Two years into Maryland's commitment to teach children to read better, state educators have taken steps to improve instruction but still have a long way to go to bring all children to grade level.
Maryland's teachers are required to receive more training in how to teach reading. Many of the state's school systems have inserted a bigger dose of phonics into instruction. And all local school superintendents have declared reading their top priority.
But gains in test scores for younger pupils have been minimal, and reading scores for middle school pupils have slipped.
"We still have difficulty getting more than 60 percent of fourth-graders reading satisfactorily," said state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick. "That challenges all of us. There is no silver bullet in terms of the literacy problem."
During the next few months, state educators plan more efforts to prod the state's schools to teach reading more effectively and to fight for more money from the state legislature to back up that plan.
Grasmick said she will seek a substantial increase in funds in the next legislative session to help preschoolers -- 2- , 3- and 4-year-olds -- on the theory that literacy efforts must reach children at a key stage of brain development.
But in stark contrast to the more sweeping, top-down efforts of some other states, Maryland's drive to improve reading instruction remains hampered by the decentralized structure of school administration in the state. Much of the time, Maryland officials have little more to rely on than their bully pulpit.
While the state school board can issue guidelines and make recommendations on reading instruction, it lacks the power to set a statewide curriculum for schools.
Local systems jealously guard their authority to choose textbooks, preventing the state from mandating the purchase of reading programs backed by scientific research -- as other states have done.
For example, setting up statewide summer reading camps for struggling third-graders -- which will begin in Idaho in 2000 and which hardly threaten local districts' autonomy -- is considered beyond the limits of Maryland officials' powers.
A Maryland reading task force that sought agreement last year on the proper way to teach the state's children instead became bogged down in the politics of the nation's reading wars, even as a national consensus was emerging on the subject. In the end, the task force's report was all but shelved, quietly disappearing without producing specific directives.
Campaigns' centerpiece
By contrast, in such states as Texas and California -- with their more centralized education structures -- governors have made improved reading achievement the centerpieces of their political campaigns, leading to large infusions of money for local school systems for new textbooks, more teachers and class-size reductions.
"High-profile, visible leadership is so important to successful reading reform," said Jean Osborn, co-director of the University of Illinois Children's Research Center and a consultant to Texas on reading reform. "Putting reading high on the agenda and talking about it often really helps get people's attention."
Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening has stressed education -- particularly in his re-election bid last fall -- but he cannot match Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who has demanded that all teachers receive training in phonics, attempted to stop passing low-achieving pupils on to the next grade level and appointed a high-profile "reading czar," complete with a toll-free reading hot line.
"In places like California and Texas and Florida that have statewide adoption of textbooks, they're able to have a lot more control from the top down," said Christopher T. Cross, president of the Council for Basic Education and former president of Maryland's state school board. "Maryland doesn't have that, which can make it more difficult to carry out reform."
Even states without such centralized controls are getting serious about reading instruction reforms. Delaware educators, for example, are developing a statewide reading reform plan expected to be completes this fall.
To lead that task force, Gov. Thomas R. Carper appointed one of the nation's leading reading experts -- Jack Pikulski, a University of Delaware professor and former president of the International Reading Association -- and Carper's wife, a DuPont Co. manager who has taken a one-year leave to focus on reading.
"I don't have the educational background in reading, but I think I can bring a lot of public attention to the issue," said Martha S. Carper, who has visited every elementary school in Delaware to talk about reading. "I hope that I will have an impact bringing attention to the high number of kids who can't read and securing support for our plan to help fix that problem."
Maryland's efforts
In Maryland, Glendening pledged during his fall 1998 campaign to provide extra money to all of the state's school systems to reduce class sizes for early reading instruction. But he backed away from that commitment last winter, delaying the initiative for a year everywhere but the state's wealthiest area, Montgomery County.
Despite that delay, Maryland is moving forward. In the past 2 years, the state has:
Increased the required number of classes on how to teach reading for prospective teachers who want to become certified and for teachers renewing their licenses.
Begun a partnership with the Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute to improve teacher training, particularly by relying on the most current research.
Expanded the number of training sessions on teaching reading, not just for elementary teachers but also for those helping older students who are poor readers. For the first time, the state's teachers are learning about the latest research in the brain and early reading development.
Additionally, almost all of Maryland's 24 local school systems have moved to beef up reading instruction, return reading specialists to middle schools, revise their curricula and expand one-on-one tutoring programs.
Nevertheless, state educators acknowledge that Maryland has much farther to go.
Improvements in the college preparation of prospective teachers are still spotty across the state, and many teachers have yet to receive much retraining in reading instruction.
This summer, the state school board began considering a proposal to require school systems to test pupils' reading skills at the end of third, fifth, seventh and eighth grades, beyond the exams that are part of the state's testing program. Under the plan, low-performing eighth-graders would have to improve in summer school classes or be held back, but it would be left to local systems to decide how to help younger poor readers.
"We'll establish a checklist of skills and then hold kids accountable for mastering them," said Margaret Trader, Maryland's assistant superintendent for instruction.
Grasmick also will propose initiating a statewide test of reading skills for first-graders, perhaps using as a model the exams given by Baltimore County at the start and end of first grade. Such early checks on reading skills have been in place in Texas for two years.
In the past, many Maryland schools have not focused efforts on identifying and giving extra help to to poor readers until the second or third grades -- although research says that might be too late. "We have to do a better job of screening children early on," Grasmick said. "The philosophy in many schools systems is that a child has to begin to fail before we intervene, and that is unacceptable."
Citing research that says that key brain development occurs by the time children are 3 years old, state educators also will be lobbying for more state funding for pre-kindergarten programs. The proposal before the state board would give financial incentives to day care providers who develop education programs in line with yet-to-be-developed state learning standards. "Brain research says you need someone who is an educator," Grasmick said.
This summer, state educators also are hoping to secure a three-year, $15 million federal grant to use research-based methods to improve letter-sound instruction (known as "phonemic awareness") in early grades at schools with high poverty, said Gertrude Collier, the state's branch chief of language development and early learning.
More muscle?
For Maryland to do more, some veterans of reading reform efforts elsewhere in the country say state educators ought to flex their muscles more.
"There needs to be some consequences if schools aren't doing things properly and if children don't improve," said Marion Joseph, the California grandmother who led that state's reading reform efforts and is a state school board member there. "If local school systems don't want to buy the right kind of textbooks, then they shouldn't get any money from the state."
The business community also could be asked to contribute more to reading reform, perhaps by purchasing research-based textbooks for low-performing schools and paying for teacher training. "In Texas, corporations have been asked to help, and they've really come through for a lot of poor schools," Osborn said.
But there's no push to give the state more power -- in part because there's little chance that Maryland's local systems would give up control.
"Local school boards are looking to the state to establish standards and help get the state legislature to provide the funding," said Karen Campbell, Howard County's school board chairwoman.
"We don't want them to tell us how we should do it. We want to control our own curriculum and our own instruction."
So Grasmick and other state educators walk a political tightrope.
Last week, she and the state school board edged toward taking a bit more control, issuing fairly specific content standards for four subject areas -- including reading and writing -- and mandating that all local districts give the same test of basic skills to the same grades at the same time.
Treading lightly
But they were careful not to tread too heavily on the toes of local systems. They took pains to emphasize that they were putting out standards -- and not curriculum -- and that they would not go so far as to publish statewide reading lists.
"This is a process of high-level negotiations," Grasmick said. "It is not anyone from up high saying do this or do that. We can't do that here."
Pub Date: 08/02/99