[Durham INC] Literacy, not 751, is the crucial issue facing County Commissioners.

[Pat Carstensen]

I didn't say to wait. Given that global competition and technology is raising the bar on how well our kids need to be educated and that we are probably going to see more kids with challenges and deeper challenges, we need to be "upping our game" a lot.  I did say that the proposal to simply flunk kids not reading well is, like the worse of the liberal proposals, too simple, and like most such simple proposals is going to have nasty unintended consequences and probably benefit someone other than the kids.  Specifically."Illiteracy" is an unfair "hot button" term if most people are like me in thinking "illiterate" means like my Great-Uncle Fritz who never learned to read (the family was German-speaking and their school wasn't into bilingual education)."Literacy" is a complicated thing; people who read list-serves probably have no sense of how complicated learning to read can be.    The kids I see who literally aren't reading are probably biologically incapable of reading.  Using pass/fail of end-of-grade tests is so 20th century because failing can mean anything from having almost no "sight words" (needing to sound out everything) to simply not having the cultural connections to understand what a reading is about.Given that "reading below grade level" can have so many shades of gray, I would put a lot more faith in parents and teachers to choose correctly for the student than in any simple rules.I'm dubious about "summer reading camps."  Sounds like big profits for band-aid providers.As I said in my previous note, math is at least as big an issue as reading.  There are LOTS of 8th graders who use fingers and number lines to add when they should be figuring out what subtracting negative numbers means (and even tho they were required to learn "commutative property" in 3rd(!) grade, they add 2+9 by going "2,3,...11" instead of doing the simpler thing of counting 2 up from 9).  Algebra II students use their calculators as such a crutch that to just try all the possible divisors to find factors of a number.  Fourth graders turn in their filled out multiplication tables daily, and 5th graders seem to enjoy the challenge of long division.  So I think that addition and multiplication tables are like Spanish verbs -- you use them or you lose them.  I'm not convinced that having calculators as crutches is a problem, but if you we want students to retain their tables, we need to make them routinely do hand calculations.  Which will take time from something else. 
What would I do:Get better information to parents about costs and benefits of retaining their kid -- what exactly are the indicators that another year in 3rd grade is going to be beneficial, would some kind of summer experience help them catch up?Give more options beyond just promote / retain.  For example, a magnet or charter school for 4th and 5th graders whose reading levels, as measured by the LEXILE? tests are below grade.  To do it right would be expensive since you would want rooms with space more like 1st grades, teaching assistants, and at least one reading coach / specialist.  Pay for it by taking money from charters that don't provide meals and transportation.If you heard this story about learning to read to kids:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/29/153927743/small-change-in-reading-to-preschoolers-can-help-disadvantaged-kids-catch-up, we should make sure the libraries and teachers are using these skills, and ideally be giving classes to parents on this.We already have some volunteers (Fred Foster was doing this when he was hired to be a TA at E. K. Powe, Wendy has also been a volunteer).  in the schools working with kids.  I'm not sure how much training they get.  Get more and better at this.

> From: rbford at aim.com
> Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 14:00:43 -0400
> To: inc-list at rtpnet.org
> Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Literacy, not 751,	is the crucial issue facing County Commissioners.
> 
> Guess I'll have to pull out my dog-eared Rules for Radical to discover how "literacy" is another GOP trick.
> 
> So let's be sure to tell the parents and kids with reading difficulties that they'll just have to wait to learn to read until, as determined by Pat and Melissa, the world is remade into their Progressive Vision!
> 
> It never ceases to amaze me that folks cannot admit that the present literacy outcome is unacceptable and we must change our strategy.
> 
> The County is about to appropriate  $146M of our tax dollars for the DPS. I would hardly call that "indirect" involvement. As several Commissioners mentioned at our INC forum, they have the "power of the purse."  But do they have the will to use it??
> 
> I think we have a community problem calling for a community response, not partisan ripostes.
> 
> Dick
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