Last month the Maine Development Foundation released its annual “Measures of Growth” report. A surprising red flag in the 25 indicators tracked in this useful report was one for fourth grade reading. In 2011, only 32 percent of Maine’s fourth grade readers were reading at grade level or above, according to the highly regarded National Assessment of Education Progress, given annually to fourth and eighth graders across the country. Sadly for the U.S. as a whole, 32 percent was actually the national average.
This is hardly acceptable for the nation or for Maine, particularly as reading
comprehension is one of the foundational skills that determines future academic performance. Moreover, in Maine’s case these results are a far cry from the nation-leading performance of Maine’s fourth graders back in the early ’90s. As the Bangor Daily News reported in an editorial on this topic, back then Gov. Angus King was ready to install signs at the Maine border lauding the achievements of Maine’s fourth graders. There was even talk of changing the motto on Maine’s license plates from “Vacationland” to “The Learning State.”
What has happened? Ostensibly, the past 20 years has brought significant
improvements to Maine’s education system. Maine was one of the first states to pass a set of statewide learning standards: Maine’s Learning Results, which have fostered much constructive dialogue among educators on teaching practice. In addition, the state has increased funding for the K-12 system faster than the national average. Maine also has one of the lowest student-to-teacher ratios in the nation. Moreover, respected educators with whom I have discussed the state of education in Maine believe that teachers are generally better prepared and supported than they were 20 years ago.
The sad fact is nobody knows how to explain the lack of more demonstrable education achievement across the state. Could it be that today’s student is that much more difficult to teach? Certainly youth in the era of the cellphone, computer and Xbox technology are bombarded with much more that can distract. Teachers often talk about the short attention span of the current generation. This is a “connected” generation texting their way forward into adulthood, but at what cost?
Even if it is true that today’s students are more frenetic in their activities, would we really see this impact in fourth grade? If so, the problem is a significant one.
A recent OpEd in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman placed some of the blame for the American students’ decline in education performance on parents. Friedman noted that parents are not as demanding of good educational results. Some parents are simply too absorbed with the demands of work to be as supportive as in earlier generations. Many are more concerned about their child’s self-esteem than whether their child is doing their homework. The same parents that faithfully drive their child to soccer practice every day often don’t see the link between homework, practice and good performance in school.
Then there is the flawed reform process here in Maine that unfolded in the early ’90s after the passage of Maine Learning Results. Maine attempted to balance the strong tradition of local control of schools with the Bush administration’s requirements for more assessment of student performance in its No Child Left Behind legislation by developing a system of local assessment that simply failed of its own weight.
It has taken the state several years to regroup. The assessment process has been simplified. Maine has adopted the same kind of annual testing that most other states employ. Moreover, the Legislature recently passed a law that mandates the kind of proficiency-based diploma envisioned by the learning results. Nonetheless, the turmoil in many Maine school districts in the period from the mid-’90s to the end of the Baldacci administration in 2010 has to be one of the reasons contributing to the lack of progress in educational performance.
Our current situation is disturbing, even alarming. If we can’t figure out how to move the needle on fourth grade literacy, we will saddle the coming generation with a burden they do not deserve. The red flag from this year’s “Measures of Growth” report should be setting off alarm bells all over Maine. It is time for all of us to demand more from our students and more from our parents.
Better teachers can make a big difference, but not without more support from parents and more effort from students.
Ron Bancroft is a resident of Cumberland.
Pretty sure there’s an app for that.
Another apathetic cry from the teacher’s union for everyone else to fix their problem, while they continue to demand more benefits and pay increases at the end of each contract period…
When you’re pathetically underpaid you deserve more pay and benefits. Nothing wrong with wanting to stay in the middle class. If you think teachers don’t work very hard or sacrifice, walk a few days in our shoes.
Surely it couldn’t be the teachers. Why there’s just no way to evaluate a teacher. We must pay them all the same just like identical widgets, with guaranteed raises and step increases as long as they continue to fog a mirror every year. Certainly there is no need to consider the results that they produce. Nothing to see here.
Weren’t those “undemanding” parents churned out by the teachers? Weren’t they themselves taught that self-esteem trumps academic achievement and dutifully incorporated that into their child-rearing?
So by scapegoating the parents, the teachers are unwittingly evaluating themselves – as failures.
And the alternative is to evaluate teachers with standardized tests like identical widgets. What a joke.
Face it, with LaBafoon cutting everything in sight for our students, schools and teachers it will be a wonder if young Mainers will be able to read and right anymore.
How do you get an illiterate population? 40 years of union dominated liberal democratic control.
What happened to Maine’s reader? Their teachers became administrators – administering tests, administering assessments and administering a million mandates that have turned schools into warehouses. If you want real education to take place in our schools free the hands of good teachers by scrapping the ridiculous assessment regime mandated by federal government and let teachers teach.
I’m amazed that the very people who say they fear big government seem to love big government telling them how to educate their kids.
One way to improve reading achievement is to understand that boys have a tendency to want to read different things than girls, especially non-fiction. For too many years we’ve told them what they should want to read, and have limited their choices.
Maybe they heard Republicans yammering about liberal indoctrination and education being for elitists, so they gave up?