Aiming for Excellence: Senate Leaders Pass Bill to Combat Illiteracy in NC Schools
Students at Hertford Grammar School navigate early education amidst the additional challenges imposed by COVID-19. Source.
What do high school graduation rates, lifetime earnings, and the likelihood of incarceration have in common? They are all correlated with literacy rates. The ability to read well opens up education and employment opportunities, leads to higher self-esteem, and generally grants one access to the world; naturally, it is the goal of legislators and teachers alike to create systems that successfully teach children to develop this essential skill.
In a state like North Carolina, where over 40% of third-graders in North Carolina did not reach proficiency on reading tests in 2019, this fight is far from new. In 2012, NC Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, led the charge for the passage of Read to Achieve, a law aimed at boosting reading proficiency rates among elementary students. Unfortunately, nearly a decade and millions of taxpayer dollars later, the legislation has had little effect on scores across the state.
In order to explain the bill’s failure, some critics point to the widespread use of the whole language or so-called “balanced literacy” curriculum, which is a teaching method that blends of the use of phonics (associating sounds with letters or clusters of letters) with strategies such as having students guess words they don’t know based on context clues or pictures. Last week, Republican State Superintendent Catherine Truitt said that this method of teaching has caused a “crisis of illiteracy,” which often disproportionately affects low-income students, and advocated for a return to a purely phonics-based approach.
Truitt’s comments last week were made in support of Sen. Berger’s recent introduction of the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2021, which attempts to improve upon his original legislation by consolidating Read to Achieve’s more than 115 pilot programs and mandating state-level implementation of clear instructional methods. This bill’s central focus is on re-prioritizing the science of reading, a research-backed discipline that focuses on how children’s brains work when they are learning to read and which teaching strategies are most successful. Though the science of reading includes a vast array of theories and suggestions for teaching, one of its central tenets is phonics instruction.
Other aspects of the bill include a training program on the science of reading for elementary school teachers, funded by federal COVID-19 relief dollars. This would be mandatory for all instructors and provided by the private company Voyager Sopris Learning, which owns the LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training program.
It also expands the summer reading camps created by Read to Achieve, which are designed to provide additional support to students who fail to reach proficiency by second and third grade. The bill offers financial compensation for teachers who opt to work during the summer and additional incentives for teachers whose students perform well on end-of-program exams.
Overall, the bill creates a number of statewide standards and regulations both for students’ performance and for the retraining of teachers, even including the introduction of individualized reading plans for each student.
On March 30th, the Senate passed the Excellent Public Schools Act. Though Democrats offered some criticism during a rare questioning period held by Sen. Berger, most lawmakers expressed support for the bill and the vote was unanimous. Sen. Gladys Robinson, D-Guilford, pointed out that COVID-19 has only lowered literacy rates and has “left behind” a number of students who may lack technology, parental support, or other resources crucial to staying afloat during remote learning. Robinson argued that “The ability to read is the background, the foundation of everything.”
The bill now moves to the NC House where it is likely to be passed; legislators have hope that Gov. Cooper will sign it into law soon. Although Read to Achieve failed to deliver on its lofty promises, the new focus on the science of reading and expanded support for teachers may give this bill what it needs to transform childhood literacy in the state.