Op-Ed: DC is taking the right steps to achieve literacy advancement, but there’s a long way to go
I thought my son was doing fine. He was getting A’s on his assignments, and his teacher said he was doing great. It wasn’t until we saw his NAEP score that we learned he wasn’t reading at his grade level- we had missed years of opportunities to do something because we didn’t know.
As elected members of the DC State Board of Education, we hear accounts like this from DC families too often.
Like most of the country, DC experienced a decline in literacy rates in 2022 when compared to 2019. Only 26.49% of fourth grade students tested at or above proficient in reading; 73.51% of students did not. The COVID-19 pandemic was academically devastating for our students.
It’s not just about a test score: Literacy is about empowering DC students to live the lives of their choosing and fluently navigate the world around them.
By equipping DC students with literacy skills, we have the opportunity to change the trajectory of their lives. Low literacy levels are a barrier to graduation and employment. Overwhelmingly, the students struggling to read are Black, Brown and English-language learners. They are children who overwhelmingly come from the same underserved communities and on the wrong side of the city’s wealth gap.
Although we have a long way to go, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Having a well-written and effectively implemented comprehensive policy is the cornerstone to transforming the way our children are taught to read, their literacy outcomes and ultimately their lives. On Oct. 5, the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) released Recommendations for Structured Literacy Instruction in the District of Columbia. This is huge. It’s the culmination of 10 months of work by representatives from the DC Council, OSSE, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, the DC State Board of Education, District of Columbia Public Schools, the DC Public Charter School Board, and individual public and public charter schools.
When one of us interviewed over 100 reading instructors several years ago to learn from their experiences, what did we hear? Too many had never learned how to teach reading. Reading instructors want to do right by their students, but too many are not prepared or supported. There’s a false assumption that if you know how to read, you also know how to teach reading. The focus in the recently released recommendations on structured literacy will serve to counter that misconception. The recommendations build upon decades of work by local education leaders and advocates, including parent leaders like Karla Reid-Witt and Sheila Carson-Carr of Decoding Dyslexia DC. The recommendations also amplify the pioneering work of Mary Clayman of the DC Reading Clinic, and they were written with input from Washington Teachers’ Union and EmpowerEd educators like Samantha Bertocchi and Maya Baum, among others.
The achievements we have made so far would not have been possible without collective leadership. Superintendent Cristina Grant and her team at OSSE not only wrote the recommendations, but also convened multiple conversations about literacy to inform the creation of DC-customized programs and policies. The work would not have been possible without the support of DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto to legislate the creation of the Early Literacy Education Task Force. It would not have been possible without the assistance of educators beyond DC, including Mississippi’s Kristen Wynn, who shared experiences and lessons learned. It is possible only because education agencies and educators have been working together to move forward collaboratively, with a shared vision.
We’re particularly proud of the recommendations because they are:
evidence-based, pulling from a large body of research and practice;
inter-agency, aligning the entire city in one direction;
guided by teachers, with informal meetings with reading instructors having helped ensure that teacher perspectives were included each step of the way.
The road to success is now paved. Now let’s walk it together. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council must fully fund these recommendations in the upcoming budget, so we can support our educators and students along this literacy learning journey. There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The task force has shown how far we can go together. Now we must turn their recommendations into a reality.
Training teachers alone won’t move the needle if administrators aren’t engaged and on board. It won’t work if teachers don’t have an aligned curriculum to use. It won’t work if teachers don’t have aligned screening assessments. It won’t work if teachers don’t have the support systems in place to get students showing up to class on time - having had enough food and sleep the night before. It won’t work if our students don’t feel safe.
But it will work if we work together.
It will work if we each acknowledge the unique role that we must play to make this happen. For the first time in a long time, we do indeed see light at the end of the tunnel for DC students’ literacy education.
Read our op-ed via The DC Line
Eboni-Rose Thompson is the Ward 7 representative on the DC State Board of Education and serves as president. Allister Chang is the Ward 2 representative on the DC State Board of Education.