[Durham INC] Lifting the Shame

Wed Jun 27 18:18:21 EDT 2012

I wanted to share with you this email and the op-ed in today's Durham Herald-Sun about literacy efforts in Durham to provide solutions, spearheaded by BootstrapsPAC.org.

I hope you will all join in this effort, which now includes the Durham Public Schools, with the ultimate goal of a community-wide initiative.  We are especially interested in creating opportunities for business interests to support this initiative.  

You may have seen that Charlotte recently announced a $55M business initiative to support their schools.  I know that Durham and its business leaders can duplicate Charlotte's success.

Dick

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Mary Carey" <marycarey at nc.rr.com>
> Subject: lifting the shame
> Date: June 27, 2012 5:37:52 PM EDT
> 
>  
> One of the greatest obstacles that we face in helping students who can’t read are the students themselves.
>  
> They don’t yell for help.  The shame of not knowing what is on the page when a teacher calls on you is felt even as early as kindergarten.  Imagine sitting in a classroom and the teacher saying, “who can tell me the title of the book?”  All the hands in the classroom shoot up—anxious to please the teacher and answer this simple question.  The struggling reader is looking at the same book but has no idea what the answer is.  Does he say, “Hey!  I can’t read this!”  No, he quickly learns to hide his secret. 
>  
> He becomes a master at keeping this secret.  When it is getting close to his time to read he breaks the tip of his pencil so he must go and sharpen it right then.  He times his visits to the bathroom to coincide with the time he would be next to read.  He drops his book and papers just as it is his turn.  These kids who can’t read are simply amazing at coming up with tactics to avoid anyone knowing their secret.
>  
> If a child were to hurt his arm on the playground he would immediately seek help.  He wouldn’t be ashamed. Children who can’t read feel that there is something wrong with them so they don’t yell for help.  We need to be their voice.  We need to lift their shame and get them the help they need.
>  
> In today’s Herald Sun there is an editorial submitted by the Board of Bootstraps, Stacey Yusko, George Horton and Mark Trustin.  Please take a moment to read it.  If you would like to submit a response you can write toletters at heraldsun.com
>  
> Here is the link:
> http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/19115002/article-We-must-join-together-to-improve-students%E2%80%99-reading-skills?instance=search_results
>  
> Here is the text:
>  
> We must join together to improve students’ reading skills
> The Herald Sun
> 19 hrs ago | 99 views | 0 | 3 | | 
> By George Horton, Mark Trustin and Stacey Yusko
> 
> Herald-Sun guest columnists
> 
> We want to address those bumper stickers you have been seeing around Durham — the ones that say “44% of Durham’s students failed the N.C. Reading test. Please help them.” They come from Bootstraps, an all-volunteer, nonpartisan, Triangle-wide political action committee whose goal is to achieve an educated and productive citizenry in the Triangle.
> 
> The bumper stickers are part of an effort to raise awareness about the significant illiteracy problem in Triangle schools.
> 
> • 44 percent in Durham failed the North Carolina end of grade reading test.
> 
> • One in four Wake County students failed.
> 
> • 13 percent in Chapel Hill failed. That number may seem acceptable unless of course you are one of the 13 percent.
> 
> Reading is one of the primary building blocks of civilization. It is fundamental for a productive life. If you can read, you can learn. Reading and education are so interdependent that it would seem impossible to gain an education while not knowing how to read.
> 
> Some may see that number and want to begin looking for whom to blame — it’s the teacher’s fault, the parent’s fault, the child’s fault. The problem is so significant that we just do not have time for finger-pointing and assigning blame. It may help us sleep better at night but it does not help that eighth-grader sitting in class failing to understand the words on the page.
> 
> What does help? Engagement. We need every segment of society engaged. We need the faith community, the business community, the university community, the philanthropic community, families and retirees and college students engaged. This is the time not to ask who is at fault but rather, what can I do to help bring about change?
> 
> What has been amazing and heartening about Durham is that all of these communities want to help. Bootstraps held a reading meeting on April 20. There were representatives from a number of important groups. They all wanted to be part of the solution. After the meeting, there were many comments like, “We have a lot of meetings in Durham but they don’t lead to solutions” and “We meet and it’s like a box of fireworks goes off and nothing happens.” That has not been the experience with this initiative. All of the Bootstraps members have been so inspired not only by the willingness to help but also the willingness to work.
> 
> Dr. Eric Becoats, superintendent of Durham Public Schools, and a member of the working group following up on the reading meeting, has developed a framework for addressing this problem. He identified three areas that would benefit Durham’s struggling readers. Those areas are: kindergarten readiness, professional development, and expanded literacy programs. Each of these areas will have a team assigned to address them. From each team will come well-vetted recommendations that would be part of a comprehensive Reading Plan for Durham. How amazing is it that we can draw on the expertise from our nation’s finest universities? How fortunate is it that we have businesses wanting to help our public schools? How wonderful that there are so many organizations well positioned to help these struggling readers?
> 
> You may be reading this and dismiss this problem because your child knows how to read. Please know that these scores are the “front porch” to any family or business considering moving to Durham. Please also know that illiteracy has correlations with nearly every societal ill, from drug and alcohol abuse to unemployment to crime.
> 
> These scores fall on the back of every citizen in Durham. It is only with every citizen engaged can we solve this problem. For more information on how you can help, please go to www.bootstrapspac.org or write to your local principal and be part of the solution.
> 
> George Horton (Durham) Mark Trustin (Durham) and Stacey Yusko (Chapel Hill) are members of the board of Bootstraps.
> 
> 
> Read more: The Herald-Sun - We must join together to improve students’ reading skills
>  
>  
> Here are some other letters written on behalf of these kids:
>  
>  
> A real priority
> I couldn’t agree more with Dick Ford’s guest column Sunday (DN, June 10, bit.ly/OuI9KU).
> We have to make literacy a real priority, and I believe that the Triangle and Durham are particularly well poised to tackle illiteracy locally and nationally, if we can garner the will.
> Melinda Thompson
> Member of Bull City Forward
> Hill Center parent
>  
> Will commissioners rubber-stamp school budget?
> 
> Durham County taxpayers are being signed up to spend $146 million on the Durham Public Schools next fiscal year – 42 percent of our county’s budget. You’d think for that amount of taxpayer cash, the County Commissioners would receive information from the DPS to make an informed decision. Think again.
> 
> At DPS’s budget presentation last month, commissioners were given just 14 PowerPoint slides by DPS -- about $10 million of our tax dollars per slide!
> 
> Commissioner Ellen Reckhow asked for the “budget book” previous superintendents provided. None will appear before the commissioners’ scheduled budget vote this Monday. Budget books were regularly provided at budget time until the current superintendent was hired.
> 
> Even the Board of Education has to chase its own budget information. Vice-Chair Carter was reported asking the administration to give the board a briefing on how the budget is built, rather than just alternative cuts to balance the budget. This briefing is still a “work-in-progress.”
> 
> Even if student outcomes were stellar, this lack of transparency should be remedied. But student outcomes are deplorable – 44 percent of DPS students fail state reading tests. See BootstrapsPAC.org.
> 
> We deserve a community-wide effort led by our political leaders, starting with the commissioners, to solve Durham’s literacy problems. The schools can be integrated into the community-wide efforts, becoming less defensive and more transparent.
> 
> The commissioners have the power of the purse and need to exercise it now with the DPS. Will our commissioners pass their reading test?
> 
> Dick Ford
> 
> Durham
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: The Herald-Sun - Letters June 23
> Schools’ focus should be on reading
> 
> Forty-four percent of Durham Public Schools students performed below grade level on the state reading comprehensive test (third through eighth grade in 2010-2011; see www.ncreportcards.org). Yet since Superintendent Eric Becoats has been here, we have never had town hall meetings about this issue. We have had community meetings about student reassignments and what we like going forward with the school choice options. I am no educator, but if my job was to educate the children of Durham County, I would think that the first thing that would need to be fixed is making sure that kids can read.
> 
> We have allowed the school board to put it in cruise control for too long, and take no responsibility for the state we are in. Did you know that we have the third-highest teacher supplement in the state, therefore the third-highest-paid teachers in the state? I would think that we would get the best instruction in the state. I don’t think 44 percent unable to pass the state reading comprehensive test is among the best in the state. I do not blame the teachers; I blame the school board and by extension the superintendent, because they have a history of prioritizing what affluent parents want, not what kids and the county need. This has to change. All of our children should be able to read. Every decision made downtown does not start by asking: How does this directly help kids read? We would be better off taking our county taxes dollars, piling them in our driveways, and setting it on fire.
> 
> Steve Bumgardner
> 
> Durham
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: The Herald-Sun - Letters June 20
>  
>  
> I apologize for the length of this email but I wanted to make you aware of recent press on behalf of struggling readers.  They will never speak up for themselves.  Please  help represent them.
>  
> Thank you-
>  
> Mary Carey
> www.bootstrapspac.org
> 919-522-9610
>  
>  
>  

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