Tennessee could overhaul reading law after 60% of third graders miss benchmark
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- čas přidán 26. 03. 2024
- Tennessee could overhaul a reading law after 60% of third graders did not pass the test. NBC News’ Kathy Park spoke with two families about how the law affected their children.
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#Education #tennessee #Reading
Why is the next move not addressing the reading curriculum that has failed the majority of Tennessee children?
It’s likely the parents not the curriculum.
@@user-sj5ju4jb7t What are you basing that on? Tennessee notoriously underfunds their public educational system, often for political reasons. This law may be misguided, and standardized testing has a host of its own problems, but if Tennessee is falling below the national average for reading then it is at least possible that the educational approach of the state may be flawed.
@@jimbrennan6634 What are you basing that on?
What other states and what educational approach?
I heard "emotions from kids" several times in this piece how about real world reality?
@@u2mister17 I'm basing it on decades of working as an educational advocate in school systems. You made the comment: "It’s likely the parents not the curriculum." in a situation where children were not meeting an educational standard. What are you basing that assumption on? What criteria/research/data are you using to determine that this educational requirement is not being met because of parental failings vs educational ones?
@@jimbrennan6634 I base it on growing up in a developing nation where the funding for schools is practically nonexistent.
The point of school is to LEARN, not to PASS
Keep telling yourself that
Facts!!!!!..........they aren't fixing the problem they are just going to struggle in the 4th grade. unless they literally make school so easy you literally spend first 18 years of your life and you learn nothing and then you are an adult with responsibilities.
I agree 👍🏽!!!!
How do you prove that you learned? By PASSING.
@kerfufflehatter3525 not when they'll just pass anyone whose parents make a fuss. One should only pass by actually proving they learned what they needed to. You've got parents nowadays fussing that their kid didn't pass, but their kid literally can't read! Like, what?
Figure out how to teach these kids more effectively. Lowering standards and passing kids who can’t meet reasonable standards is failing those children. That’s how we end up with a bunch of poorly educated, dysfunctional adults that can’t critically think or reason through basic reality. Parents need to take more responsibility and stop being so soft on their kids
Absolutly agree. What's going on in USA ?
The goal in these Southern / conservative run states is to lower reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. Makes future generations easier to manipulate and lie to. They've been sugar coating history lessons for years now, of course they'd go after literacy
i mean, year after year they have been decreasing spending on education. so with kids getting dumber and dumber its largely at the fault of federal and state governments. @@manuelnoriegaaguilar3485
But feelings are more important to them
A dear friend of mine is nearly 15 years older than me and he still can't read very well. I'm a black girl, he's a white guy, and I still have to help him with certain words and definitions. I went straight to college, he went to the army after high school. It's really devastating to see this many people who simply can't read. you are allowed to feel however you may, I'm just sharing my experience 😢
How she feels about it? Mom, you should be helping your child. Holy Moses.
“Holy Moses” is part of the problem.
she's obviously already programmed her, "I'm a bad test taker! And I try to overachieve!" and the mom sits there smiling like that explains it.
@@colorbugoriginals4457 Totally! And the mom after w the boy said the same thing. Over achievers achieve things. What did they achieve. Geeminey Cripes. 🤷🏼♀️
Mom needs to lock in.
When 60% of a 3rd grade class fails reading..... something is wrong with school
Right to Read addressed Tennessee's failure to teach children to read because they teach sight words instead of phonics. The reason so many Tennessee children cannot read has been known for YEARS.
Right to Read is a documentary film associated with LeVar Burton, the host of "Reading Rainbow."
Wow I live in Ohio but in a really good school district and I watched how they break down phonics with my daughter’s kindergarten and first grade classes and was amazed that she was already sounding out words I didn’t think she was ready for, so I just started buying more advanced books. I assumed that was how it was all over. But my friend from Memphis tells me how her daughter struggles to read and just really guesses the word, so this makes more sense now.
That is so sad. I'll need to watch the documentary, but I hope they're looking into changing how they go about teaching children to read if they haven't already.
i didn’t even realize there could be a curriculum that didn’t teach phonics. that was the bedrock of my reading education in elementary school. sounding out words, learning what different sounds looked like in a word, long and short vowels, different combinations of letters making different sounds. that’s just bizarre to me
I never heard of the benchmark before
So instead of banning books looks like they need to keep them in the library and put more funding into the schools.
Under educated equals easily controlled and that's not even math
Like the Bible
Trumps book
But we need to protect children from naughty thoughts. Books should be boring!
I was hoping I'd see a comment like this. Thankyou 💯
What is the benchmark and why is it important, I never heard of it
This isn’t just in Tennessee. The education system is a joke
Republican states don't want to fund public education. Republican states have the lowest education rates. Uneducated workers are cheap workers, so CEOs don't want you to be educated.
Decades of conservative and corporate sabotage will do that.
so true
“Whole language” has decimated the entire nation’s public schools reading scores.
Parents are the joke. For some reason, everyone seems to think schools do the educating. My parents educated me first. The school was a supplement. I placed out of most grades and classes. Kids always thought I was smart. No, my parents and I worked hard at home so school was a breeze.
I lived in Mexico for a year and came back for kindergarten. They placed me in ESL (as was the standard) and the teacher stood up for me and said "this kid knows more English than our 5th graders." They did a test on me and were surprised when I knew what a submarine was. A submarine! So they placed me in 1st grade and one of my first assignments was to look at pictures of an iron, a refrigerator, a burning log, a TV... and I was to circle which ones were hot. I was doing multiplication and division into decimals at home and these kids are failing to circle which items were hot! Halfway through the year, I moved up another grade because it was either advance the lesson and leave the others behind, or keep placing me in higher grade until I reached my place.
It wasn't the education system that helped me to advance past my older peers. And I was not naturally gifted, or whatever they call it now. It was that my parents gave me every extra minute they had into teaching me everything that they knew. They were both high school graduates, and that should be enough to enable any parent with sufficient knowledge that their kid ace elementary school with ease.
Unfortunately, lawmakers in Tennessee are more focused on taking away the rights of Tennesseans than doing all they can to help children who are struggling. It’s also sad that many parents are letting phones and tablets babysit their children, and teach them the ways of the world. Children are learning things from electronics that they can’t process at an incredibly young age. By allowing children to stare at a screen for hours and hours every day, it’s teaching them that screens are important, books are not.
So you think Tennessee is wrong to take away the rights of their voters, but you think parents need to take away their children's e-tech. And that makes sense to you?
Whats wrong with it? Kids need to be outside, playing with friends. What kids did for hundreds of years before the iphone. Social mediais not for anyone under 12. Studies say children raisedlike that are at increased risk of anxiety, depression, and insomnia. They don't need it.@@chrisoneill3999
Parents of these kids need to step up and help reinforce the need to read. Reading needs to fun and be practiced from birth.
Parents don't want to parent anymore. They say they don't have time.
You're absolutely right
@@mrL9122exactly. It's sad. The parents are on the electronic devices even more than the kids are.
I was only seven when I read my first chapter book (magic treehouse series)
@@mrL9122 our "society" is so corrupted by the "trickle down" mafia and their thievery stealing wages and rigging the "markets" like the fake "housing market," that children have now become a luxury item. Only the rich and the ever-increasing "Idiocracy" subsidized by others get the privilege of many kids or kids at all.
When parents care more about ego than their children’s actual educational health.
It’s weird how children who fail in public school will pass with flying colors when transitioned to schools with better approaches and curricullums like Montessori based schools, and even homeschooling. ( just look at the academic score and outcome comparisons)
Or when schools in low income low score zones trial a change in structure, such a school in a poor area of SC changed to Montessori, and they immediately saw drastic improvements and outperformed their peers in other public schools.
Maybe, if 60% of the students of failing which exists in no other education system, even when failing public schoolers transition, and when more than half leave public school as adults with low academic scores which also occurs in no other education type, there is a problem.
Can the parents not read? Read a book with your kid, write letters to each other
Too many parents are AWOL.
No that’s sounds a little to good
the parents are at work or not even in the kids life
How many kids have their faces stuck to electronics at home? How many parents actually sit and read with their kids? It doesn't all fall on the schools.
Agreed. Next question; how many parents are working two jobs, or going back to school?
This is important, as my wife and I both read so my kids grew up reading, but, we also started them on the SRA reading program, but we never went past the first book. Kids need to see that their parents also will read, and sometimes just turn off the TV and focus for a bit on that.
I think we are too worried about their feelings, but it isn't the fault of the teachers, as they can only do so much. It is really a societal problem and when we see politicians talking down education and making fun of people that are educated then why would the children want to get educated?
I think that this is a complex problem. Parents are financially, mentally, and emotionally overwhelmed. The United States is terrible at funding any kind of family-friendly programs, including things like public school and childcare. Parents are increasingly turning to electronics to fill in the gaps that society simply cannot or will not fill, which has had disasterous results. Not only that, but kids have different attitudes about learning today. I read to my child, but I also have to force her to read herself or care about school at all. She has zero interest in it, and that is frustrating to me as the parent because it feels like I'm literally dragging her through her education. Nothing I have tried has been successful in changing her attitude about school. I think part of the issue is that she sees me struggle. She knows I went to school and got a degree. And she also knows how badly that life path has failed me. Just this past year, I lost everything, my job, a huge chunk of my savings, and ultimately, my will to keep trying to make capitalism work in my favor. I had a complete mental breakdown, and then I bitterly and begrudgingly gave up. Normally, I'm a very motivated person who keeps working hard and keeps trying until I get it, but this time just felt different. I felt like I had nothing to lose by giving up this time, and so far, I haven't been wrong. I traded my full-time job for a part -time one, and I replaced my dreams with a laptop because everything else I want feels astronomically out of reach. Kids today aren't dumb. They know that there is little to be gained by getting an education and working hard. They see it in their own life circumstances as their parents struggle to keep up. Why get an education when it doesn't get you anywhere that you want to go?
@@fairywingsonroses I know what you are feeling.
so true
Why are they changing the law to pass students who don’t meet the minimum requirements instead of addressing the real issue of students not reading on grade level?
Not every student can read on grade level, what if they have a disability
Educator here licensed in 2 of the highest achieving states. I have taught math and music. States that do better on literacy and on math have more time in music, art and physical education. That's it that's the solution. Start your kids in band or orchestra in 3rd grade. Students need 30 minutes of music instruction a day, 30 minutes of physical education, 30 minutes of creative expression and inquiry. Remember "Hooked on Phonics" it worked. Music teaches math and reading. Art is a way to explore comprehension. "Draw what you think will happen next." Tennessee has been low in reading and math for decades. I am surprised 60% can't meet the benchmark. Bring back music programs to your schools. Increase physical education each day. Teach human performance and analytics. Feed the kids lunch and breakfast. The scores will go up.
Republican states don't prioritize funding public education. In their mind, it's socialism, and they are just indoctrinating the kids anyways, so this is the result. The irony is the rich love the cheap labor that comes from the poorly educated. Easy to make a lot of money off the hard work of people who have few options in terms of employment, and don't know how to formulate and articulate logic arguments.
Excellent recommendation. Thanks for sharing wisdom from your experience and all you do!
I LOVE THIS.
6 step program
1. Increase funding for all schools! How?( Decrease police and military spending)
2. Pay teachers living wages
3. Stop Jerry mandering
4. Parents get involved. Do 30min of HW A DAY MAX. must be signed by a parent
5. Subsidies for kids to rent instruments
6. Bring back Home ec like classes.
I agree with you! When schools started losing funding for the arts decades ago, that's when all other scholastic achievements started to drop. They kept saying they didn't have the money. Which was an outright lie.
And phonics is essential!
@@TheNewHope2010 good point
The benchmark is not high. Lets lower it.
It shouldn’t be an issue; by the time these students reach the workforce, all communication will be in the form of memes and TikToks.
@@joshuablack3163 you may be conflating cause and effect.
What is the benchmark, I never heard of it until today
Parents lack accountability in this problem
Retired Canadian teacher here. When that many children fail it's the system and teachers who are at fault. I worked in special education. I would honestly say that half of my students did not have a learning disability. Some had simply not been taught PROPERLY how to read. In my opinion, a COMBINATION of phonics and learning words by sight works best.
Parents as well as schools can only do so much at school and practice has to happen at home.
I'm a speech-language pathology student and we discuss in class how the research is there to show the best proven methods of how to teach children how to read and yet we don't change the curriculums to match this research, leading to these poor literacy scores. And they're right, the stats say if kids are behind in 4th grade, they'll likely never catch up. I hope this will lead to a change in how we teach reading to kids, because 60% is unacceptable.
Would you please share some resources or a jumping off place for concerned citizens to start? So many people have opinions about this topic that it's hard to sift through.
How about we get rid of antiquated spelling and switch to using the International Phonetic Alphabet?
@@vincevilan3525
The concept sounds good, but given accents, that would be an even more jumbled mess.
People have been doing just fine learning how to read for hundreds of years if not longer. Why is research needed to figure out how to teach kids how to read?
@@user-sj5ju4jb7t Just because they could read in the past, doesn't mean they were good readers.
The #1 priority to rebuild the education systems is to have federal gov push funding into the system and make parents more aware and accountable for kid learning.
Parents need to get off their phones and read with their kids. Everyday. Set a time to read every day.
You're absolutely right
Why should a kid read a book? When they never in their whole lives saw mom or dad reading a book?
Just saying, from the kids' perspective. The parents maybe used to read books, but the devices addictive features destroyed the parents' attention spans also.
It's not the test, it's the education that doesn't allow for students to be proficient in reading.
When you have that many kids failing it’s the curriculum at fault.
Kids need to learn to handle failure. The kid that hurts himself and calls himself names is showing that he isn’t learning healthy coping mechanisms from his parents. Parents should explain that a 60% failure rate just means that *most* kids are behind, not that any individual kid is stupid.
It means that 60% of kids there are stupid. That’s what the issue is and people need to stop sugarcoating everything. We’re headed for an inevitable collapse.
The fewer kids that can read, the less you need to ban books.
Like the Bible
@@JeffEbe-te2xsno go ahead and keep that one banned. It’s not a helpful book anyway
Better to hold them back when they're younger. I teach high school to kids who read at a 5th grade level.
I can understand the idea or feeling we need to get tougher about holding back kids who can't read. Maybe it will work if it actually becomes a real wake up call to parents. I just think a lot about the rise of the screens over the past 20 years and the effect it is likely having on children's brain development and cognition. Similarly with most of the grocery store being highly processed "food," etc. No test can be made outside the context of the whole situation that young generations find themselves in. Just curious do you think what the legislature or the state of Tennessee is trying to do with holding them back is going to work or not? It looks like the parents are getting exemptions, so we have yet to see if they're going to replace the electronic devices with books and by example read with their kids.
tell me you live in a nightmare without telling me you live in a nightmare. I am so sorry for you. That sounds like an impossible battle
"I don't know what to do for that"
Try taking away their phones.
Amen. Take away the screens, for the love of God. What's so "hard' about the parents exercising the parents' prerogative and responsibility.
@tw8464 that's not a good way to teach kids, and it's been scientifically proven. Taking away things your kids like, will only make your kid rebel against you.
Parents fail to realize how ineffective this is, instead be put in their shoes. As an adult, if you made a mistake. And I took away your source of fun, would that motivate you? Or demotivate you? It would demotivaye you, the only reason you'd be doing stuff is because you want your stuff back, but your not happy or passionate about what your doing, because that's not how you were taught. You were taught that it's punishment. This makes the child connect negative feelings to learning and hate it even more.
Literally every family I've seen use this method has ended up having kids who appear nice on the surface but are hiding tons of stuff from their parents / lying to them to avoid punishment. Because in order to effectively learn, a person needs to be passionate about it. That's essentially what parents need to help their kid do
Now I'm not saying you shouldn't punish your kids or discipline them, but this method shouldn't be your ONLY resort. Actually talk to your kids, parents. They are a lot more like you then you think. Once you try to see eye to eye with them instead of looking down on them. They will respect that. Make them WANT to make you proud. passion is a much greater drive then fear
That definitely discriminates against children with learning disabilities.
I have dyslexia and I ended up with a degree in Mathematics from one of the top universities in the UK, but without all the spell checking software on this computer I would be in trouble.
Many people with dyslexia are not diagnosed, because teachers are not trained to spot learning disabilities, they just fail students instead of knowing how to help them.
One of my teachers is dyslexic but didn’t get help till college
Is “retained” a euphemism for “held-back”? If so, that’s hilarious. Instead of solving problems we just rebrand them.
Maybe prevent the book bans and help students rather than criticizing them.
Exactly
it's amazing how these kids are "perfectionists" or "over achievers" and yet they still can't read. i'm sure all they do when they come home from school is read books. they don't play video games or on phones all evening. so of course the government should lower the standard to allow them to advance. this is the right thing to do and these kids will succeed at the higher levels of academia because they are such dedicated hard working students already.
I worked at a STEM academy. About half our students were exceptionally strong in math (3 students in calculus in 7th grade). The strong half carried the bottom half. Our literacy scores on the other hand were exceptionally low. Administrators kept cutting math, music, social studies and art. The more they restricted those subjects the lower the literacy and math test scores. As the music teacher I was amazed that middle schoolers couldn't write a page double spaced. I was using my 30 minutes twice a week to teach them to read and write. Students who put the time in to practice music saw the biggest gains in their math and reading scores.
Hey this news story is about third graders, not high schoolers. It’s up to the parents to schedule their day. Stop getting mad at literal little kids for not having executive function yet.
😂🤣😂
If 60 percent of your states kids are failing a test it’s an systematic problem. Not the parents or the kids fault they need look at how they are teaching their kids to read . For instance they took out phonics in many states which helps kids learn how to read and speak . As a person who struggled to read at the 4th grade realm it’s possible that the parents need to switch schools too. It was my saving grace and led me to my success in college and life .
Good point.
Taking out phonics and providing synthetic phonics are two different things.
One of the 2nd graders I work with at Kumon has massive struggles with reading and math fluency. She’s about 7-8 and still needs a tonne of help from me. She also acts entitled too
Just teach your kid to read at home and then they'll be more comfortable taking a reading test in a structured setting. If they miss that fifth grade window they didn't want their child to have a good life.
When my nephew was 6, he would sight read a lot. Part of the homework the teacher gave us was for him to read outloud to us everyday. We would then correct him when he read by sight or memorization. We also made him practice writing words at home. Teachers can do what they can but the funding is always cut for schools. They work with very little resources and classrooms are overcrowded.
Invest in the Kumon method (I have been working at a Kumon center for almost a year, and some of my students have shown a lot of growth in reading fluency, to the point they literally zoom through their worksheets
Not surprised to see Tennessee slide back into the dark ages.
Because it’s Soooooooo progressive to sexualize children. You people are absolutely sick.
“Perfectionist and over achiever” child can’t read.
Nah, parents ego is just too big and wants her child who’s none of those things to get everything they want just by emotionally manipulating their mommy dearest.
Wonder if the kid bullies other kids too? But never gets punished bc their mom refuses to believe their kid can ever do wrong, ever.
💯
You're punishing Kids because you as a state aren't investing money into why the grades are so low! Look at the testing data! Get teachers the programs and information they need to teach more effectively! Do moc test, let the kids practice test taking. The are ways to solve this problem, but right now they are putting it mainly on the kids!
WHAT? Your kid isn't reading at grade level and you are worried about their feelings are you going to worry about your kids feelings when he is high school and can't keep up, so he drops out? You as the parent have a responsibility to teach your kids that feelings means " work harder" and you as the parent should help them at home if they aren't getting it at school. The dumbing down of standards and no child left behind policies have ruined public education.
💯
Our public schools nationwide need to dump “whole reading” and return to teaching reading through phonics.
Been in education since 2016. I’ve always taught phonics.
@@victoriapowell7650 As you already know, many public schools have abandoned phonics, to the detriment of American children.
3:10 Kids' feeling: I don't need to go to school! Parents: Okay, you don't have to.
And if you do have to go, we will lower the standards, hey look you're a genius overachiever!
I learned to read at age 18 months and this is just sad
Nailed it. There's way too much of this going on.
To be fair and for good comparison, if the kids passed the third grade mark in Tennessee, that means they can at least read what New York students in Kindergarten could read.
Nah, the TCAP posted sample questions and 1/4 adults got them correct
This tells me students need more help outside of school and the parents who wouldnt care to help their child are now forced too. Im sadden that the students have to struggle first and be emotionally stressed before parents become concern/care. In some ways this is good. Alot of children just need someone to help them. They need more practice and level the focus on reading outside of social media, non educational video and sports. If parents cant personally provide that extra push than spend money on a tutor rather than hundreds of dollars on makeup and designer shoes.
FIX THE CURRICULUM & QUIT CODDLING STUDENTS
If kids cannot read, they need to be held back until they can read at grade level. This is why we have functionally illiterate adults. There are college students reading at an elementary school level because the school system just pass them to the next grade. Literacy is a LIFELONG skill! I learned to read at 4 years old, thanks to my mother who was a pre-K teacher.
Schools have been focusing on advanced mathematics and science rather then lifestyles such as cooking and reading.
I'm not saying math and science is bad. But they go beyond that and try to incorporate really advanced math that has no need to be learned unless the kid wants to pursue careers like that. It shouldn't be priority over life skills.
Because it's the stuff that appears on tests so they focus on statics rather then actually raising kids
I disagree with you about that, I have a learning disabilities so I can't read what most people are reading at
I learned to read at 1.5 years old thanks to my mama
My older sister was an avid reader. However, she had anxiety about tests and did terrible at them. Back then tests only were a small part of your grade since teachers back then didn't only rely on tests. Regular school work was the larger determination for advancing.
What is the benchmark and why is it important
Well said. An over-emphasis on testing or a single test expecially can manufacture too much anxiety that is counterproductive and hinders learning. Tests have their place but over-emphasizing a single test does not. Notice in China the huge emphasis that is put on certain tests. But now so many of the young people are "lying flat." These things being done by the low level of a large system that pretends to be "high level" but is actually too one-dimensional, can backfire.
There are some kids who do well on tests just because they can play the test game better. There are tricks and techniques to do well on tests. The schools often just test test test but never actually teach kids exactly how to study effectively, tips, tricks etc. Some kids from more upper class families get this special kind of help from the parents or tutors and learn how to study and take tests better. If the schools are going to put a huge emphasis on certain tests, they should've been teaching test taking long before that and study skills etc. But I think the legislators and officials and testing companies are just making more "quick fix" "laws" trying to fix the problem without necessarily being wholly motivated to really understand or address the whole problem and are just slapping more emphasis on tests and requirements on kids, with no real context.
I love how the video is about reading deficiency, but they are using a thumbnail with arithmetic! 😆
Soooo no blame on the students, parents , or faculty?
We blame the lawmakers and lower the standard ? Great!
Spent several years working in the Middle East, learning Arabic to a degree while I was there. I found it to be much easier to pick up because it is phonic-driven, whereas English is a complete mess of bastardized words borrowed from other languages. The hardest part was learning to read right to left with a new character set.
It seems like they’re making them afraid of reading.
Yes it seems counterproductive. They're going to make the kids so anxious they won't be able to learn to read.
Get off the phone and learn how to read
They can do a good bit of reading on that phone.
Amen.
@@TheRedMenace12 if only that were true. But it is not true. The much too young child handed a phone by the parents making a big mistake, will never learn to read. The child will only watch videos on TikTok, Instagram, CZcams and play video games and talk. They don't need to read to use the phones. Because the videos and games are easy and fun. Learning to read takes work. Parents absolutely cannot simply hand a way too young child a phone and then go back to whatever they're doing and expect the child is going to be okay. That is not the case at all. In reality it's the complete opposite. The parents must not give young children phones, the parents must take the responsibility to help teach their children reading and everything else they know.
@@tw8464 I agree wholeheartedly but the fact remains that paper books are becoming extinct as well they should. Paper's time has past. The question is not getting off the phones, but what to do on them.
@@TheRedMenace12 you bring up an important issue for sure
"Joyful, excited, feelings, anxious". It's not a therapy session, it's school! You fail, you try harder, you fail, you try harder ... until finally you will get it. Leaning sucks, especially when compared to the constant fun that digital devices can provide, but there's not way around it. Fortunately with reading - in comparison to math for exampe - it's very easy: if you want to be a better reader, you simply have to read more. That's it.
You can't force a kid to learn unless they are passionate about it. This is the number one reason kids fail so much and rebel. Because parent sand teachers have this idea in their head that they can force their children to like something. You need to help teach your kid why it's important, you need to help guide them into finding enjoyment in what they are doing.. just telling them it's important for their future won't click,
Public schools don't pay enough to attract qualified teachers. In addition, schools don't have a budget to buy books and supplies. Many public school teachers are not allowed to give homework because parents complain that it is too much pressure on kids. Unless kids spend an hour reading at home regularly, they will lag behind.
Has anyone looked at this test? Maybe it is not developmentally appropriate. I know that many reading tests don't test just reading, but analytical and critical thinking. Some of the concepts are beyond grade school levels. Just a thought.
Good point. I am sure they conducted psychometric analyses on test before making inferences although school systems often prioritizing “classroom teaching experiences” in hiring for such positions over actual psychometrics knowledge or skills.
Large scale assessments like these often contract with testing companies.
I HOPE TN Ed Dept did a sound job in testing construction. But over 60% not meeting benchmark is concerning for many reasons.
There are teachers who generally will take the tests to see if the tests are appropriate... Guess what... They aren't 🤷♀️, but the state just purchases a system from these companies and let the teachers handle the fallout.
You're right. There are probably a lot of problems with memory retention. Having information at their fingertips 24/7 probably just destroys their ability to remember what they read. It's literally retraining their brain to not remember what they read.
Well said. We need to see the test and whether it is a good test or not. These tests need outside and independent analysis by a qualified and diverse expertise body of experts. Not just vouched for by the testing company or state officials. It is possible the test might be trying to test critical thinking or comprehension level that's beyond most kids' natural developmental level. Another serious issue is these tests don't exist in a vacuum. It seems that technology and what is going on in society might be hindering children's development. So it is possible the test could be testing for a developmental level that's been held back by technology or other issues outside the test. For example if you have 60 percent of the children handed a screen device way too young and 60 percent of these kids brain development / attention span has been damaged by these devices addictive features and keeping the kids awake at night losing critical sleep at critical stage of life the child's brain needs the correct amount of sleep to develop properly, then there is no test or anything the school can do. That's just the tip of the iceberg when consider whether or not the kids are getting proper nutrition or instead eating too much processed food, and so much more to consider.
@@kpepperl319yes the testing companies seem to have a lot of influence. It would be interesting to compare the literacy immediately before the rise of the testing companies versus after. Meaning it is possible an autonomous teacher qualified and given the full respect and support of the parents and society yet not using any corporations tests but the teacher uses their own methods of testing, might actually do a better job than the corporations testing.
"What are the law makers missing?" Allow me to answer from an educator's perspective. I teach second grade. Second grade is the last grade that teaches foundational reading. However, our 90 minutes reading block is spent testing. In 2nd grade, the students should be learning how to read different genres, find meaning in stories and information in non-fictional texts. That need to learn proper grammar, but there is no time. Grammar lessons are taught twice a week, and we don't have time at all to teach writing. Intervention and differentiation is null and void due to time constraints, all because of testing. In second grade we spend three days on end of unit assessments in reading for each of the 10 units. That's 30 class periods a year with no instruction. In math we spend no less than two days on each of unit assessment for 12 units, totaling 24 class periods. That doesn't include the three 2 day long Benchmark assessments in each subject, and the Universal Screener we do for an entire week, three times a year. WHEN ARE WE SUPPOSED TO TEACH?
Thank you for shedding light on what is going on! Please keep up the good work informing the general public.
I agree with what you said about 2nd grade. In the 80s, I remember 2nd grade we did reading groups. And there was a little library in the classroom we could go to most any time we wanted and get any books we wanted. I think we even got to read them in the classroom. I remember much reading but I don't remember testing. I think we had one test for the year the state test or whatnot ctbs if I recall but it wasn't overemphasized. The yearly test was always pretty basic. We all learned to read well. Almost all the kids in my year. We had wonderful teachers and the system was better, the endless "laws" to "fix everything" and "testing" hadn't gone haywire and before the rise of the screens, so we got lucky there.
Yeah the reading groups the 2nd grade teacher put us in 2 groups if I recall correctly. One was for the faster learners readers. But both groups you were expected to read and we each had to take turns in the group reading out loud from a book. I think it was usually a story book. We each read lines. If we had difficulty the teacher would help us. So we were learning more reading more words constantly
Wow, perfectionists that do not read...
An "overachiever" ???
great now parents who dont want to take more time teaching their kids at home can complaint about the standards of the education by lowering then and making them even more stupid.... way to go Merica
The way we teach kids in the states doesn't help. Schools are like prisons, which is why the "kids drop out of highschool because it's challenging" isn't accurate imo. My lived experience and what you hear from many is that it's not challenging in the correct ways. I dropped out in 10th grade, immediately obtained a GED first try with no studying, and went on to college to have a 3.7 GPA. HS wasn't "too hard" it was too boring.
I'm telling you, it is the parents that are failing those kids. Most kids do not fail reading because they cannot read, but because they fail to comprehend what they read. The child will need to read at home and bounce ideas off a parent who has read the same book to get a different viewpoint.
School is there to supplement the lessons learned at home, not the other way around.
Totally agree with you. Language comprehension! Parents need to talk to children with more sophisticated words and providing lots of synonyms and antonyms in their conversations. Most children master word identification skills (can sound out or read words), but comprehension needs language. These skills develop early.
I have some complaints about schools, but we cannot blame everything on teachers and schools.
Tennessee's parents are no different from parents in other states. Academics looked at the stark difference in test scores between Alabama and neighboring states. The difference is phonics, not parenting. Science shows that children need to learn phonics to decode written language and Tennessee has not been teaching phonics. Instead, they teach sight words based on a debunked teaching method that told educators to teach children to match words with pictures of what the words mean. Children learn the pictures instead of how to read the words.
I guess some brains could also malfunction!
Very true. When I was in High School, I could not write a Term Paper for the life of me. My teacher said he'd settle for a book report. My father gave me his favorite Science Fiction series. I had to read a chapter a day. At dinner we really got into talking about what adventures of the protagonist. I aced my report and went on to advanced College English. If more parents got involved and helped make it fun for their kids, I believe more kids would pass those requirements.
@@wendypagonis1398there is no science that suggests teaching phonics will guarantee reading success for every child. If you were a specialist in the teaching of reading, you would know that.
Had the same issue in Louisiana. I had standardized testing hold me back in the fourth grade. My mom was able to go an appeal after the second year. I was in special education at the time, and sometimes those kids do not do well with it, so please don’t feel bad.
So kids are _actually_ being made to study and learn material instead of just passing students, even if they do zero schoolwork?
Wowie, so harsh…
That'd the opposite of what's happening
When a student succeeds, the school takes the credit but when a student fails, the student is blamed. Schools are notorious for choosing which students they want to support and encourage and which students they are going to leave behind in the dust, often completely arbitrarily.
Wait... leaving kids in the corner with their iPads isn't helping their reading scores!?
For many years we said kids needed to be caught up by the end of 3rd grade or never would. LETRS (rolled out by many states as latest and greatest) presents more detailed evidence that they need to be caught up by the end of **1st grade** if they are to perform on-grade level in the years ahead.
In any case, repeating poorly-executed 3rd grade with a revolving door of inexperienced and poorly-supported teachers probably won't help much.
The response: "We need to cut lunch programs and pass tax cuts for business"
But how? I thought going after queers, banning gays in that one town, and banning books was supposed to help students “focus on reading and math”. How could this happen in a Republican state? I don’t get it.
Too many teachers teaching the LGBTs instead of the ABCs
lol, nice 😄
@@anonymoushuman8443 Do you not realize their Sarcasm? (Or were you being sarcastic too? Apologies if you were 😅)
@@anonymoushuman8443 in Tennessee??? Have you ever been here before?
Exactly. The state's "trickle down" baron-owned politicians are all about helping a segment of parents con themselves with fake "cultural" nonsense and scapegoats. In their minds, it "must be the gays" and not the fact too many of the parents either knowingly or unknowingly, let the children who were actually too young, on the screens, while at same time the parents on the screens themselves, no one in the family reading any books and no good examples being set for the children that is primarily the parents responsibility. But too it is not only the parents issue but the Silicon Valley / Wall Street corporations have deliberately made the screens as addictive as possible, much like the fake ultra processed "food" the children are eating. So the "trickle down" mafia manufacturing this negative environment of screen addiction, etc. has been orchestrating scapegoats of everyone they can get away with scapegoating, at any cost, to try to deflect the real responsibility for what they've done for false profits. What is sad, and truly immoral, is the people who look for scapegoats and not in the mirror.
I wonder if it's a combination of teaching sight words instead of phonics and parents not reading to their kids. These kids all seem to be middle-class to upper middle-class so their parents should have the resources to help them and the confidence to figure out what the school could do better.
Wait, so parents are mad cause their kid didn't comprehend ANY lesson well enough to pass to the 4th grade? These kids are going to be taking care of the older generation and trying to make things better than make things worse, so I feel like if they fail, they SHOULD be held back. They didn't learn enough to pass and even if it takes 2 years and special "one-on-one time" so the kid feels validated and actually learns something that's what should be done. At least that's how schools use to be before everyone and their grandma became sensitive to EVERYTHING.
Chinese father: Why are you not a doctor yet ?
American father: Welcome to McDonald's may I take your order? One Happy Meal with extra cheese and pickles please! Thank you drive thru!
Kids who have test taking anxiety are not the majority of these kids. While it can be embarrassing to be held back if they legitimately are below reading level passing them to the next grade isn’t helping them. If you can’t read then you don’t understand readings and class assignments in other subjects like math, science, or social studies. A good foundation in reading is essential to pretty much everything in modern society.
It does not help just passing kids because they feel bad. If they can't read they will have trouble the rest of their life. Also. How is it no parents figured out their kid can't read on level?
I stayed back a grade in third grade. It was hard, and it did not help that my teacher had such a strong accent that I could not understand her words. It sucks, for sure. But you get more experience and learn from it, and you learn to lose all your so-called “friends.” Teachers were always concerned about why I became anti-social after. 😂 I wonder why? Maybe because my previous class would ridicule me and harass me whenever they had the chance. Then would ignore me completely. Who needs friends like that anyway? I am not sure glutton for punishment. At least I graduated with a 4.0
Tennessee spends $9942 per pupil per year. The national average is $15,908. You get what you pay for.
Instead of working to improve student reading comprehension these parents are worried about protecting their kids 'feelings'. Get out of here, failure is a part of life. Stop coddling this generation or we're all doomed.
This is an effort by sensitive parents to keep their children illiterate and it’s sad. You are not doing your child a service by prioritizing their feelings over their obvious inability to read. If you read the articles it says legislators are facing pushback from “parents and educators” well of course they are. Educators are unhappy that in 2021 they changed the curriculum to stop focusing on whole word and now they have to teach phonics AND make sure students read at a level to pass an assessment. The parents are upset their children’s feelings are hurt and they have to be more involved because actual work has to be put in.
Reducing and eliminating standards isn’t the answer to low test scores-it’s just setting up kids to graduate high school while being functionally illiterate (which is currently happening in many places).
You’re worried about their feelings now? Maybe instead of filing appeals and speaking to reporters, you should teach your kid how to read.
Why aren’t they just doing supplemental reading programs for the kids who fail? Why would you hold them back on everything else?
Because 3rd grade is the point of no return lingually and in literacy. That won’t help if there’s a real problem. There is a reason it is notoriously hard to teach a foreign language to someone past third grade. That doesn’t just apply to foreign languages. It applies to your own language if you don’t develop it prior to third grade. I say this as someone who failed reading the exam in 3rd grade only because I got confused with the scantron when checking my math. I started erasing my reading answers from the previous day of testing and changing them thinking I got all my math ones wrong and was correcting them. There obviously should be an appeal if multiple teachers believe the student is reading at or above grade level. That’s why I got promoted to the 4th grade because my teachers told everyone I was above grade level, but if it’s a systemic issue where they have thousands of people failing, it’s harder and harder to say it’s because of an issue with test design confusing kids rather than the actual test content. I believe in the appeal process obviously because it helped me, and there are always going to be people here and there that should have passed and didn’t, but that’s WAAAY too many to continue to be denying that this is an issue with how Tennessee teaches children compared to other states.
I also see a big part of the problem in this story is a lot of these parents aren’t thinking of their kids emotions before telling them they failed. My mom never told me I failed. She asked my teacher if I would be held back and if she was concerned about my reading and she said no and that I would go to 4th grade because that’s how our state did it. My mom was like “Okay, I don’t see what you’re so concerned about then. Let’s just not tell her if there is no need for her to know since the appeal will be passed.” A lot of these parents, if their kid passed the appeal, they are the ones emotionally damaging their kids by telling them about this test they don’t need to know about. Schools don’t tell kids they failed. Parents do. Society does.
Parents, PLEASE do better. Teach them how to freaking read!!
When the schools decide to have a max of 15 students in a class is when the kids will be successful.
What is the benchmark, why is it so important, I never heard of the benchmark before
Fix the curriculum and identify what makes children worse and worse at reading/language.
They don't want these kid to read!! This way you don't understand anything. This is why we only pay 7.25 an hour in Tennessee!!!
The proctor of a spelling bee robbed me of the ability to enjoy school. I was only 9.
Hey, could have been your proctologist.
Dude is it just me or is the States education system is plummeting like crazy? I remember I was in elementary school back in 2006ish and my teachers were pretty hard. Prepared me well for the end of the tests needed to go to the other grade/state tests. Did excellent in English and its not even my first language. I was adequate with math. It was never my strong suit. Even the so called slackers or dumb kids did pretty well (fine) on the exams. Don't know whats going on now. These days be tripping.
Probably one of the reasons my foreigner friends and cousins laugh at us when it comes to education.
The main culprit is the rise of the screens. The screens have completely taken over now.
The screens were just getting started at the turn of the millennium. So you got in an education just before the screens took over the whole society.
Do kids not take SATs or ACTs? Why not do something about their test taking skills and preparing them?
When 60% of the students fail the test, it is absolutely the state’s fault. The right thing to do for the students self esteem at that point, is to let them advance but change the curriculum for the next grade, to properly teach them what they missed and make sure they catch up for the following grade.
Don’t change the law, change the curriculum to help the students meet the bunch mark. Moving the goal post to pass the kids on to the next grade is not the solution, it is in fact to their detriment
Appeals shouldn't be allowed. If u can't pass the test, then take the tutoring and summer school route, or repeat the grade. Taking the easy way out only makes it worse when kids get to the next grade. They'll just fall behind further or be overwhelmed with constantly trying to keep up
Some kids like me might have a learning disabilities, so they can't read at the grade level
So their solution is to lower the standards?
Is the content of the exam developmentally appropriate?
We have to stop lowering standards everywhere smh its become a trend now. The army is doing it, schools, colleges, etc
Dumbing down of the nation
Failed parenting on her part
More and More we keep softening our young and leading them to failure by over protecting them and not challenging them enough for the future... systemic failure to Human society within the next 100 years...
You can tell that even the mom is ashamed of the underachieving daughter.
Bottom line. In school if you’re not ahead… you’re behind.
This problem starts long before 3rd grade.
While I’m in support of some sort of standardized way to ensure school’s are performing at an acceptable degree, giving one test enough weight to single handedly overrule a students body of work for an entire year, is concerning. Test anxiety and learning differences exist and should be considered, at an individual level, when the results of such test starkly conflict with the student’s demonstrated aptitude.
Reading is such an easy skill to learn that a two year old can do it, but reading is one of the most difficult skills to teach. To make matters worse, most teachers don't receive any training in how to teach reading. If you or your child have trouble reading, please take heart and keep trying to learn this incredibly life-enriching skill.
It sounds like the TEACHERS are failing if over half of the kids are having problems, Hello??
These students weren’t even in kindergarten when schools closed during the pandemic so I wonder why so many scored low. Kids tend to do worse on computerized tests, so that would be my question.
Excellent point
How did we go from being able to teach kids how to read From kids not being able to read at all.
If that much of her class failed, the school needs to be investigated
I'm wondering how many of these kids have issues with people trying to ban books in their states. Also having one test deicide weather you can move up a grade is completely idiotic.