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July 21, 2023How Can New Jersey Raise the Bar For Reading Instruction?
This is getting embarrassing.
A new analysis from the Shanker Institute, “Reading Reform Across America: a Survey of State Legislature,” examines reading-related legislation enacted by all states, including the District of Columbia, between 2019 and 2022. These bills are fueled by state leaders’ recognition that in order to address widespread and persistent reading deficits of American students, schools should be required to use the science of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension) during classroom instruction in literacy..
The good news is this is happening across the country. In fact, 46 states have passed bills since 2019 that mandate research-based reading instruction, with many requiring this approach beyond third grade.
The bad news? New Jersey is one of only five states that has failed to pass a single bill. The others are Hawaii, West Virginia, New Hampshire, and New York.
We can still get this right. What’s in our way despite ample evidence that we’re not teaching kids to read? In our largest district, for Newark, for instance, only 19% of third-graders are proficient in reading, a benchmark for continued academic progress, and some schools are in the single digits:
Here are a few thoughts about the particular obstacles NJ faces in raising the bar on reading instruction:
We have weak state leadership. The Murphy Administration’s Department of Education is ineffectual and poorly-staffed, seemingly more concerned with culture wars than ensuring New Jersey classroom instruction adhere to best practices for teaching reading. This is in spite of the fact that 48% of NJ third-graders aren’t proficient in reading. The DOE, opined JerseyCAN’s Paula White, “needs to have a strategic comprehensive multi-layered plan for how we’re going to address this.” But they don’t, aside from a belated and poorly-implemented attempt at a tutoring program.
Many states that have passed reading reforms have strong teacher unions and those unions typically back reforms. Yet NJEA, NJ’s primary teacher union, is an outlier. In a NJ Spotlight interview on how to address COVID learning loss, NJEA president Sean Spiller had little use for reform. “You talk to any educator,” he said, “and what they’ll say is the amount of paperwork vs. before this all started, it’s unbelievable how much more there is now. [There’s so much] loss of freedom and flexibility in terms of you being able to teach as an art.”
We need skilled reading teachers, not woo-woo dilettantes. See Emily Hanford tweet’s below for how teachers are in favor of reforming reading instruction.
We have too many cooks in the kitchen, which stymies even the most commonsensical reforms. Think of it this way: New Jersey has 4,424 school board members that serve 1.3 million students. Only two states have more school board members and they serve way more students, New York with 2.5 million and Texas with 5.2 million. With power so diffuse, it’s hard to get anything done, even when everyone knows mandating effective reading instruction would be good for kids. Combine that with a DOE that genuflects to local control at every opportunity and nothing changes.
All of these obstacles can be overcome: the DOE can get as serious about reading as it is about gender identity instruction; NJEA president Spiller can be artsy and still defer to his members’ professional instincts and obligations; school boards will follow the lead of teachers and administrators.
We know the way: 46 states have offered us teachable moments. We just have to muster the will.
