Jodi’s Journal: Combatting the ‘reading recession’

In its fourth year, the Education Scorecard — a collaboration among the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and faculty at Dartmouth College — included in its most recent report out last week a high-level look at where South Dakota students’ academic recovery stands. The scorecard combines state test results for roughly 35 million grade 3-8 students nationwide with national assessment data to describe changes in local communities. Here’s what it found:

• South Dakota ranks 30th out of 38 states in academic growth in math and 31st out of 35 states in reading between 2022 and 2025.
• In math, the average student is performing .04 grade equivalents above the 2022 level, but .27 grade equivalents below 2019 levels.
• In reading, the average student is performing .27 grade equivalents below the 2022 level, and half a grade equivalent below 2019 levels.

Part of the challenge is students even being in school.

Chronic absenteeism is defined in this study as students missing more than 10 percent of a school year. In South Dakota, that has fallen from 22 percent in 2022 to about 20 percent last year. However, the chronic absence rates still remain about 6 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels.

“The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement,” said Tom Kane, a professor and faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.

“The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives. In this report, we highlight the work of a small group of state leaders who have started digging out by changing how students learn to read and 108 local school districts that are finding ways to get students learning again. The recovery of U.S. education has begun. But it’s up to the rest of us to spread it.”

You can see the full report here.

South Dakota received $593 million in federal pandemic relief for K–12 schools — roughly $4,200 per student, it found.

“Our analysis finds the gains in many high-poverty districts were driven by this federal support,” the report said.

“Unfortunately, many middle-poverty districts — those with 30 to 70 percent of students receiving federal lunch subsidies — received little federal aid. Now that the federal relief is gone, South Dakota should focus school improvement dollars on the middle- and higher-poverty districts that remain behind their pre-pandemic levels.”

In Sioux Falls, the public school district is so diverse that poverty can vary somewhat dramatically from school to school. Still, about half the students in the district qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, a primary marker for student poverty. Some elementary schools have poverty rates between 80 percent and 100 percent.

So when I heard about a program many years ago started by the nonprofit Promising Futures Fund that would provide a book each month to kids in schools with high rates of poverty, I immediately signed up to donate.

I’ve typically “adopted” younger classrooms, but a few years ago I decided to follow one class as the students progressed from kindergarten through fifth grade.

While they receive free books from me each month, I also visit the classroom at least twice a year and did so again earlier this month. I try to read from a grade-level book and leave it in the classroom. I give them free rein in a question-and-answer session to ask me what’s on their mind, and we always talk about what’s new in their world.

They remember that I always bring a gift for them to take home at the end of the school year — usually something that encourages them to spend time outside during the summer — and I tend to hear about it again the next fall.

Because it’s a two-way immersion program, the students spend part of their day learning in English and part in Spanish. If I’m there during Spanish, I read and attempt to converse with them in Spanish.

No matter the language, my message is always the same and has been since kindergarten: I’m here because of how important I think it is that they learn to read and even more so that they come to enjoy reading.

Spend just a little time in a classroom and you quickly conclude how challenging it must be to teach in today’s world. It’s not hard to see why outcomes might not be as robust as we need them to be, especially if students aren’t getting extra attention outside of the classroom.

I think about the soon-to-be fourth graders I will continue to visit next year. There are estimates nationally that show approximately two-thirds of fourth graders do not read at grade level.

The World Literacy Foundation also reports two-thirds of children in the United States who cannot read proficiently by the end of fourth grade eventually will end up in jail or on government assistance. More than 70 percent of inmates in American prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level. Eighty-five percent of juveniles who appear before the court system are functionally low literate.

Those are the worst of the societal implications. But consider the rest. Consider the impact on citizenship when someone cannot read well enough to make educated voting decisions or understand the news of the day. Consider the missed opportunities to engage in science, business, law, research and the broader ability to continue to gain knowledge throughout one’s life. Consider the further challenge a lack of solid literacy will present to our community’s need to grow talent in our workforce.

As summer approaches, if you have a child in your life, consider making an extra effort to ensure reading and writing are part of the coming months. If you don’t, consider becoming involved in one of the many community efforts that exist to strengthen local literacy.

The thing about recessions, reading or otherwise, is that they’re not permanent declines. They can and do reverse. I think Sioux Falls is taking some solid steps toward improving the reading outcomes of its youngest students, and I look forward to data sooner rather than later that will show it. But like many of our challenges, this needs to be a community conversation and a shared effort statewide.

The book I read to the third graders this month was Dr. Seuss’ “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?” It’s a classic Seuss story filled with hyperbole and humor that ends with a strong moral: You don’t have to look far to find someone whose fate is worse than your own. Certainly, Sioux Falls and South Dakota are performing stronger than other places when it comes to educating future readers. But we all need to do better and invest more — both time and resources. Doors will open or close in so many ways depending on which path we choose to take.