Ready, Set, Go!
What if you
had exactly 60 seconds to do something and the trajectory of your future
depended on that 60 seconds? Would you be nervous before that
performance? Do you think your action in those 60 seconds is a clear
picture of your real talents or ability?
I pose these questions because this is exactly what the State of Iowa is
doing to our children. Recently, I, as
well as administrators across the State, had to send a letter home to parents
that labeled their child “substantially deficient” if their child did not read
a certain amount of words in 60 seconds.
The letter was scripted by the Iowa Department of Education and
“substantially deficient” is written into the Iowa Code.
The above
requirement is a part of the Early Literacy Implementation (ELI) law. The law states all schools should have an
approved universal screener, progress monitor students who exhibit a
“substantial deficiency” in reading, send a notice to parents that their child
is “substantially deficient”, provide an evidence-based summer reading program,
and retention of any student not proficient in reading by the end of 3rd
grade.
With so many
flaws in the ELI law it is hard to pick where to begin. Let’s start with the universal screener. A universal screener is defined by the
American Institutes for Research as “Screening
is conducted to identify or predict students who may be at risk for poor learning outcomes. Universal screening
assessments are typically brief, conducted with all students at a grade level,
and followed by additional testing
or short-term progress monitoring to corroborate students' risk status.” The important piece to take away from this
definition is that once a student is flagged, further evidence is needed before
determining if a student is at risk, or as the State of Iowa puts it,
“substantially deficient”. This is not
happening in the ELI law as schools are using one universal screener without
any other data being used to label students “substantially deficient”. The National Center for Learning Disabilities
discourages this practice stating, “screening
students in the early grades lends itself to at least two common errors: false
positives and false negatives. False positives occur when students are deemed
at risk when, in fact, they are not. False negatives are cases in which
students who are deemed not at risk then go on to perform poorly on a future
criterion measure” (Jenkins, 2003). A
“screener” by all definitions is simply to scratch the surface of a possible
problem and should be used to dig deeper into that individual student. In the State of Iowa, a 60 second screener is
being used to determine if you child is “substantially deficient” and in need
of 3rd grade retention.
Another flaw in regards to the universal screener is the
norming. All tests have a set of
norms. Norming compares the results of a
statistically selected group of test takers.
Central has been a part of the FAST assessment (screener) for going on
three years now (we were a pilot school in the State of Iowa) and the norms of
that test have changed three times!
Three times in less than 3 years the number of words per minute a
student is supposed to read at a given grade level has changed. So if your child misses this moving target by
one word per minute, they are termed “substantially deficient”? The changing of the norms shows that the test
we are using is not reliable, yet the consequences for our children remain.
Most, if not all educators, will agree that reading is so
much more than how many words a person can read accurately in one minute. Think about our upcoming Christmas holiday. Many of us get the “joy” of putting together
the presents Santa brings our kids. What
if I told you that you only get 60 seconds to read the directions and then put
together the toy? How many of you think
you could do it? I know I could not. Even though I am positive I could read the
entire directions in my 60 seconds, what good is reading fast if we can’t
comprehend what it is that we are reading?
Fluency is a strong indicator of reading success, but it isn’t
everything and it sure doesn’t mean a child is “substantially deficient”.
So what can we do
about this? There really is only one
thing we can do and that is to contact our local politicians and share your
concerns. Here are some suggested questions/thoughts
to pose:
·
Name something you do
in 60 seconds and your future depends on it.
·
Do home school and
private school students have to follow the ELI law? If not, why?
·
Do Iowa employers
want an employee who can read a set amount of words per-minute, or do they want
an employee that can comprehend what they read?
Contact Information:
Darrel
Branhagen: (515) 281-3221
Patti Ruff: (515) 281-3221
Michael Breitbach: (563) 920-7399
Linda Fandel (Governor’s Special
Assistant for Education): (515) 725-3522
Governor
Branstad: (515) 281-5211
References
Jenkins, J. R. (2003, December). Candidate
measures for screening at-risk students. Paper presented at the National Research Center on Learning
Disabilities Responsiveness-to-Intervention symposium, Kansas City, MO.
Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://www.nrcld.org/symposium2003/jenkins/index.html
Universal Screening. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2015,
from http://www.rti4success.org/essential-components-rti/universal-screening
