It’s a crucial moment in Utah for K-12 education.
Literacy, technology in the classroom, social media and parental involvement are just a few items on an evolving list of challenges facing the Beehive State’s students, educators, parents and policymakers.
Earlier this year, Deseret News Executive Editor Doug Wilks sat down with Utah first lady Abby Cox and a diverse collection of educators, policymakers, parents, writers, mental health professionals and business leaders for a roundtable discussion on education — and what needs to happen to best serve Utah kids.
(This story has been edited for length and clarity.)
Doug Wilks: A recent Gardner Policy Institute report identified education challenges, particularly with K-12 literacy and reading. Where do we go from here? What do we need to do?
Abby Cox: I had a conversation with Sen. Ann Milner following last year’s Deseret News education roundtable discussion. She said to me that if you really want to do something on education, something meaningful, you really need to start thinking about third grade literacy.
How can we really make sure that that comes to fruition? How can that be implemented to help teachers?
This is not a failure of education and educators. This is a community problem. We see this across the nation. Our educators are working tirelessly. But as a community, we’ve got to step in and help.
We’re trying to get the attention of parents who maybe don’t know how to get their kids ready to read. We can help. Maybe there are opportunities for businesses to volunteer.
Wilks: Why are half of Utah third graders not reading at a proficiency level?
Molly Hart, Utah State superintendent of public instruction: It’s not that they can’t read. That’s important to know. Sometimes we oversimplify some statistics and the ways we measure things.
If you go into a third grade classroom, you are not going to find 60% of the students as illiterate. That’s not what 40% reading on grade level means. So we have to do a better job in education of communicating what the message and what the metrics are.
But that is not to minimize the challenges that we have. We need to do better. There isn’t a single student that should leave third grade without the skills to move forward.
It’s important that we are transparent about what our students can and can’t do and what they need to be able to do to keep the most number of doors open for them — whether it’s college, career, military, or whatever they want to do to support their families in the future and to build healthy families and healthy communities.
Wilks: Tyler, what are you observing with students? How do we get them reading?
Tyler Howe, assistant superintendent Granite School District: There is so much that is enticing and pulling our students attention elsewhere.
We’ve talked about devices and social media, and I love devices. There’s a lot about them that’s so powerful. But we’re competing with something that is really hard to compete with.
When we can find a reading niche — whether it’s graphic novels, or whether it’s a reading series or whether it’s recording.
The alternative is that students just choose something else, and then the (reading) gap grows larger.
Cox: I learned about 12th grade students in Piute County, where there has been a low literacy rate.
The 12th grade seniors are going to the elementary schools and reading to the kids. And what they are seeing is shocking. The reading levels for the 12th graders reading levels were increasing in crazy numbers.
They were reading children’s books to kindergartners — and it was the seniors that were actually getting a huge benefit with their own reading.
Brooke Romney, author and motivational speaker: One of the things that we’re really missing out on is when kids are done with their work at school, they used to bring out a book. It used to be the only option. So even if they weren’t reading at home, even if they didn’t have a parent that was forcing that, they had to read at school because there was nothing else to do.
And now they can play Minecraft on their computer. And what boy is going to choose reading his book over Minecraft?
One thing that we could do is offer more opportunities to read as the only option in schools. And the same thing goes for home. Homes that read create kids that read.
Hart: Parents have rights. They are their children’s first teachers. But with rights come responsibilities.
What’s even better than kids reading for an hour before bed is the entire family reading for an hour before bed — and turning off the devices and turning off the TV.
Wilks: Are Utah K-12 kids well-prepared for college and higher education? Are there worries? Is there hope?
Janet Randall, literacy advocate: There’s hope, but there are also concerns.
Kids are entering college at a much lower level than they used to. Maturity is just very different. I think social media and devices have taken that away. The expected reading level in college is higher, and a lot of students struggle to keep up.
It’s important to show that reading — and reading with your children and just reading for yourself — is not a chore. It’s a joy.
Wilks: Does the business community have a role in child reading and literacy?
Mary Catherine Perry, Salt Lake Chamber: There is a real opportunity for communities and business leaders to say: ‘How am I supporting my employees? How am I supporting them and their families? Am I supporting a flexible work schedule? Am I allowing them to have time with their families?’
Maybe we need more shared safe community spaces for afterschool programs and things where we can support working families.
Derek Miller, Salt Lake Chamber: People are the inputs for business. You can’t do it otherwise. And if we don’t have people who are educated, then our economy won’t just suffer, it will stop.
Hope Eccles, business owner: The business community needs to step forward and be talking to their employees, saying, “We’re concerned about this reading level. These are your children. They’re our future employees. This isn’t acceptable, and we need to start saying so.”
We need to be able to step forward so the business community can lead out.
Employers, in their places of business, ought to be helping the parents and supporting parents.
Christine Ivory, president of The Ivory Foundation: Maybe the third grade reading issues are going to force us to sit still for a minute and reassess and look at ourselves honestly and say: “What is it that we need to change structurally? What needs to change?”
We’ve got to sit down and assess and say, “Why is the relationship between parents and teachers so adversarial?” Because it is.
“Why do we not understand how things have been organized and evaluated? Why aren’t we understanding this better? So I think that is something that needs to happen.
Amy Garff, Garff for Good Foundation: Our company’s been involved in reading programs and things like that in the schools for about 25 years.
If we really want to see traction, it’s got to be many different people coming together. It is about the parents and the family and the teachers and the administration, the school, the community and the Legislature.
It’s everybody coming together to get many feet on the ground — to get things rolling together.
McKinley Withers, Health and Wellness, Jordan School District: Our third graders are not just leverage for us to raise our scores so that we feel better about doing something about this problem. They also are just third graders who are trying to make it through the day.
We have a lot to learn from our kids — not just teach to our kids. Our systems are not really designed to support thriving, and that is an issue that we need to address.
It would be nice to sit down and read a book, but our systems are not always allowing our people to do that — to live a lifestyle that is actually in line with human well-being.
Hopefully we can come together to address this critical issue; that we can take into account the individual story of each person and their actual experience.
Stephanie Stokes, consultant, Strategic Research, Intermountain Health: Books change our biology. They change our stress management and change our responses. They change our genetics.
As we’ve started to explore this, (teachers are telling me) that we don’t have a third grade reading problem — we have a kindergarten problem. And that’s where they really see the greatest opportunities.
Third grade is a very critical transition in an education space. But really, the opportunities for intervention need to start earlier.
Hart: Reading is a process that starts at birth.
In the third grade, you go from learning to read — to reading to learn. That’s why third grade is that benchmark. But just like dropping out of school is a process that starts when a student is in the sixth grade, reading is a process that starts in preschool and earlier.
Julie Cluff, Utah PTA president: I am saddened when parents and teachers aren’t partners.
It’s sad to me that less than 30% of parents are going to parent teacher conferences in the fall, and it’s even less in the spring. If your kids are doing great, then teachers often don’t hear from you. But they need to hear from you. You need to be an active partner.
Cox: I hope that parents in the state know how much we love their children. And as educators, how much we love their children.
This is a partnership. There is no blaming and no shaming — just all of us working together to do the best we can for our children.