Memphis students with dyslexia will start receiving targeted reading support this school year through the district’s first universal intervention program in an effort to increase state test scores.

Under a nearly $540,000 contract approved by the Memphis-Shelby County school board last month, an outside literacy company will boost support for nearly 5,000 students who show characteristics of dyslexia. But one local reading expert noted that many students struggle with comprehension, which needs intervention beyond foundational skills.

MSCS is required by state law to screen every student for signs of dyslexia, such as difficulty connecting letters with sounds. But Tennessee allows only to students, in order to trigger state and federal disability services.

Jo Anna McCall, an education consultant for Utah-based Reading Horizons, the literacy company contracted by the district, said the end goal of the program is to increase MSCS scores on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP. .

McCall said students with characteristics of dyslexia often get “lost in the shuffle” of general classroom instruction.

“Many have fallen through the cracks, and it’s going too fast for them, and so we have to slow down,” she said.

In an Aug. 26 board meeting, MSCS leaders said Reading Horizons will train at least one district staff member per school building to run small group tutoring sessions using the company’s dyslexia-focused curriculum by the end of the school year.

It’s unclear who exactly will receive that training or when they will run the 30-minute intervention sessions recommended by the company.

Reading Horizons’ method is based in the science of reading, a literacy strategy focused on phonics and fluency that has gained traction in education systems in recent years. Laura Kelly, a Rhodes College education professor who specializes in elementary literacy, said MSCS already uses the science of reading in its classroom curriculum.

“So my question is, what is this adding that their existing curriculum doesn’t already have?” she said.

Focusing on foundational phonics skills will help students with dyslexia, Kelly said. But she worries that won’t translate into improvement on comprehension skills – which means it’s unlikely to boost TCAP scores.

“TCAP is not a phonics test; it’s a comprehension test,” Kelly said. “And there is a good chunk of kids that master foundational skills, and then they still don’t comprehend what they’re reading.”

McCall said Reading Horizons’ method does go beyond phonics skills, including time in each lesson to read and write sentences or passages of text.

The company’s method is unique, she said, because of a “marking system” that helps students sound out words. Students mark vowels with x’s, break words into syllables, and follow simple pronunciation rules that McCall says guide about 75% of English words.

“I think of this as training wheels on a bicycle,” McCall said. “As students are learning the patterns to the word, they’re going to have these markings. And then when they read passages, the marks won’t be there, but they can apply them when they come to an unfamiliar word.”

According to Reading Horizons’ contract, the company will provide scripted manuals, flashcards, and longer texts targeted to skills students are learning. There will also be one six-hour training for chosen MSCS staff and one-day targeted coaching budgeted at $3,000 each for 30 sessions.

MSCS Director of Curriculum Amy Maples said the district is investing the “bare minimum” funding level for Reading Horizons’ program, which company leaders said cuts out additional training and coaching sessions for school staff.

But Maples said MSCS could invest more in the program after the first year depending on results. The contract with Reading Horizons has the option for renewal through 2030.

District leaders will also be screening more students for characteristics of dyslexia this year, according to an emailed statement sent to Chalkbeat.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Reading and math scores shot up across New York City’s public schools last school year, according to state test results released Monday.

Among students in grades 3-8, nearly 57% of students were considered proficient in math, an increase of 3.5 percentage points. The gains were even sharper in reading. About 56% of students were proficient in the subject, a 7 percentage point increase.

Those gains come after Mayor Eric Adams has made overhauling reading instruction , an effort that has won support from union leaders and in this November’s election. Top city officials argued Monday that their efforts are bearing fruit, as all elementary schools were required to use city-approved reading curriculums last school year through an initiative known as NYC Reads.

“This is what happens when we stay focused on evidence-based instruction and never lose sight of what’s possible for our young people,” schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement.

Experts said the test score gains were encouraging, but cautioned that many factors can influence them and it’s impossible to isolate the effect of the curriculum overhauls.

“It’s at least suggestive that there’s real improvement,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied school performance and accountability systems. Results from a also hinted at some progress.

At the same time, Pallas noted test scores increased statewide by a similar magnitude as in New York City, which “does tamp down a little bit that it’s something special New York City is doing.” The city’s overall proficiency rates are slightly higher than those statewide, where 53% of students are proficient in reading and 55% are proficient in math.

City Education Department officials also mounted an targeting students who were at the cusp of passing the exams, which may have played a role in the test score increase. Some experts criticized that approach because it could create incentives for schools to focus on students close to proficiency rather than those furthest behind.

Officials noted that reading scores increased more sharply in earlier grades that were subject to the reading curriculum changes. There was an 11.6 percentage point jump in reading proficiency among students in grades 3-5 who were in the first phase of schools that started using the new curriculums two years ago. Among the second phase of schools, which implemented the curriculum changes last year, reading scores increased 10.4 percentage points.

Overall, Pallas said that more data is needed to draw firm conclusions about student proficiency over time. “If there’s real growth, it should be sustained. And that requires looking at scores over the next couple years,” he said.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said in a statement that the test score increases are “a testament to the hard work by New York City educators and our students. He singled out Aviles-Ramos, noting she “fought the Education Department] bureaucracy to make sure the needs of students and school communities came first.”

The continued to reflect deep disparities between different student groups, though in some cases those gaps narrowed somewhat.

Black students, for instance, posted the largest test score increases in reading and math in the city’s public schools of any racial group. But they still lag their white and Asian American peers.

About 75% of Asian American students and 73% of white students were proficient in reading compared with 43.5% of Latino children and 47% of Black students. (Black students’ proficiency jumped about 8 percentage points.)

Meanwhile, nearly 81% of Asian American students and 75% of white students passed state math exams while only 43% of Black and Latino students were considered to be on grade level.

Only 29% of students with disabilities were proficient in math and nearly 27% were in reading. Even as students with disabilities made some gains in reading and math, the gap between those children and their nondisabled peers widened slightly.

Among students learning English as a new language, nearly 30% were proficient in math and 12.5% were proficient in reading — a gain of more than 4 percentage points in both categories.

The state exams have undergone a series of tweaks in recent years that have to draw comparisons from the results year over year. For the last two years, the tests have remained stable, meaning the results should be comparable.

The state Education Department has expanded computer-based testing in lieu of paper exams and all students will take digital versions of the test next school year. Pallas said it is unlikely that will dramatically skew the results, though some schools have struggled with .

Curious about school-level test results? Here is a searchable breakdown of math and English scores across all of the city’s public schools. (Charter schools are included in the table but not in the district’s overall numbers above.)

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

End-of-year testing results show Florida students were more proficient in math and reading than a year ago.

Statewide progress monitoring , announced by Gov. Ron DeSantis Wednesday, detail how Florida’s students performed in reading, math, social studies, and science.

Math scores for all students from third grade to high school improved by 3% from 2024, with 58% of students demonstrating a level 3 or higher understanding. The county with the lowest score was Gadsden, with 35% testing at a level 3 or higher, and the highest, Nassau, with 78%.

Level 3, on the state’s scale of 1-5, is considered on grade level. Level 4 is considered proficient and level 5 is considered exemplary. Students who scored below level 3 are considered below or well below grade level.

Reading scores for students in grades 3-10 increased from 53% at level three or higher in 2024 to 57% in 2025. Gadsden County had the lowest performance at 36% at level 3 or higher and St. Johns was the highest at 72%.

“Florida insists that education be factual, student-focused, and parent empowered,” DeSantis said in a news release. “Florida has led the nation in instituting progress monitoring assessments that allow for teachers and parents to provide real-time interventions that support the long-term success of their students, and our approach has paid off.”

The progress monitoring tests are administered three times per year by the state. The periodic testing is designed to allow instructors to make interventions for struggling students sooner. This is the third year of progress monitoring in Florida.

During the Spring 2025 end-of-course assessment for the civics assessment, 71% of students tested at a level 3 or higher; 47% were proficient or higher.

“Today’s results affirm that our first-in-the-nation statewide progress monitoring system is making a difference for our students. Under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Florida will continue to provide the best opportunities for our students,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a news release.

This year Florida on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Eighth grade math scores have dropped in the last three iterations of the test, and Florida students that age ranked in the bottom 10 states for math and reading scores. Fourth grade reading scores on the NAEP were the lowest in 2024 since 2003, while their math scores increased but remain below pre-pandemic numbers.

The data for the NAEP, collected in early 2024, were disputed by Diaz, who questioned the methodology of the exam. Diaz wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education with “suggestions to help make NAEP great for educational progress once again.”

He took issue with the lack of inclusion of private school students and he believed urban students were included at a disproportionate rate.

Diaz will step down next month to become interim president of the University of West Florida. , the Florida Board of Education named DeSantis deputy chief of staff Anastasios Kamoutsas the next education commissioner.

As states rush to address falling literacy scores, a new kind of education debate in state legislatures is taking hold: not whether reading instruction needs fixing, but how to fix it.

More than a dozen states have enacted laws banning public school educators from teaching youngsters to read using an approach that’s been popular for decades. The method, known as “three-cueing,” encourages kids to figure out unfamiliar words using context clues such as meaning, sentence structure and visual hints.

In the past two years, several states have instead embraced instruction rooted in what’s known as the “science of reading.” That approach leans heavily on phonics — relying on letter and rhyming sounds to read words such as cat, hat and rat.

The policy discussions on early literacy are unfolding against a backdrop of alarming national reading proficiency levels. The 2024 that 40% of fourth graders and 33% of eighth graders scored below the basic reading level — the highest percentages in decades.

No state improved in fourth- or eighth-grade reading in 2024. Eight states — Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Nebraska, Nevada, Utah and Vermont — than they did a year or two prior in eighth-grade reading.

Five — Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, South Dakota and Vermont — saw dips in their fourth-grade reading scores.

In response to these troubling trends, a growing number of states are moving beyond localized efforts and tackling literacy through statewide legislation.

last year mandated universal K-3 literacy screenings. lawmakers this month passed a bill that would allow some students to retake required reading tests before being held back in third grade; that bill is en route to the governor’s desk.

and are weighing statewide literacy coaching and training models, while lawmakers in introduced a bill to allow literacy interventions to cover broader reading and academic skills, not just early reading basics.

Mississippi, a state seen as a model for turnaround in literacy rates over the past decade, evidence-based reading interventions, mandatory literacy screenings and targeted teacher training, and to explicitly ban the use of three-cueing methods in reading instruction in grades 4-8.

Together, these efforts signal a national shift: States are treating literacy not as a local initiative, but as the foundation of public education policy.

“Literacy is the lever,” said Tafshier Cosby, the senior director of the Center for Organizing and Partnerships at the National Parents Union, an advocacy group. “If states focus on that, we see bipartisan wins. But the challenge is making that a statewide priority, not just a district-by-district hope.”

‘It’s the system that needs fixing’

Before he was even sworn in, first-term Georgia Democratic state Sen. RaShaun Kemp, a former teacher and principal, had already drafted a bill to end the use of the three-cueing system in Georgia classrooms.

This month, the  focused on the science of reading passed the state legislature without a single “no” vote. GOP Gov. Brian Kemp  a similar  into law Monday to outlaw three-cueing.

Sen. Kemp said his passion for literacy reform stretches back decades, shaped by experiences tutoring children at a local church as a college student in the early 2000s. It was there, he said, that he began noticing patterns in how students struggled with foundational reading.

“In my experience, I saw kids struggle to identify the word they were reading. I saw how some kids were guessing what the word was instead of decoding,” Kemp recalled. “And it’s not technology or screens that’s the problem. It’s what teachers are being instructed on how to teach reading. It’s the system that needs fixing, not the teachers.”

Sen. Kemp’s bill requires the Professional Standards Commission — a state agency that — to adopt rules mandating evidence-based reading instruction aligned with the science of reading, a set of practices rooted in decades of cognitive research on how children best learn to read.

“Current strategies used to teach literacy include methods that teach students to guess rather than read, preventing them from reaching their full potential,” Sen. Kemp said in a public statement following the bill’s legislative passage. “I know we can be better, and I’m proud to see our legislative body take much-needed steps to help make Georgia the number one state for literacy.”

In West Virginia, lawmakers have introduced similar bills that would require the state’s teachers to be certified in .

Cosby, of the National Parents Union, said local policy changes can be driven by parents even before legislatures act.

“All politics are local,” Cosby said. “Parents don’t need to wait for statewide mandates — they can ask school boards for universal screeners and structured literacy now.”

Still, some parents worry their states are simply funding more studies on early literacy rather than taking direct action to address it.

A Portland, Oregon, parent of three — one of whom has dyslexia — sent written testimony this year urging lawmakers to skip further studies and immediately implement structured literacy statewide.

“We do not need another study to tell us what we already know — structured literacy is the most effective way to teach all children to read, particularly those with dyslexia and other reading challenges,” Katherine Hoffman.

Opposition to ‘science of reading’

Unlike in Georgia, the “science of reading” has met resistance in other states.

In California, that would require phonics-based reading instruction statewide has faced opposition from English learner advocates who argue that a one-size-fits-all approach may not effectively serve multilingual students.

In opposition to the bill, the California Teachers Association argued that by codifying a rigid definition of the “science of reading,” lawmakers ignore the evolving nature of reading research and undermine teachers’ ability to meet the diverse needs of their students.

“Placing a definition for ‘science of reading’ in statute is problematic,” wrote Seth Bramble, a legislative advocate for the California Teachers Association in a addressed to the state’s Assembly Education Committee. “This bill would carve into stone scientific knowledge that by its very nature is constantly being tested, validated, refuted, revised, and improved.”

Similarly, in Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in March vetoed a bill that would have reversed changes to the state’s scoring system to align the state’s benchmarks with the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal assessment tool that has with funding cuts and layoffs under the Trump administration. Evers said in his veto that Republican lawmakers were stepping on the state superintendent’s independence.

That veto is another step in the evolution of a broader constitutional fight over literacy policy and how literacy funds are appropriated and released. In 2023, Wisconsin lawmakers $50 million for a new statewide literacy initiative, but disagreements over legislative versus executive control have stalled its disbursement.

Indiana’s legislature faced criticism from educators over a 2024 requiring 80 hours of literacy training for pre-K to sixth-grade teachers before they can renew their licenses. Teachers argued that the additional requirements were burdensome and did not account for their professional expertise.

In Illinois, literacy struggles have been building for more than a decade, according to Mailee Smith, senior director of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute. Today, only 3 in 10 Illinois third- and fourth-graders can , based on state and national assessments.

Although Illinois lawmakers the school code in 2023 to create a state literacy plan, Smith noted the plan is only guidance and does not require districts to adopt evidence-based reading instruction. She urged local school boards to act on their own.

“If students can’t read by third grade, half of fourth-grade curriculum becomes incomprehensible,” she said. “A student’s likelihood to graduate high school can be predicted by their reading skill at the end of third grade.”

Despite the challenges, Smith said even small steps can make a real difference.

“Screening, intervention, parental notice, science-based instruction and thoughtful grade promotion — those are the five pillars, and Illinois and even local school districts can implement some of these steps right away,” she said.

“It doesn’t have to be daunting.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

A new state-by-state report shows Indiana’s child well-being ranking has dropped — in part due to Hoosier kids’ , as well as increased rates of youth deaths.

Although Indiana continues to rank in the bottom half of states for its rates of teen births and children living in high-poverty or in single-parent households, those numbers are showing improvement.

The ranked Indiana 27th among states, three places lower than last year. It’s still a slight improvement, however, compared to 2022 and 2021, when the state ranked 28th and 29th, respectively.

In specific categories covered in the latest report, Indiana came in 15th for economic well-being, 17th in education, 31st in family and community, and 32nd in health.

“Indiana has significant opportunities and challenges ahead in supporting the well-being of our children,” said Tami Silverman, president and CEO of the Indiana Youth Institute.

“We should celebrate the progress we’ve made, especially in economic well-being areas such as parental employment rates and housing affordability; and we must acknowledge the disparities that persist for our kids,” Silverman continued. “Every child in Indiana should have access to quality education, regardless of their background or circumstances. By addressing these disparities head-on, we not only invest in the future of our children but also in the economic prosperity of our state.”

The report is prepared by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in conjunction with organizations across the county, including the Indiana Youth Institute. It rates states in 16 wide-ranging areas, which are lumped together under the categories of health, education, economic well-being, and family and community support.

Gaps in reading and math

The education portion of the — focused on student achievement — reiterates low numbers familiar to Hoosier education officials.

Just 32% of fourth graders nationally were at or above proficiency in reading in 2022, the latest year for which numbers were available. That was down from the 34% who were proficient in 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scores were even worse for eighth grade math. Nationwide, only 26% of eighth graders were at or above proficiency in math two years ago, down from 33% in 2019.

In Indiana, one-third of fourth graders performed at or above proficiency in reading — a four percentage-point decrease from the 2019 rate of 37%, the report showed.

Further, only 30% of Indiana eighth grade students performed at or above proficiency in math, marking an 11% decrease from 2019, ranking the state 11th nationally.

Among Indiana fourth graders in 2022, Black students had an average reading score that was 23 points lower than that of white students. Students eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) had an average reading score 18 points lower than those not eligible for NSLP, according to the KIDS COUNT report.

Meanwhile, eighth grade Black students in Indiana had an average math score that was 31 points lower than white students. Hispanic students in the same grade had an average math score that was 19 points lower than their white peers.

The Casey Foundation report contends that the pandemic is not the sole cause of lower test scores, though. Rather, the foundation says educators, researchers, policymakers and employers who track students’ academic readiness have been ringing alarm bells “for a long time.”

U.S. scores in reading and math have barely budged in decades. In Indiana, state education officials have repeatedly pointed out that Hoosier literacy exam scores have been on the decline since 2015.

During the 2024 legislative session, state lawmakers took decisive action as part of an ongoing push to improve literacy and K-12 student performance.

Paramount among the new laws passed was one to .

Stats on youth health and family life

Health-focused portions of the report show that — after peaking in 2021 — the national child and teen death rate stabilized at 30 deaths per 100,000 children and youth ages 1 to 19.

But in Indiana, the death rate has continued to rise. While 29 deaths per 100,000 Hoosier children and youth were recorded in 2019, the rate increased to 36 deaths in 2022, per the report.

The Indiana Youth Institute (IYI) has already drawn attention, for example, to such as depression and suicidal ideation among the state’s youth. According to IYI data, one out of every three students from 7th to 12th grade reported experiencing persistent sadness and hopelessness. One out of seven students made a plan to commit suicide.

The most recent data available additionally show that nationwide and in Indiana, the child poverty rate improved and economic security of parents increased back to pre-pandemic levels.

Between 2018 and 2022, roughly 113,000 — or 7% — of Hoosier children were reportedly living in high-poverty areas. That’s a drop from 10% between 2013 and 2017, according to the report.

From 2019 to 2022, teen births per 1,000 declined from 21 to 17, and the percentage of children in single-parent families also dropped from 35% to 32%.

Still, some gains

Advocates pointed to “some bright spots” for Hoosier kids and their families in this year’s national report, as well:

Between 2019 and 2022, more parents (75%) had full-time secure employment in Indiana — which surpassed both the national average and that of the four neighboring states: Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.

In 2022, fewer children (22%) lived in households that faced a high housing cost burden, spending 30% of their income solely on housing expenses, in comparison to the national average (30%).
In 2022, more Hoosier teens (95%) between the ages 16 and 19 were either enrolled in school or employed, an improvement from 93% in 2019.
Far fewer children under 19 (5%) were also uninsured. Indiana saw the fifth-highest decrease nationally in uninsured children between 2019 and 2022 — a 29% improvement.

The report offers several recommendations for policymakers, school leaders and educators that include chronicling absenteeism data by grade, establishing a culture to pursue evidence-based solutions and incorporating intensive, in-person tutoring to align with the school curriculum.

“Kids of all ages and grades must have what they need to learn each day, such as enough food and sleep and a safe way to get to school, as well as the additional resources they might need to perform at their highest potential and thrive, like tutoring and mental health services,” said Lisa Hamilton, president and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Our policies and priorities have not focused on these factors in preparing young people for the economy, short-changing a whole generation.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on and .

Cindy Lane takes it personally that Kansas needed a Kansas Blueprint for Literacy initiative to improve preparation of educators to teach reading and funnel more literate students into colleges and the workplace.

Lane, retired special education teacher and former superintendent of Kansas City, Kansas, schools, will soon step down from the Kansas Board of Regents to become administrative director of Blueprint for Literacy. The Kansas Legislature adopted and Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law a bill mandating the state’s education system engrain in current and future teachers evidence-based reading science strategies.

A bipartisan coalition of state legislators earmarked $10 million to implement the blueprint and work to change the lives of 40% of Kansas public school students not proficient at reading.

“Frankly, this is personal,” Lane said. “I was a kid who my favorite subject was recess. It really was. The way that reading was approached at that time didn’t connect with how I think and grow and I really didn’t learn to read until I was in junior high. And, I can’t imagine being a person who never had a teacher that figured out what’s the code for that kid to be able to learn to read. I can’t imagine what their life must be like today.”

Lane, who plans to resign from the state Board of Regents on June 24, will collaborate with universities and school districts to reform instruction of college students studying to become teachers and to provide existing teachers with new literacy tools. The law also required creation of an oversight commission, the establishment of university centers of excellence and regular accountability reports to the Legislature.

“There is an imperative here to make sure that all of our students are highly literate,” Lane said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. “They have to be able to read and write well to be successful today. So, for me, this is dream making. You have a dream. I want to help you get there.”

‘Get off the sidelines’

Blake Flanders, president of the Kansas Board of Regents, said the law could be viewed as the largest workforce development project in state history in terms of targeted training and retraining within the education field.

The Board of Regents, which has jurisdiction over the six state universities, will have a prominent role due to the number of school of education students in the pipeline who must enroll in a pair of three-credit-hour courses offering hands-on experience in teaching reading to children.

Under Senate Bill 438, the state universities must begin offering the two new literacy courses this fall or be sanctioned. Kansas State University and the two other larger universities would lose $1 million if they procrastinated, while Fort Hays State University and the two other regional universities would lose $500,000 if they balked.

“We don’t have enough students reading at grade level,” said Flanders, who argued 40% proficiency among students should be viewed as a crisis. “We’ve got to get off the sidelines. We’re the ones charged with educating the educators. Right? So we’re stepping into the arena to not say we have all the answers, but to open open the tent to everybody.”

The Kansas State Board of Education will be part of the mix given the plan to retrain thousands of licensed Kansas educators in reading instruction, Flanders said. Both boards will be expected to collaborate with the new Literacy Advisory Committee.

Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Louisburg Republican and chair of the Senate Education Committee, worked on creating the framework for an inclusive approach to elevating reading instruction with higher education institution, education advocates, school districts and parents. It will add to the state’s deliberate work to improve early literacy success of young children.

“For many years,” she said, “the Kansas Legislature has recognized the solid science behind early literacy success in children. It requires early screening of children, solid teacher training and classroom materials that support evidence-base practices.”

Advisory panel key

The advisory committee established by the law must be in place by Jan. 1 with representatives from universities, community colleges, technical colleges, the state Board of Education, the state Board of Regents and the Legislature.

“This group is essential,” Lane said. “We need all the minds at the table. It’s a big tent kind of mentality. My role is almost like the general manager of a baseball team. And, this advisory committee is on the field in the positions and they will be called on based on their individual knowledge at times, but they also may be called on to go somewhere else on the field and perform.”

Likewise, the advisory panel would develop a plan by Jan. 1 to establish the centers of excellence in reading that would provide assessment and diagnosis of reading difficulties, train educators in simulation labs and support other professional learning opportunities. The intent of the law would be for all elementary school teachers in Kansas to earn a reading instruction credential by 2030.

The law set goals for student achievement. Half of students in third to eighth grades would be expected to achieve Level 3 in standardized testing in reading by 2033, which would mean they understood skills and knowledge needed to be college or career ready. Also, the 2033 target would be for 90% of these 3rd to 8th grade students would read at Level 2, which is viewed as equal to their grade level in school.

Flanders said one estimate indicated the state’s economy would create 56,000 new jobs by 2030. Eighty percent of those would require a baccalaureate degree and the current rate of achievement in reading in Kansas public schools wouldn’t fill that workforce gap, he said.

The state university system would be “committing malpractice” to acknowledge students and teachers were struggling with reading instruction but choose not to be part of the solution, Lane said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

Almost three-fourths of and nearly two-thirds of Ohio fourth graders were not proficient in reading in 2022, according to a new study.

Seventy-one percent of Ohio eighth graders were not proficient in math — a number that has only gotten worse over time, according to the latest Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Book. Back in 2019, 62% of Ohio eighth graders were not proficient in math.

“It’s super important to reach those benchmarks because it’s what’s at least been shown to be where we want our students to be that helps set them up to be successful in later grades and later in life,” said Matthew Tippit, policy associate at Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio.

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Ohio fared slightly better than the rest of the country — 74% of American eighth graders were not proficient in math, according to the report.

Sixty-five percent of Ohio fourth graders were not proficient in reading in 2022, a percent point worse when compared to 2019. Nationally, 68% of fourth graders were not proficient in reading.

Ohio public schools are preparing to implement the science of reading which of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The state’s two-year budget, which was signed into law last year, included .

A little more than half (57%) of Ohioans three and four-year-olds were not in school during 2018-2022, according to the report.

Thirty percent of all students nationally (14.7 million) were chronically absent from school, which typically means missing at least 10% of school days in a year.

“The COVID-19 pandemic wrought serious academic damage as it closed schools and separated students from their physical learning environment,” Annie E. Casey Foundation President and CEO Lisa Hamilton said in the report. “Unprecedented drops in fourth grade reading and eighth grade math proficiency among students in the United States between 2019 and 2022 amounted to decades of lost progress.”

The stakes for catching up on the COVID-19 learning loss are high. Up to is dependent on addressing unfinished pandemic-era backsliding, according to a February report from the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank at Stanford University.

Students who don’t go , according to a 2013 report published in the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Economic Commentary.

Overall, Ohio ranked 28th in the nation based on 16 indicators and ranked 18th in the education category.

Poverty

Almost half a million Ohio children were living in poverty in 2022, according to the report. The 446,000 children living in poverty made up 18% of Ohio’s kids. 10% of Ohio children representing 264,000 kids lived in high-poverty areas in 2022.

Sixteen percent of American children totaling 11,583,000 kids were living in poverty in 2022, according to the study.

“That’s so concerning to me just because of what we know that living in poverty can do to all other factors of life,” Tippit said. “We know that health indicators tend to be lower. We know that education outcomes are worse. We know that long term, you’re more likely to stay at that level of income as your family.”

About 40% of Ohio children have experienced one or more adverse childhood experience such as family economic hardships, their parents being divorced or a parent spending time in jail, according to the report.

would create the 26-member Adverse Childhood Experiences Study Commission which would recommend legislative strategies to the General Assembly.

State Reps. Rachel B. Baker, D-Cincinnati, and Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, introduced the bipartisan bill which passed last month in the House.

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Assemblymember Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) and 13 co-authors have proposed a bill that would update the state’s English curriculum with the science of reading – research that has found the best way to teach reading is through phonics, phonemic awareness, oral reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

The bill calls for more instructional materials and curriculum for classrooms to align with the science of reading. It also emphasizes the need for increased professional development for teachers and more progress monitoring for students struggling with reading. 

“All English language arts, English language development, and reading textbooks and instructional materials for transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and any of grades 1 to 8, inclusive, shall adhere to the science of reading,” reads the bill which was submitted to the Assembly’s education and higher education committee in February.

Schools would require a waiver if educators wanted to use instructional materials that aren’t aligned with the science of reading. It is supported by 12 Democrats and two Republicans in the state assembly.

 A December 2023 by , and found 60% of California students aren’t reading at grade level skills by the time they reach third grade. 

“As an educator, I have firsthand knowledge of the struggles instructors face to ensure their students know how to read,” Rubio said in a statement. “California teachers work tirelessly to better the success of each student. However, California is failing its students, especially diverse students from low-income families.”

In the 2022-2023 school year, 31% of third-graders in low-income families were reading on grade level. For students not considered low-income, 63% were reading on grade level.

That trend has been steady for nearly a decade, with low-income students underperforming in reading tests every year since at least 2014.

“Historically, we’ve seen low performance in literacy in California,” said Eugenia Mora-Flores, a professor and an assistant dean at USC’s Rossier School of Education. “It’s not surprising, actually. We’ve definitely seen low literacy performance in large districts like L.A. Unified and others where we have students that are not performing at grade level.”

To address low scores, legislators want teachers to use the science of reading. Some schools across the state already use this method when teaching students. Others use “whole language,” which focuses on the meanings of words instead of breaking them down into pieces.

That’s different from the science of reading, which relies on phonics and encourages students to learn how letter combinations sound out loud to decode words based on their spellings.

“[The science of reading] is an acknowledgment that kids will learn to read if they can learn the letters, sound them out and gradually pick up on fluency over time,” said Pedro Noguera, dean of USC’s education school. “If you don’t read at proficiency by third grade, then you’re in trouble because everything in school is literacy-based. After learning to read, then you read to learn, right? If you can’t read a math problem, you can’t do the math.”

Noguera said a mandate alone won’t solve California’s literacy problem without looking at the bigger picture when it comes to teaching kids to read.

“If we just focus on the science of reading, on phonics, we’re also missing the point, right?” Noguera said. “If we want kids to be good readers, phonics is not going to take them there. They need good books. They need a comprehensive approach to literacy.” 

“All English language arts, English language development, and reading textbooks and instructional materials for transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and any of grades 1 to 8, inclusive, shall adhere to the science of reading,” the bill reads.

Dozens of states across the country have already implemented laws enforcing the science of reading.

Last year, Indiana mandated that schools must use the science of reading by fall 2024. So have legislators in Michigan, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas, among others. 

In a state with one of the in the country, Mora-Flores said it will come down to how well the mandate is implemented across California.

“In some ways, [the bill] can be seen as a good thing because it’s saying, at minimum, we all need to make sure kids are getting something, and you’re going to be held accountable to it because now it’s policy,” Mora-Flores said. “On the other side of that, it’s really going to come down to the quality of translation and implementation.”

This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

In Indianapolis, the NCAA also partners with local TV station WISH for an “I Love to Read” challenge that encourages third graders to log their daily reading time. This year, more than 30 Indianapolis schools participated from five districts. The NCAA entices students and schools with prizes ranging from Scholastic Books and Visa gift cards to invitations to college basketball games.

Over the last decade, reading scores in Indiana have been on a steady decline, to the point of stagnation. This year’s state Reading Evaluation and Determination (IREAD-3) test results showed that third-graders’ scores rose just 0.3% from 81.9% proficiency last year, and that number hasn’t improved much in years. Earlier this year, the state passed HB 1558, a science of reading bill that places greater emphasis on phonics than context clues and guessing. Since third graders who aren’t proficient in reading by the end of the school year are to graduate from high school on time and more likely to drop out altogether than those who are proficient, the NCAA hopes to help teachers by encouraging students to spend more time reading.

Earlier this month, nearly 5,000 eager third graders filled the Indiana Farmers Coliseum for a showdown between Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Spalding University. During the free event, which Indiana-Purdue won 70-63, encouraging messages from college student athletes and even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Usher played during timeouts and halftime to promote the importance of reading daily. The third graders are invited to attend another game Nov. 20, hosted by Butler University. 

At the game, which was preceded by a pep rally, each student was given a free book to take home. Other prizes include thousands of dollars in credits from Scholastic and new books for school and classroom libraries.

Victor Hill, the NCAA’s associate director of inclusion, education and community engagement, said the organization decided to develop the literacy program after superintendents of Indianapolis’s four districts emphasized the impact the national reading crisis was having on their schools. The NCAA launched the program in Houston in 2016 with more than 7,000 students from Title I schools, and since then more than 300,000 students nationwide have participated. 

“We don’t want to take credit for what the teachers do, but they did say the competition really sparked an interest in a lot of the kids, and they saw kids reading who hadn’t been reading before,” Hill said. “They sent us pictures of kids reading during lunch, during recess, and the school library saw a spike in books being checked out.”

In Indianapolis, the response from students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive, even from students not in third grade. The competitions get the entire school excited as they cheer on the third graders to read as much as possible. But Hill said the biggest challenge is getting parents to initiate at-home reading. Through ads on WISH-TV and announcements geared to parents at the pep rallies and basketball games, the NCAA encourages families to read with their children for at least 30 minutes a day, hoping the excitement will continue when students are home.

“We tell the children during our pep rallies, ‘If your parents, your brothers or sisters are busy, if you’ve got a cat or a dog, sit and read to them. Read to your goldfish. Just read,’” Hill said.

New standardized test scores for Rhode Island students in grades 3 through 8 made public Wednesday show modest gains in reversing pandemic declines for math and English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency last year.

But improvement at the elementary and middle school levels on the 2023 Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) was tempered by PSAT and SAT results for grades 10 and 11 respectively. Nearly half of students taking the SAT last spring met expectations for high school ELA, but slightly more than 25% demonstrated proficiency in math.

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That said, Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green still saw cause for celebration in shrinking the gap between the lagging test scores of Rhode Island students with their counterparts in Massachusetts — which leads the nation in math and reading. Since 2018, the performance gap has shrunk from 21% in math to 11% and from 17% to 9% in ELA, according to the new data from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE).

“This is the closest we have ever been as a state. That’s pretty amazing,” Infante-Green said during a virtual presentation to share results with reporters Tuesday morning after holding sessions earlier and the previous day with groups of school superintendents.

The data was reviewed by Gov. Dan McKee last Friday. In a statement, McKee said the 2023 RICAS results show Rhode Island schools moving in the right direction to meet his goal of meeting or surpassing Massachusetts’ performance by the year 2030.

“Our students can perform at high levels, and we must stay the course and make sure our school communities have the support and resources to thrive,” McKee said.

A 2022 analysis by the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment suggested it would take three to five years of accelerated learning for student achievement to return to what it was pre-pandemic. To at least match Massachusetts on test scores, McKee has launched his , which has distributed nearly $3.8 million to communities that signed compacts committing to  creating out-of-school learning opportunities. RIDE was scheduled to hold sessions with city and town officials to review test scores on Wednesday.

The state saw a second year of significant growth in math proficiency with an approximate 2.7 percentage point increase this year, and an increase in English Language Arts (ELA) of approximately 2%.

Among all grades taking the RICAS, fourth graders saw the highest increase in proficiency in both math (from 30.2% to 36.0%) and ELA ( 29.0% to 33.3%)

Fifth grade math proficiency went from 25.9% to 30.0%. Math scores dropped for third graders by half a percentage point to 34.5%

Seventh graders saw a 0.2% drop in ELA proficiency to 29.0%.

Across all racial and ethnic groups, ELA scores increased over last year. In math, all but one racial and ethnic subgroup performed higher. The exception was the Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders subgroup which dropped one percentage point, a small demographic of only 93 students, of 0.16% of the 59,272 third through eighth graders tested, Infante-Green said.

Increasing the number of students taking the PSAT and the SAT every April is considered the first step toward ensuring more students are college and career ready.

A total of 9,430 11th graders across the state took the SAT for mathematics, or 94.1%, up from 91.9% in 2022. The lowest rates of participation were at Providence’s Mount Pleasant (81.9%) and Central (82.1%) high schools and Woonsocket High School (82.5%)

The percentage of high school students meeting or exceeding expectations in math on the SAT remained flat statewide at 25.3% while those not meeting expectations increased 1% to 38.5%. In 2022, 30.8% of 11th graders did not meet expectations for math.

A total of 9,384 high school juniors, representing 94.4% of the state’s 11th graders, took the SAT for ELA/Literacy, up from 92.3% in 2022. The new results show 49.1% met or exceeded expectations, up from 47.1%, while 29.1% of students did not meet expectations, down from 30.8% in 2022.

The percentage of high school sophomores taking the PSAT increased over the past year from 90.5% to 92.4% in math and 91.1% to 92.9% in ELA. Statewide math scores dropped from 29.2% proficient in 2022 to 27.2% proficient this year. Statewide ELA results show 55.3% of students met or exceeded expectations, a drop from 59.2% proficient in 2022.

“Those were our kids that were in 8th grade when the pandemic started and we’re seeing that impact,” Infante Green said of high schoolers who had to struggle with the effects of lockdowns and social distancing during a pivotal year in their education and development. “It’s pretty consistent across the nation.”

Results showed a drop in the percentage of students in foster care taking the SAT, from 75.9% in 2022 to 71.8% in 2023, and from 80% to 76.4% who were homeless. The state saw a significant increase in American Indian and Alaskan Islander students taking the SAT, from 83.3% to 88.6%. More students with disabilities also took the SAT from 83.4% to 85.8%.

Multilingual learners

There was a 0.5% increase in multilingual students taking the ACCESS assessment, which tests students in four language domains: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Student results are categorized in six levels: Entering, Emerging, Developing, Expanding, Bridging and Reaching. The percentage of students scoring at the Expanding and Bridging levels rose 0.3%.

Bright spots

Tiverton saw ELA proficiency rise significantly districtwide, a 10% increase to 47.3%. In Coventry, students proficient in ELA rose 5.2% to 39.2%.Significant gains in ELA proficiency were made at Providence’s Leviton Dual Language School, from 12.3% in 2022 to 29.6% this year; Richmond Elementary School from 49.4% to 66.5%; and Wyman Elementary School in Warwick, 24.7% to 41.7%.Math proficiency increased the most at West Kingston Elementary School in South Kingstown (20.7% to 47.3%); Norwood School in Warwick (18.0% to 38.5%) and Woodridge School in Cranston (31.9% to 48.9%).

RIDE will offer families Personalized Individual Student Reports that include individualized informational  videos accessible through a QR code. The videos are available in 10 languages and help provide insight for comparisons to school, district, and state performance. Examples of the student report videos that families will be able to access and additional informational resources for assessments can be found on .

As Vermont  a new secretary of education, Vermonters have weighed in with their preferred qualifications for a candidate. The state’s top education official, parents, educators and administrators say, should education,  and opportunity for students, and  what some see as an ineffectual agency.

Some Vermont advocates are pushing for a secretary with expertise in one particular area: teaching kids to read. 

“We feel like there’s a tremendous opportunity for our state right now in appointing a leader who has the reading crisis high on their radar,” said Laurie Quinn, the president of the education nonprofit Stern Center for Language and Learning. “Who understands the opportunity that we have right now in Vermont to turn the reading crisis around for our kids.”

The push comes amid a nationwide reckoning over how kids learn to read, as a  movement pushes schools to change their reading curricula to better follow scientific data.

Legislatures in  have implemented reforms intended to bring reading instruction in line with that research. Now, Vermont advocates are seeking a new secretary who will follow in their footsteps.

‘Someone that understands that science’

A growing number of educators, parents, teachers and lawmakers across the country are arguing that schools have been teaching kids to read the wrong way. 

Galvanized in part by an American Public Media podcast called , advocates point to numerous studies that show that children learn reading better when they are explicitly instructed to connect letters and sounds, also known as phonics. 

But for years, they argue, school reading curricula have omitted or underemphasized phonics instruction — to the detriment of students.

“With the secretary of ed vacancy, we really need someone that understands that science, and why it’s so important to support teachers — so that we can therefore support our kids,” said Abigail Roy, a board member at the International Dyslexia Association’s Northern New England Alliance and an evaluator at the Stern Center.

Through the Dyslexia Association, Roy has led a campaign urging Vermonters to write letters to the Vermont State Board of Education and governor asking them to choose a secretary who knows how to teach reading.

“Now is the time to organize efforts to encourage Governor Scott and members of the State Board of Education to choose a Secretary that is knowledgeable in the Science of Reading and supportive of structured literacy instruction in our Vermont classrooms,” the association said on 

More than a dozen Vermonters have drafted letters or submitted testimony to the State Board of Education asking for a secretary who will prioritize literacy instruction. A Seven Days  last week also raised the issue’s profile. 

How bad is it?

Every other year, Vermont fourth and eighth grade students are tested in reading and math by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, a standardized test sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card.

For much of the 2000s, Vermont’s average test scores in reading and math were largely steady, even ticking up slightly. According to NAEP, the state’s average scores in reading were at a  high Around that same year, the state recorded highs in the percentage of students — 45% — who scored “proficient” and above at the tests. 

That year, however, marked a turning point. After 2015, Vermont’s NAEP reading scores started to drop, a decline that continued through the Covid-19 pandemic. 

By 2022, 71% of the eighth graders tested in Vermont were scoring  level — up from 60% in 2002. Among fourth graders, 68% of those tested were below proficient, compared to 61% 20 years earlier. 

Those declines largely mirror national trends. The state’s average test scores in mathematics have followed a similar trajectory, peaking around 2013 and declining in the years since. (The state of Vermont also administers its own standardized tests, but they offer a much more  of data.)

Is inadequate reading instruction behind the state’s middling scores? Some advocates speculated that it was. Quinn, of the Stern Center, said that she had consulted with a colleague who guessed that poor reading curricula became “entrenched in the decade prior.”

Others said it was best not to dwell on that data.

“If you spend time with youth, and watch them and see them attempt to construct sentences, there’s plenty of qualitative data in every classroom,” said Dorinne Dorfman, a former administrator, teacher and board member at the regional International Dyslexia Association’s chapter. “It’s really evident in their everyday lives.”

Ted Fisher, a spokesperson for the Vermont Agency of Education, declined to make any state officials available for an interview. Asked about the causes behind that decline, Fisher referred VTDigger to a  from the Vermont Agency of Education.

 “I urge school districts to pay attention to these results and make sure we are focused on providing high-quality instruction in core skills like literacy and mathematics,” then-Secretary of Education Dan French said in the release.

‘Take it into consideration’

Not everyone is convinced that the silver bullet is more phonics instruction. 

Marjorie Lipson, a founding board member of the literacy nonprofit Partnerships for Literacy and Learning and former education professor at the University of Vermont, said that the focus on phonics oversimplifies the many factors that go into how kids learn to read. 

“My argument is not with phonics,” Lipson said, noting that it’s a key part of curricula. “It’s with an approach that says that’s all that’s important, and that you need to hold back other aspects of becoming a reader until after that job is done.”

She likened phonics instruction to practicing shooting a basketball: “You could have a child go into a gym and practice shooting hoops till they, you know, collapsed from fatigue,” she said. “At the end of the day, if that’s all they’d ever done — was shoot hoops — they would be pretty skilled at shooting hoops. But they wouldn’t be a good basketball player.”

Jay Nichols, the executive director of the Vermont Principals Association, compared the current discourse to the “reading wars” of the 1980s, when educators debated how much of a role phonics instruction should play in classrooms.

“It’s exactly the same,” he said. “The pendulum’s kind of swung back and forth. And I think it’s, as usual, the answer’s somewhere in the middle.”

Either way, it’s not clear that advocates will succeed in getting a secretary who will prioritize reading instruction. 

Under Vermont law, the State Board of Education is supposed to present at least three candidates for the position to the governor, who will make a final choice. The job application window closed on Oct. 5. 

Jennifer Samuelson, the chair of the state board, declined an interview, saying she was preparing for a trip. Asked about the campaign for a secretary of education to prioritize literacy, she said in an email that “I think this is an area that is clearly of interest to a lot of Vermonters.” 

But the board had not discussed the topic, she said. She declined to say whether the body would prioritize reading instruction in its search for a new secretary, saying that information about the hiring process was “privileged” under Vermont law.

Nor is it clear how much Gov. Phil Scott will focus on the issue. 

In response to an emailed inquiry from VTDigger, Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for Scott, said, “The Governor will certainly will take it into consideration, along with other public feedback.” 

This was originally published in .

Student scores in the state’s standardized test have continued to improve since the pandemic, but more than half of Texas students are still struggling with math and about a half of them are below grade-level reading, according to score data from this spring released Wednesday.

While overall math scores improved from last year after falling to their lowest levels in a decade, they have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. And while the percentage of students who can read at grade-level — the reading level appropriate to most students in their grade — is higher than before the pandemic, overall scores in this subject remained flat from last year. The state’s most vulnerable students still lag behind state averages in both subjects.

Each spring, Texas students in third through eighth grade take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test in math and reading. Fifth- and eighth-graders also take the STAAR test in science, eighth-graders take a social studies version of the test and high school students take some STAAR tests known as end-of-course assessments.

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The scores released Wednesday are the first to come out since the STAAR test was redesigned to more closely resemble what students learn in a classroom setting. The new test did not appear to have a significant impact on student performance.

Forty-three percent of students taking math in third through eighth grade or Algebra I met grade level or above this year, a 3-percentage-point increase from the previous year. Fifty-two percent of students who took reading in third through eighth grade, English I or English II met grade level or above, which is the same percentage as the year before.

While the math scores represent an increase from last year, they are still 7 percentage points behind the state average in 2019, before the pandemic hit. Reading scores, on the other hand, have seen a 5-percentage-point increase since then.

“Teachers across Texas continue to work with passion and skill to help students learn,” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said. “This year’s results show the efforts of our educators continue to deliver improved results for students.”

Test scores for the state’s most vulnerable students — such as special education students, bilingual students and low-income students — continue to lag behind state averages, but gains have been made in recent years. About 60% of Texas’ 5.5 million students are considered economically disadvantaged.

In math, only 33% of low-income students met or exceeded grade level, compared with the 60% of students who met grade level but are not considered low income. This year’s score for low-income students is a 3-percentage-point increase from last year but still 8-percentage-points lower than 2019 scores.

In reading, only 41% of low-income students met grade level, compared with the 71% of students who met grade level but are not considered low income. The 41% did not change from last year but is 5- percentage-points higher than 2019 scores.

The latest scores show that 33% of bilingual students met grade level, representing a 2-percentage-point increase from last year and a 10-percentage-point increase from 2019. In math, 32% of these students met grade level, a 3-percentage-point increase from last year but still 4-percentage-points lower from 2019 scores.

Meanwhile, 16% of special education students met grade level in math, a 3-percentage-point increase from last year but 1-percentage-point lower compared with 2019 levels. In reading, 17% of these students met grade level, the same as last year, but the figure is 5-percentage-points higher than 2019 scores.

Broken down by race and ethnicity, 58% of white students and 79% of Asian students were at grade level in math, but both groups are still behind pre-pandemic scores. Among Hispanic students, who make up more than half of Texas’ student population, 36% met grade level, 9-percentage-point lower than 2019 and a 2-percentage-point increase from last year. Only 28% of Black students, who make up about 13% of the state’s student population, met grade level, a 3-percentage-point increase from last year, but 7-percentage-points lower than 2019.

In reading, 68% of white students and 82% of Asian students met grade level, both representing increases from pre-pandemic scores. Forty-five percent of Hispanic students met grade level for the subject, the same as last year and 5-percentage-points higher than 2019. Forty-one percent of Black students met grade level, a 1-percentage-point increase from last year, but 7-percentage-points lower than 2019 scores.

Mary Lynn Pruneda, senior policy adviser for the public policy think tank Texas 2036, said the results show that students are continuing to recover from the learning disruption created by the pandemic, but noted that fewer students are reaching mastery-level performance, the top tier on the exam. In almost every grade level for both math and reading, the percentage of students who mastered either subject fell from last year and is still lagging compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Pruneda said the results show that past investments in schools to help with student performance are paying dividends but more is needed.

Over the last several years, the Texas Legislature has tried to move the needle with laws providing more tutoring for struggling kids, more preparation for educators on how to teach reading to kids and more high-quality teaching materials.

Schools have also received federal funds to aid learning recovery after the pandemic. And a special legislative session expected sometime this fall will provide another opportunity for lawmakers to pass laws that spur academic growth.

“The decisions and investments we make now will shape the opportunities that generations of students will have following graduation to pursue higher education or start a meaningful career,” Pruneda said.

Disclosure: Texas 2036 has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Facing historic lows in West Virginia kids’ reading and math abilities, state lawmakers passed a landmark bill earlier this year that would require and fund teachers’ assistants in many lower-level classrooms.

But with the new school year approaching, the program implementation faces hurdles on a deadline included in the bill. County school systems are now tasked with filling the classroom assistant positions or backfilling the jobs being vacated, including special education aides, for the new positions.

Lawmakers worry about the upcoming vacancies that could be caused by counties implementing the bill, known as the .

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“Come August and September, when these schools are opening, I’m very concerned about what we’re going to see,” said Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, vice chair of the House Education Committee. “The trouble is in the implementation.”

In Berkeley County, Superintendent Ronald E. Stephens IV still has open aide positions to fill along with new vacancies left by existing employees transferring into the new aide positions.

“While we remain optimistic about implementing the code across our second and third grades in future years, we do have concerns that many classrooms, including prekindergarten and special education, may continue experiencing staff shortages including 79 other unfilled service positions,” he said.

The landmark education , a priority for the governor, House and Senate during the 2023 Legislative session, required teachers’ assistants in lower-level classrooms based on the number of students. The bill also outlined reading instruction and added a number of support and intervention strategies to monitor student progress through the end of third grade. Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a “crucial marker” in a child’s educational development, .

West Virginia recorded its ever in 2022; education officials cited the pandemic’s education disruptions as a reason for the drop in scores.

“We’re excited about the Third Grade Success Act and being able to implement this legislation,” West Virginia Department of Education Superintendent Michele Blatt said. She added that the department is monitoring any issues that arise in its rollout.

“This legislation was a labor of love for many,” she added.

Statler expressed concern that the legislation gave the WVDE and counties a tight deadline to implement the first phase of the plan, which this year required assistants in classrooms with more than 12 kids in just first grade classrooms along with other other literacy-focused requirements.

Del. Chris Toney, R-Raleigh, estimated there would be 300 classroom aides hired for first grade classrooms around the state. The bill is expected to annually cost once positions are filled through third grade, which is supposed to happen over the next few years.

The state has faced a teacher shortage, and last year, 1,544 certified teachers were teaching out of their content area, according to the WVDE. The classroom assistants are not required to have a teaching degree but must receive reading and numeracy training, according to the legislation. Lawmakers about filling the positions, which they believed would be more than 2,000 jobs, ahead of passing the bill.

“I do have concerns about them finding people to fill these positions,” said Del. Elliot Pritt, R-Fayette. “The education system is already chronically understaffed.”

Leaders with the WVDE told West Virginia Watch that at this time, they could not provide a total number of assistants needed or share how many of those positions had been filled. They cited, in part, that enrollment totals, which determine the number of aides needed, won’t be set until October.

The WVDE missed a July 1 deadline, required in the bill, to provide a report about parts of the new literacy and numeracy program. Spokespersons for the House and Senate told West Virginia Watch those reports were received July 20. WVDE officials communicated with Legislative staff members ahead of the delay.

“Although the plan for July 1st was not met by WVDE, the speaker’s office, as well as others in the Legislature, stayed in contact with the leaders of WVDE to enforce those policies and inquire about the delay,” Toney said. He has worked for Raleigh County Schools for 16 years, including as a classroom aide.

“We are hopeful that the right changes will take place to ensure that these policies will reflect the concerns of parents, educators and students,” he added.

New aide positions could drain special education staff

WVDE Deputy Superintendent Sonya White said that many of the newly-created positions are often being filled by people already working within schools.

“There’s a lot of shuffling right now,” she said. “Some counties are struggling to fill the positions.”

Stephens has filled 50 of the 62 new aide positions in Berkeley County. He said that the majority of staff filling the positions came from other classrooms in the district, the schools’ transfer list of discontinued positions. Some were former aide substitutes, he said.

Kanawha County Schools spokesperson Briana Warner shared the similar concerns as Stephens about people leaving special education classrooms for the new aide positions. The Kanawha County school system, which is the state’s largest, needs 80 aides this upcoming year in its first grade classrooms. They have five to 10 vacancies at this time, she said.

“ … We’re anticipating needing additional special education and other classroom aides due to movement to first grade positions,” Warner said. “We have begun recruiting additional special education aides to fill any of the vacancies that may be created as we create additional first grade aide positions this year.”

Warner added that the county school department went out and interviewed current special education aides in June so that they “could put together some basic ads and attempt to get ahead of any loss.”

“From the beginning, my biggest concerns have centered around special education aides. We do not need to take from one department to give to another,” Toney said. “We need to make sure all of our students and staff, no matter what their specific needs are, will have more opportunities for safety and success in their schools.”

Not all students in the state with an IEP have a developmental disability . Students living in poverty are to be identified for special education.

“We knew there was a possibility we were going to drain the special education positions,” Statler added.

Despite the current hurdles, lawmakers remain optimistic that this bill will improve the state’s education system and student outcomes. State lawmakers referenced academic gains in Mississippi while crafting the legislation; Mississippi being ranked the second-worst state in 2013 for fourth-grade reading to 21st in 2022 with some of the West Virginia has been adopting.

The state is also offering literacy training to principles and teachers this summer. Blatt said that more than 1,000 school personnel from around the state have participated in those training opportunities.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com. Follow West Virginia Watch on and .