Senator Phil Burger, President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina State Senate
♦ A message from Phil Berger:
State Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson is calling on the legislature to repeal the requirement that North Carolina third graders learn to read before being promoted to fourth grade.
The requirement is part of the Read to Achieve program, a new accountability initiative passed by the General Assembly in 2012 to ensure literacy among third grade students. Providing a safety net for third graders who have not yet learned to read is the program’s key focus, which uses early diagnostic assessments that allow teachers to spot students with learning problems and provide them the attention they need to make a mid-course correction.
In 2010, Superintendent Atkinson led a charge to end accountability measures that required third, fifth and eighth graders to pass reading and math tests in order to be promoted to the next grade in favor of methods similar to those used in Read to Achieve. At the time, she said:
“The gateways were initially put in place with good intentions to address the problem of students being promoted before they were ready, but the policy has not had the intended effect. The new accountability model being developed and implemented over the next few years has a much stronger focus on early diagnostic assessments. Our goal is to make sure that teachers spot student learning problems early when there is plenty of time to make a mid-course correction.”
Senate Leader Berger responded by issuing the following statement:
“One out of every three North Carolina fourth graders is reading below the basic level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and research shows children who leave third grade unable to read are on a path to academic failure and life-long economic hardship. Superintendent Atkinson’s continued insistence that we keep advancing kids who can’t read into fourth grade is disturbing and could amount to an economic death sentence for those students. We – the legislature, the Department of Public Instruction, educators and parents – can no longer accept allowing even a single child who has the ability to learn to leave third grade unable to read.”
Background Facts
Since 2012, the General Assembly has invested more than $70 million to add focused reading camps, special literacy intensive classrooms and other resources for students who are struggling to read proficiently by fourth grade.
Over the last ten years, about one-third of all fourth graders scored “below basic” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test. National studies, like a 2010 Annie E. Casey Foundation report, “Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of the Third Grade Matters,” show that students who fail to master reading by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out than their peers who read at grade level. Further studies, including this Brookings Institute report, give evidence that retaining students who have fallen behind in reading at the third grade level can improve long-term academic outcomes for those children.
In spite of so many students struggling with reading fundamentals, nearly 98 percent of North Carolina third graders were promoted to the fourth grade, according to the most recent report from the Department of Public Instruction.
Representative Andy Wells of Catawba County also issued a statement on the matter:
“In the 2011-12 Budget the General Assembly implemented the Read to Achieve program. What the bill did was simple: it said children in the third grade needed to be able to read at a third grade level before they could be promoted to the fourth grade. That was straightforward enough – it simply laid down a marker. It didn’t require that 8-year-olds take complex batteries of statewide tests. In fact, it didn’t require any statewide testing program at all. A child’s teacher could make the decision.
And that’s where it stood until the bureaucrats at the Department of Public Instruction (and local school boards) got into the act and turned a simple goal into a complex system of tests upon tests upon micro-tests – that all landed squarely on the heads of 8-year-olds.
The Department of Public Instruction started informing local school boards that reading proficiency could be measured in five ways:
- Pass the Beginning of Grade Test
- Pass the End of Grade Test
- Pass the state developed alternative test
- Pass a State Board of Education approved test, developed at the local level
- Pass (at a 70% rate) the 36 passages in the student portfolio
Now, bear in mind, the General Assembly didn’t mandate all these tests. But, nonetheless, some local school districts proceeded to require third graders to take a barrage of multiple tests.
So, why is this an example of ‘broken politics?’ Because it’s an example of how our state education bureaucrats react to any attempt at accountability … bureaucrats don’t like accountability, so under the ruse of complying with Read to Achieve they created a plan for testing that was sure to outrage parents. To crush any attempt at accountability the bureaucrats turned a simple requirement – that third graders be able to read – into an education train wreck.”
For more information, please read WRAL’s report: Lawmakers grill schools chief over reading tests
