Tag Archives: literacy

“Not All Children Learn and Develop in the Same Way”: Q&A with Asia J. Norton of Newark

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This post is part of a series of interviews conducted for our Eight Cities project. Read all related posts here.

When education policymakers, legislators, and lawmakers operate in isolation, they can seem distant or removed from the communities they serve. So what happens when a policymaker is also a teacher and a parent?

In advance of the summer 2020 relaunch of our Eight Cities project, we spoke with Asia J. Norton, a third-generation Newark teacher and parent who serves on the Newark Board of Education.

As a young student, Asia’s struggles with literacy led her mother to switch Asia into a different school. In this conversation, she talks about ensuring that every Newark parent has the opportunity to choose a school that is the right fit for their child.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you become so deeply involved in education at multiple levels?

I was born into education. Both my grandmother and mother were teachers in Newark. But as a child, I wasn’t served well by my local public school. By the time I reached fifth grade, I barely knew how to read. My mother, being a parent and an educator, recognized that I needed something different. She pulled me out of my public school, used the social security money she received from my father’s death, and enrolled me in a private school.  That experience prompted me to observe the differences between my school and the school where my mother taught — it felt like two different education systems.

I knew policy was driving a lot of the inequities I saw, so after college I [got] involved in education policy. But I knew that if I truly wanted to make an impact on education policy, I needed to be in the classroom and have the practitioner perspective.

Being a teacher is definitely different than talking about teaching. Although my grandmother and mother were teachers, I wasn’t a teacher until I was in front of kindergarten students teaching them how to read. And because of my struggles as a student, I developed a passion for literacy education. As a teacher I continued to see the differences in school quality in my community. I saw how getting the right seat can make an enormous difference. Continue reading →

All States Need to Shore Up Literacy Instruction After the Detroit Decision

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There has been a lot written about the 6th Circuit’s decision in Detroit’s right-to-literacy case, the latest in a long line of lawsuits bringing state and federal constitutional challenges to the quality of education opportunities provided to public school students. The court held that the Constitution protects a right to a minimal education opportunity: the right to literacy. This decision is an unmistakable signal to schools and districts about the importance of meaningful literacy instruction. 

And although the facts in this case are specific to Detroit’s unique relationship with Michigan’s state government, that will not excuse another state or district from falling short in their obligation to provide an education that offers a genuine opportunity for literacy.

three young black girls and one black adult looking at a table of books, Knight Arts Challenge Detroit: Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History The Charles H. Wright will use the arts to foster an interest in reading by weaving interactive cultural experiences throughout the museum’s Children’s Book Fair.

Photo of Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History via Knight Foundation on Flickr

The path to good literacy instruction isn’t a mystery. There is relevant science and resources to help schools, districts, and states. Good instruction is described in a set of practice guides produced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, which are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the expert opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts. States and districts can encourage the use of these resources by administrators, teachers, school specialists, and families.

To identify which specific programs and interventions have been effective at improving student outcomes, state and district leaders can search the What Works Clearinghouse, with particular attention to programs that have been independently evaluated. Reading interventions may impact a variety of outcomes, including alphabetics, reading fluency, comprehension, and general reading achievement. Since some interventions may be more effective than others for certain types of literacy skills, states might encourage the use of needs assessments to better understand which interventions are the best fit for a school or district. Continue reading →

Media: “Phonics. Whole Language. Balanced Literacy. The Problem Isn’t That We Don’t Know How to Teach Reading — It’s Politics” in The 74

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In The 74 I ask whether on reading instruction we’re conflating our problems of education craft with our larger problem of education politics:

Most conversations about literacy treat the problem of poor reading instruction as one of craft. The problem is that teachers don’t know how to teach reading, so how do we make sure they do? Solve the craft problem, the argument goes, and the politics take care of themselves. But what if this is exactly backward and, instead, it’s a political problem that allows the craft problem to persist? And maybe not just on reading but also on other issues like testing, accountability and teacher evaluation, where we’re constantly told that if things were just a little better from a technical standpoint everyone would actually be on board?

You can read it all here.

There Are No Schools In New Carolina

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In the imaginary state of New Carolina, there are no public schools. The citizens and the state legislature have decided that general public education is not a worthwhile use of limited resources, so they’d rather not be bothered with it. Anyone who wants to go to school has to go to a private school or get a tutor. The state will have to pass up any federal education dollars, but that’s okay: there aren’t any schools to fund with it so it’s a wash anyway.

Under the United States Constitution, New Carolina isn’t doing anything wrong.

The Constitution is the articulation of our country’s fundamental rights and the basis upon which we hammer out the contours of those rights by litigating individual cases in federal courts. In these cases, the role of the courts is to interpret the language of the Constitution: What exactly is included in the right to vote? When do you have a right to a jury trial? What’s covered by a right to privacy? States are free to add protections in their own constitutions, they just cannot sink below the minimum guaranteed in the federal constitution.

A 1972 school finance case, San Antonio v. Rodriguez, established that there is no federally protected fundamental right to education in the United States. Rodriguez has been challenged over and over again, but it’s a durable Supreme Court precedent.

Two cases, one in Michigan and one in Rhode Island, have taken up unique but related arguments in favor of recognizing a fundamental federal right to education.  The first, in Michigan, argues that while there may not be a right to education, there ought to be a right to basic literacy. In Rhode Island, the lawsuit argues that the federal courts should recognize a right to the minimum skills needed for basic civic participation. In both cases, the plaintiffs — students challenging the inadequacies of their states’ education programs — are aiming to get federal recognition of a baseline for what schools must provide. A win in a case like this would mean that New Carolina would have to find a way to provide all of its young people with some minimum standard of education, a standard that many existing school systems struggle to meet.

Both cases are moving through the federal courts, and it remains to be seen whether one (or both) will make it up to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. In any case, both cases have the potential to radically alter the relationship between state and local school systems and the federal constitution.

It’s important to note that some real New Carolinas do, in fact, exist. There are a number of places in this country where some of our most vulnerable students are legally denied access to the education programs that they would otherwise be able to participate in: juvenile justice facilities and immigration detention. In some of these places, education programs are diluted versions of local schools. In many of them, “education” consists of a packet of worksheets or some online tutorials. And in others, there is simply no school at all.

If the plaintiffs in either Michigan or Rhode Island prevail, that may change.

What We Get Backwards on Teacher Prep Policies

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My colleagues Chad Aldeman and Ashley LiBetti Mitchel have written a great paper looking at the current state of teacher preparation and the failure of both input-based and outcomes-focused efforts to address the grave weaknesses in our current method of preparing teachers.

I deeply concur with Chad’s and Ashley’s overall diagnosis and find their proposals compelling, but one piece of the picture here could use further discussion. Ashley and Chad are largely right that we actually don’t know enough about what prospective teachers need to learn and know, or how to effectively impart key knowledge and skills to them, to support existing mandates. That said, we do know quite a bit more about effective practices for early language and literacy instruction in the early childhood and elementary grades, as well as effective practices for early childhood teaching, and we are developing something of a knowledge base around strategies that work for building teachers’ knowledge and skills to implement these practices in the classroom. Yet for all the requirements our teacher preparation policies currently impose on preparation programs and prospective teachers, they often don’t ensure that early childhood and elementary school teachers are building knowledge and skills in the things we know they need to know.

The sad irony is that, in the areas where we have the strongest evidence base about what teachers need to know and be able to do, we often impose the fewest requirements.

Continue reading →