Literacy Reform Efforts - Lack of Accountability and Follow-Through - Inconsequential Results

Literacy Reform Efforts – Lack of Accountability or Follow-Through –   Inconsequential Results

Inputs and Process Reforms

In her interview with The 74 (https://www.the74million.org/article/a-lot-has-changed-in-the-40-years-after-a-nation-at-risk-but-the-school-system-not-so-much/) Margaret Raymond, founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University, provides insights into the what’s,  who’s, why’s, and why not’s of the last 40 years of education reform efforts. Raymond explained differences between input and process reforms. Both system-focused input and marginal input reforms attempt to make changes to public education. System-focused reforms expand the variety of services provided by the education system.  Marginal reforms seek to improve the quality of selective services in the existing system.

 Process reforms aim to change the way education is created, delivered, and monitored by schools and their oversight bodies. It is the monitoring of some process reforms that is the focus of this post. These reforms were initiated by districts, states, and philanthropy. Many of these initiatives were incentivized by state and federal legislatures during both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. The outputs from reform efforts usually include products that reflect the ending state of the input or process. However, there are few, if any, evaluations of the why’s or why nots of their effectiveness.

Teacher Preparation Programs

Raymond explained that efforts to affect teacher preparation programs have not been found to be successful. Two of my previous posts deal with attempts by the Louisiana legislature and the Louisiana Department of Education to reform literacy education for all students by strengthening the teaching profession through modifications to teacher preparation programs. They are “Two Major National Literacy Reform Efforts” and “How Effective are Government Mandates”.

Louisiana’s ESSA plan proposed regulations to institute competency-based expectations for educator preparation programs. These competencies focus on new teachers’ ability to teach all students, including students with exceptionalities and those in need of academic intervention, in a regular education setting.  The method the state board developed to meet their goal of strengthening teacher preparation programs is an observation model focused on the teacher candidate’s experience. A team of preK-12 teachers and teacher educators was charged with the task of ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­examining course content and observing reading methods courses. Within a month, the team leader was to submit a brief written report summarizing their findings and provide the institution with feedback and suggestions.  This inspection model is considered a significant component of Louisiana’s accountability system for teacher preparation providers.

Louisiana citizens are unable to learn the results of these observations of reading education instruction in each of the teacher preparation programs. It seems that these written reports, which are part of the state’s accountability system, are not considered documents, so Education’s Faulty Foundation was unable to obtain copies under the Freedom of Information Act. The state ESSA plan refers to a rating system for teacher preparation programs based on the observations described above; however, state department employees were unfamiliar with any such rating system.

There is also no accountability component included in Louisiana’s dyslexia law, Act 607. Like the ESSA plan, this legislation was designed to improve teacher preparation programs so that new teachers can teach all students, even those who find learning to read difficult. This legislation requires that all teacher preparation programs include no less than three credit hours on teaching students with dyslexia.

The Louisiana Department of Education does not require teacher preparation programs to submit copies of syllabi for the courses that cover the required competences. They only require that teacher preparation programs complete a checklist to attest that their courses teach all the required competences by signing the following assurance:

My institution acknowledges and assures that:

Per Act 607, all students who enter a teacher education program during the 2024-2025 school year and thereafter, for all certification areas, must spend 3 credit hours or 45 contact hours, within the existing credit hour requirements, engaged in coursework regarding teaching students with dyslexia, taught by a faculty member who has been provided specialized training in instructing teacher candidates on pedagogical methods for teaching students with dyslexia (2022 Act 607). The coursework shall include but need not be limited to:

1.        An overview of the body of scientific work regarding dyslexia, including the history, epistemology, and clinical presentation, including early clinical indicators of dyslexia and common, persistent classroom presentation. 

2.       An overview of evidence-based instruction for individuals with dyslexia including remediation of weaknesses, fortification of strengths, and common accommodations to help mediate between the two.

3.       An introduction to the process of becoming a dyslexia practitioner or dyslexia therapist, pursuant to R.S 17:392.2.

The above course may be included as part of the required hours in the teaching of reading and literacy (2021 Act 438), or it may be an additional course beyond the required teaching of reading and literacy hours at the discretion of the provider.

The signatures below indicate that leaders responsible for overseeing design and implementation of the programs included in this application, including deans and/or directors of colleges and/or schools who provide coursework for these programs, have approved the information provided in this assurance for submission to the Louisiana Department of Education. We further certify that the program will meet all minimum requirements as established in LAC 28:XLV. Bulletin 996 - Standards for Approval of Teacher and/or Educational Leader Preparation Programs, Section 303.L.

The Report of the National Reading Panel , “Teaching Children to Read – An Evidence-Based Assessment of Scientific Research Literature on Reading” (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report/pdf).

The results of this groundbreaking research project were not weakened by a lack of accountability, but by a lack of follow-through. Unfortunately, all this valuable information has been watered down and simply described as “Five Essential Components of Effective Reading Instruction” and labeled SBRR (Scientifically Based Reading Research). The Stakeholders in this project are numerous. However, the ones who really “dropped the ball” are publishers of textbooks for teacher candidates and publishers of commercial reading curriculums.

The report stressed that “It is important to recognize that children will differ in their phonemic awareness and that some will need more instruction than others. In kindergarten most children will be nonreaders and will have little phonemic awareness, so PA instruction should benefit everyone. In 1st grade some children will be reading and spelling already, whereas others may know only a few letters and have no reading skill. Nonreaders will need much more phonological awareness and letter instruction than those already reading. Among readers in 1st and 2nd grades there may be variation in how well children can perform more advanced forms of phonological awareness. The best approach is for teachers to assess students’ PA before beginning instruction.

Authors of this report clearly state that Research is needed to identify what teachers need to know and be able to do to teach phonological awareness effectively and to integrate this instruction with other elements of beginning reading instruction or instruction directed at older disabled readers. This would be important for instructors of reading methods courses in teacher preparation program to think about and understand!

These researchers also explained that it is important for teachers to recognize that the goals of phonics instruction are to provide children with some key knowledge and skills to ensure that they know how to apply this knowledge to reading and writing. To be able to make use of letter-sound information, children need phonemic awareness. They need to be able to blend sounds together to decode words, and they need to break spoken words into their constituent sounds to write words. Programs that focus too much on letter-sound relations and not enough on putting them to use are unlikely to be very effective. Knowing that all phonics programs are not the same brings with it the implication that teachers need to be educated about how to evaluate different programs.

“As with any instructional program, there is the question: Does one size fit all? Teachers may be expected to use a particular phonics program with their class, yet it quickly becomes apparent that the programs suit some students better than others. Children are known to vary greatly in the skills they bring to school. However, it is common for many phonics programs to present a fixed sequence of lessons scheduled from the beginning to the end of the school year.”

Two decades earlier findings from this comprehensive national literacy reform effort provided us with a warning about the dangers of one-size-fits-all standardized instruction. Begs the question: “What was done with all of the information reported from his national literacy reform??”

Education’s Faulty Foundation feels strongly that the findings of the National Reading Panel should be known by the publishers of commercial reading curriculum and those individuals who purchase these materials for their school district!

Finally, the purpose of this post is to raise awareness of the limitations of some literacy reform efforts caused by lack of accountability or follow-through. Together we can let responsible parties know that we are aware of the problems in their plans and have ideas to share. Please comment on any of your ideas or efforts.

Resources for Teachers

In our review of the books chosen by some of the teacher preparation programs as the text for their courses, we discovered that they have taken the term overview from the phrase “overview of evidence-based instruction” literally. The research is generally described; however, there is no description of the actual lessons or how to teach them. Teachers who want to know how to teach struggling readers as if they are their own children will find lessons and materials in the manuscript “Imagine the Struggling Reader is Your Child! Reconsidering Dyslexia” (www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/crack-the-reading-code).

`