly as adults. Eventually, a less literate work force will hurt the state’s economy.
Let’s be clear about this: The children are not failing us. We are failing them.
The overall reading scores are bad enough. But even more frightening are the reading scores for minorities and the poor. This year, less than 20 percent of either African-American or Hispanic fourth graders in Connecticut scored at reading proficiency on the national test. And just 13 percent of low-income fourth-grade students were proficient in reading, compared with 52 percent from higher-income families.
Again, the 2007 Connecticut Mastery Test scores are higher, but not by much.
These numbers motivated the commissioner of the state Department of Education, Mark McQuillan, to hold a statewide meeting about reading at the end of November. He brought together educators and administrators from every school district in the state to discuss what could be done to improve reading. To his credit, he highlighted these same worrisome test scores in a detailed presentation. The forum, held in Waterbury, was the setting for passionate and honest debate.
But now what? Holding a meeting is no substitute for action, as the state has learned too well over the years. After all, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Higher Education held its own meeting about reading last January. Based on suggestions from that gathering, the committee unanimously passed a proposal that would have required teacher candidates to pass a stand-alone test in reading to become certified in teaching students at the third-grade level or below. The proposal then went to the Education Committee and was never heard from again.
Similarly, seven years ago, a state panel wrote a thorough report called the Blueprint for Reading Achievement. It outlined changes needed in teachers’ development to ensure student reading success. The report was widely praised and has mostly collected dust ever since.
Some teachers and education schools believe they are being unfairly blamed for students’ inability to read. And the issue is indeed complicated and not simply a matter of teaching. Many poor students, who are disproportionately from minorities, come from environments in which they are less likely to have many books at home and more likely to have parents too exhausted from working several jobs to read to them regularly. Others live in homes where English is rarely spoken. As many as one-quarter of the state’s children show up for kindergarten unprepared, with no preschool experience at all. They have an uphill climb because there is nothing natural about the ability to read. It is not automatic.
But neither is the ability to teach reading, which requires sophisticated ability to help children decode words and develop a phonetic awareness. In a study performed by Jule McCombes-Tolis at Southern Connecticut State University and Richard Feinn at Yale, less than 50 percent of Connecticut teachers surveyed could identify core reading competencies or knew at what age children should have comprehension and reading accuracy skills.Yet this is not surprising. State law requires undergraduate education majors to take a mere two courses in reading in order to teach, and one of those could be a general literature course, a requirement that even the biggest teachers union here, the Connecticut Education Association, says is inadequate. Teacher certification requires just a general knowledge of reading. The upshot is often-frustrated educators who want to help their students but who were not taught the skills.
Despite the low reading scores in Connecticut, there are few signs that any group is taking responsibility. State colleges as well as the University of Connecticut have not moved to require their education majors to take more courses in reading, especially since the state does not require them to do so and there is, as yet, no stand-alone test in reading for which education students must prepare in order to teach. At the same time, the state Education Department is loath to force the issue.
In short, nobody wants to move first. Connecticut is not called the Land of Steady Habits for nothing. But the state cannot afford to sacrifice its children to a life of near-illiteracy while its officials, educators and politicians all wait for consensus to emerge.
The state Department of Education should ask the Legislature to require elementary education students who intend to teach the lower grades to take a test in the science of reading instruction. It should also require more than two courses in reading for education majors. The Education Committee should be responsible enough to hold hearings and vote on the proposals.
The state should also pay for current teachers to get additional training in research-based methods of reading instruction, and take steps to encourage school leadership on this issue. Any teacher, even a great one, cannot close the reading gap without support from the school principal. Principals need to foster a team approach in which successful reading instruction becomes the priority in our schools.
Teachers cannot turn around this situation alone. They need our help. If they do not get it, Connecticut will continue to fail its children.
