Friday News Roundup

It was a slow news week in the world of learning, but nevertheless… It’s Friday! Time for the Roundup.

D.C. Needs More Than Phonics to Lift Its Students’ Reading Scores (The 74)

The 74 online reported this week that,

“A decade ago, Washington D.C. was hailed as a national model for education reform. The charter school sector, which now serves almost half of all public school students in the city, was expanding rapidly. D.C. Public Schools was a leader in adopting a teacher evaluation policy that linked compensation to student test scores and boasted that it was ‘the fastest-improving urban school district in the country.’”

“But while reading scores have improved somewhat, 73% of fourth-graders and 78% of eighth-graders still score below proficient on national reading tests. And the yawning gaps between groups of students have stayed the same or even expanded.”

“In 2022, Black fourth-graders scored 69 points lower than their white peers, a gap that hasn’t budged significantly since 1998. The disparity between children poor enough to qualify for free school meals and those who are not is now 56 points, 14 points larger than in 1998. The trend for eighth grade is similar.”

“…[L]ike most other jurisdictions, D.C. has focused on ensuring that children receive systematic instruction in foundational skills like phonics. Important as phonics is, it’s just one ingredient in proficient reading. In addition to being able to decipher or decode words, students need to be able to comprehend text.”

“The key factors making this possible are background knowledge and vocabulary. If schools improve phonics instruction without also systematically building knowledge, many students will reach higher grades able to decode complex texts but unable to understand them. That explains why, when states adopt early literacy policies focused on phonics, gains on elementary school reading tests fade out by middle school or high school.”

Phonics, background knowledge, vocabulary development, and experiencing print-rich learning all matter when it comes to learning how to read and then reading to learn. It’s not an “either/or.” It’s an “and.”

Governor Kim Reynolds Signs Bill Letting School Staff Obtain Permit to Carry Guns at School (The Des Moines Register)

It’s now happened in Iowa. School teachers are now packing heat during class time.

According to The Des Moines Register online,

“Iowa teachers and other school employees can get a new professional permit to carry guns on schools grounds, under a law Governor Kim Reynolds signed Friday.”

This is a bad idea, whether it’s in Iowa or elsewhere. In my 35 years working in and around public schools, I would say at least 50% of the teachers and staff I worked with, including myself, were ill-prepared to carry a firearm around a school campus.

It’s a bad idea.

HISD Scrapped Its Controversial Principal Screening After Backlash. But Teacher Screenings Remain (Houston Chronicle)

Bad things are happening in Houston these days when it comes to improving their K-12 school system. The Houston Chronicle online reported this past week that,

“Houston ISD teachers at about half of the district’s campuses will learn on May 6 whether they are eligible to keep their jobs under a proficiency screening process, even after the district reversed course on using a similar process for principals following community backlash.”

“The screening evaluated teachers in current and future NES (New Education System) schools on their professionalism, student achievement and quality of instruction. The district assigns achievement and instruction scores to teachers based on a targeted distribution, and they must earn a passing score on the end-of-year screening on May 6 to be eligible to work in a NES school.”

Although professionalism, student achievement, and quality learning is important in any learning organization, the way Houston is going about figuring out their top adult learning leaders is troubling.

Young learners know who they would like to have as their adult learning leader. Professionalism, student achievement, and quality learning are all important, building a relationship between young learners and their adult learning leader(s) matters most. And I don’t see anything about relationships inside the Houston NES screening system.

Enjoy your weekend. Til Monday. SVB