State Reading Proposal Angers Superintendents District Heads Say $6 Million Plan Squanders Local Efforts

Local school superintendents panned on Wednesday the state’s $6 million plan to appoint a reading czar to make sure children learn to read.

Superintendents from across the state said the plan would duplicate and conflict with efforts under way in Idaho schools.

“Are we supposed to throw that out and say, ‘OK, the state knows better?”’ asked Madison Superintendent Brent Orr.

The controversy comes as Idaho prepares to focus attention on making sure all the state’s schoolchildren are reading at their grade level by the third grade. A legislative committee has been working since last year on a plan, and Gov.-elect Dirk Kempthorne is among those calling for legislation to make that a state goal.

At a meeting of superintendents and school board members Wednesday, state Superintendent of Schools Anne Fox presented legislative plans, including the reading proposals. Fox is one of eight members of the legislative reading committee.

After the angry reaction, Fox said, “Nothing is set in stone at this point.”

She asked the superintendents and school board members to fill out a survey about the proposals, and said she’ll take the answers to the reading committee so it can consider changes.

“I think that feedback to the committee is really important, because they have some new ideas, but they haven’t necessarily gone out to see what school districts are doing,” Fox said. “So it could be that they need to send a survey or get more data back from the school districts.”

Sitting in the audience was Marilyn Howard, the state superintendent-elect. She spent much of her campaign talking about bringing a collaborative leadership style to the job, one that would bring up ideas from educators rather than impose them from the state. “I was listening to the room,” Howard said. “That’s something I intend to do not just today but into the future.”

The reading committee’s plan calls for naming a state reading director, who would supervise six regional reading specialists and 46 paraprofessionals. They would test all schoolchildren in kindergarten through third grade at least twice a year. Some kind of state-funded intervention program would help children who fail the tests.

A 10-member state committee, which would not include more than one or two teachers, would oversee a new batch of required training courses for new and existing teachers. The plan also calls for experimental preschools in each region of the state.

Post Falls Superintendent Dick Harris questioned what all that would cost, and was told it could cost $6 million.

Teton Superintendent Gordon Wolley said, “I just wonder where you’re going to come up with that amount of money that is not in your budget.”

Whitepine Superintendent Harold Ott asked, “Does the local district have a say here, or is everything going to be run top-down?”

Others asked about the fate of their own reading programs, some of which include similar testing and training. And some questioned why the state would embark on a new program just as a new early-reading program funded by the Albertson Foundation starts this year in every Idaho elementary school.

Said Harris, “I guess I feel that we’re really addressing the problem in the local school district. We’re creating programs that I think are meeting the needs of our local district. I really have questions about this 10-member committee at the state level.”

Coeur d’Alene Superintendent David Rawls said, “I wasn’t too excited about the way it was designed.”

He added, “We have, I think, in Coeur d’Alene an extraordinarily successful reading program. We pre- and post-test. We have a blend of multiple reading strategies. We have a lot of in-service (training), and our reading scores are strong.”

“Six million dollars …,” he said, “we could do a good job of spending those dollars at the local level if there really were that many dollars available for advancing reading.”

State Sen. Betsy Dunklin, co-chairman of the reading committee, said, “I’m very open to other ways of doing this, as long as you support our goal. If you come at this saying ‘we want to help you achieve this goal, here’s a different way of doing it,’ boy, I’m ready to hear it.”

Studies show a quarter of Idaho’s schoolchildren don’t read at grade level. “Many of them are way below grade level, they’re predominantly low-income kids, and they’re being left behind,” Dunklin said. “We’ve got the tools for making sure every child can read - let’s do it.”

Dunklin said the committee’s plan is evolving, but it will call for a comprehensive, statewide program to make sure every child can read.

“Tweaking the system here and there won’t make the kind of change that’s necessary,” she said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: EARLY READING Studies show a quarter of Idaho’s schoolchildren can’t read at their grade level. Research shows youngsters who can’t read at grade level by the third grade are far more likely to drop out of school and even go to prison. A state legislative committee is working on legislation designed to ensure that every Idaho child can read at grade level by third grade. Gov.-elect Dirk Kempthorne was among those calling for such legislation during this year’s election campaign.