The Battle for Literacy
The Jane Austen fans out there will understand what a compliment it is to be called an “obstinate, headstrong girl.” It means we don’t accept the status quo; we aim for the stars and stick to our values even when it isn’t popular or comfortable to do it. We are the boat rockers, the upsetters of apple carts, the wave makers. When I authored HB 538, The Georgia Early Literacy Act, in 2023, I managed to do all of the above. To be honest, many in the education establishment freaked out completely, and for awhile I wasn’t very popular, and I loved every single minute of it.
We are in crisis in Georgia because only about a third of our 4th graders read proficiently. You can click the link at the end of the post to see our scores on The Nation’s Report Card. You can also look up your district’s Milestones scores on the Department of Education website. This might be surprising because it’s kept really, really quiet in most of our communities. No one wants to admit that we are failing our children and have been for decades because we’ve been trying to teach reading using curricula that doesn’t work. Not even a little bit. We’ve been asking kids to build sky scrapers on a foundation of sand. Most kids learn to read in spite of this bad curricula, not because of it.
In 2023, a bipartisan group of legislators in the House and Senate had had enough. We decided to act, and all hell broke loose. Our schools told us they set curriculum, they had local control, and we couldn’t make them do anything. Turns out, they were wrong. Since the biggest part of our budget each year goes toward education, that gives the General Assembly a big say in what happens in our schools, and we refuse to allow failure to be an option. It also turns out that parents were behind us 100% because they want their kids to learn to read. We’ve come a long way in two years, and I can honestly say that I feel like I’ve made a difference in the world. I’m proud to say that both Speaker Jon Burns and Lt Governor Burt Jones have listed literacy as one of their legislative priorities for this year. I’m thrilled beyond measure to have their support!
Teachers from all over the state have come to me quietly since the governor signed HB 538 into law and told me they knew the curriculum they were being forced to use by their schools didn’t work, but they either didn’t know how to correct it in their classroom or they were afraid to use something else on the sly. One teacher came to me at a conference, which she paid for at her own expense, and told me that if her principal knew she was there she would be in trouble. They are excited to be trained in our new way of teaching reading, a direct instruction method called the Science of Reading.
The thing is, this new instructional method isn’t new at all. If you’re over about 45 years old, it’s the way you were taught to read by using phonics and by learning to understand the way the letters on a page are symbols for the sounds you hear. It’s the way human beings have taught other human beings to read for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you want to know why and how we lost our collective minds and stopped using this common sense teaching method, I encourage you to listen to podcast called “Sold a Story,” which I warn you will make you a little sick to your stomach. All schools will be required to use a curriculum aligned with the Science of Reading by next year, our students will be assessed early in their school careers to catch them before they fall behind, and they will be given intensive remediation to make sure they get the help they need.
I dropped the next piece of literacy legislation last week. It’s House Bill 307, and it will ban other ways of teaching reading that are not aligned with the Science of Reading. I’ve been assured by some that we don’t have to ban those methods because “no one is even using them anymore.” However, since people are again losing their minds over this proposed ban, I’m thinking that’s not quite true. I’m gearing up for another fight, and I’m not sad about it. Some boats need to be rocked, some apple carts need to be upset, and I think waves are super fun! I’ve come to realize it’s ok if adults are uncomfortable for a minute as long as we’re doing the right thing for our kids, and there is nothing more important to their future success as their ability to read. So, I’ll continue to be a proud member of the Society of Obstinate Headstrong Girls in the name of literacy. Jane Austen would thoroughly approve.
Visit the Nation’s Report Card here: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=RED&sj=&st=MN&year=2024R3
