Reading Notes; Lawsuits about Literacy
In 2016, two former Detroit Public School students sued Governor Snyder and the state of Michigan in a case claiming that their constitutional rights had been violated. They alleged that they were unable to effectively participate in the democratic process due to what amounts to a lack of functional literacy. Recently, a federal court ruling has given credence to their case; American public school students DO have a right to Free and Appropriate Public Education, and that there had been a violation of 14th amendment rights. (FAPE is a real acronym in education y’all, (just like WRC and IMSA are real racing series even if you haven’t heard of them)....it is guaranteed by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).)
Now, as you know from my introductory post, I am a rally codriver. You may also have noticed the following picture;
But you might not have known what it was. (I know you know what the iPad is, but moving on...)
The letters and numbers in the book are Jemba notes. They are, as I understand it, generated by a computer which is attached to the steering wheel in a car and has lots of sensors. These sensors read the road and record the degree of the turn, the distance between obstacles, and the pitch of the car to indicate hills, crests, jumps, etc. Many teams write their own notes, but in order to do that, one must understand not only how to SAY the code, but also what it MEANS as well as how to best USE that code to concisely and accurately convey a picture to the driver of the road ahead. Good notes = go faster.
This is a spectacular way to explain how “being able to read” is different from functional literacy.
You can likely read the letters and numbers on the page. In other words, you know what a 4 is, what sound the letter R makes, and you might even be able to make some inferences about abbreviations like ‘lg,’ assuming that it means “large.” (You would be wrong.)
You might even, since you have some context about Motorsport, be able to deduce that the R and L stand for Right and Left. However, I very much doubt that if I tossed you in the silly seat and threw a helmet on your head you could make FUNCTIONAL USE of that text. In other words, you might say “Rsix slash small C R 120 Rfour plus large 30.” (You would be wrong again.)
You also might, as I did on my first rally stage, read that whole line at once and then, without pause, continue on to the next line even though that passage confers nearly 3/10 of a mile worth of notes.
Or, you might be so overwhelmed and confused you freeze up, and don’t read a single note. You are not functionally literate in Jemba notes, even though you can read the letters on the page. Your driver is not happy. You may not have crashed, but you certainly are not hired again for the codriver position.
This is what I see presently in my classroom, and have seen throughout my career. Teacher asks a kid to read out loud, and they can do it! They sound great. But then, they take a test and absolutely crash and burn. Or, teacher gives kid a complex task or project, and they read the directions aloud together. Kid raises their hand, and asks, “What am I supposed to do? Where do you want me to start?”
Teacher calls parent to express concerns about kid’s literacy. Parent becomes extremely frustrated and upset, stating “I know my child can read???!!! They read to me at home all the time! Why are their grades and test scores so low? Why are you calling me? What are you doing wrong?” The frustration is real and valid. So is the pattern that has developed in the U.S. of failing to trust teachers or view them as professionals who can indeed accurately assess literacy skills, even without a battery of tests. Good and experienced teachers are like Jemba computer, (or any veteran codriver,) in that we can tell you what’s going on mostly by feel, even before the data reaches the paper.
I think you are starting to get the idea.
A recent New York Times article by Dana Goldstein, describes the challenges experienced by one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Jammaria Hall, during his first year attending community college. Despite graduating at the top of his class, explains Goldstein, Mr. Hall needed remediation in the form of academic tutoring, and was placed on academic probation shortly after beginning his post-secondary education. This means that the literacy skills he gained as a high performing student within the Detroit Public School system did not allow him to access introductory college-level coursework...which he may have obtained loans or worked multiple jobs to pursue.
In my experience, my 10th and 11th grade students are functionally literate at approximately a 5th or 6th grade level. Some are much higher, some much lower, but I’m working from an average here. I could dig into the data, recite proficiency statistics to you, etc. I’m asking you to trust me as a professional educator, and I bet if you do dig in you won’t find much discrepancy. (Much like the comparison of an experienced codriver’s handwritten notes to those generated by a Jemba computer; there are some differences here and there, but the driver would still understand what’s coming on the road.)
Let’s do a thought experiment. If you have, or know a 6th grader, imagine handing them this:
This is an actual ballot from a Wayne county precinct in 2020. I am highly literate, but I would have to read this several times, and employ a multitude of strategies in order to functionally understand what is being proposed.
Visualize that 6th grader with this ballot. They may be an EXTREMELY intelligent 6th grader with all of the potential in the world. Imagine them reading it aloud to you. How long do they last before they lose focus or before you sense frustration? If you ask them afterwords what it MEANS, can they tell you? Now, ask them to vote yes or no on a piece of paper. Once you have their answer, put the statement on the ballot to them in layman’s terms and have them vote again. See if their answer is the same as what they wrote on the paper, knowing that they likely have the same chance of correctly predicting a coin flip. Is your 6th grader stupid, or have they simply not yet gained the functional literacy skills to process the meaning of the document?
Now, as you know from my introductory post, I am a rally codriver. You may also have noticed the following picture;
But you might not have known what it was. (I know you know what the iPad is, but moving on...)
The letters and numbers in the book are Jemba notes. They are, as I understand it, generated by a computer which is attached to the steering wheel in a car and has lots of sensors. These sensors read the road and record the degree of the turn, the distance between obstacles, and the pitch of the car to indicate hills, crests, jumps, etc. Many teams write their own notes, but in order to do that, one must understand not only how to SAY the code, but also what it MEANS as well as how to best USE that code to concisely and accurately convey a picture to the driver of the road ahead. Good notes = go faster.
This is a spectacular way to explain how “being able to read” is different from functional literacy.
You can likely read the letters and numbers on the page. In other words, you know what a 4 is, what sound the letter R makes, and you might even be able to make some inferences about abbreviations like ‘lg,’ assuming that it means “large.” (You would be wrong.)
You might even, since you have some context about Motorsport, be able to deduce that the R and L stand for Right and Left. However, I very much doubt that if I tossed you in the silly seat and threw a helmet on your head you could make FUNCTIONAL USE of that text. In other words, you might say “Rsix slash small C R 120 Rfour plus large 30.” (You would be wrong again.)
You also might, as I did on my first rally stage, read that whole line at once and then, without pause, continue on to the next line even though that passage confers nearly 3/10 of a mile worth of notes.
Or, you might be so overwhelmed and confused you freeze up, and don’t read a single note. You are not functionally literate in Jemba notes, even though you can read the letters on the page. Your driver is not happy. You may not have crashed, but you certainly are not hired again for the codriver position.
This is what I see presently in my classroom, and have seen throughout my career. Teacher asks a kid to read out loud, and they can do it! They sound great. But then, they take a test and absolutely crash and burn. Or, teacher gives kid a complex task or project, and they read the directions aloud together. Kid raises their hand, and asks, “What am I supposed to do? Where do you want me to start?”
Teacher calls parent to express concerns about kid’s literacy. Parent becomes extremely frustrated and upset, stating “I know my child can read???!!! They read to me at home all the time! Why are their grades and test scores so low? Why are you calling me? What are you doing wrong?” The frustration is real and valid. So is the pattern that has developed in the U.S. of failing to trust teachers or view them as professionals who can indeed accurately assess literacy skills, even without a battery of tests. Good and experienced teachers are like Jemba computer, (or any veteran codriver,) in that we can tell you what’s going on mostly by feel, even before the data reaches the paper.
I think you are starting to get the idea.
A recent New York Times article by Dana Goldstein, describes the challenges experienced by one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Jammaria Hall, during his first year attending community college. Despite graduating at the top of his class, explains Goldstein, Mr. Hall needed remediation in the form of academic tutoring, and was placed on academic probation shortly after beginning his post-secondary education. This means that the literacy skills he gained as a high performing student within the Detroit Public School system did not allow him to access introductory college-level coursework...which he may have obtained loans or worked multiple jobs to pursue.
In my experience, my 10th and 11th grade students are functionally literate at approximately a 5th or 6th grade level. Some are much higher, some much lower, but I’m working from an average here. I could dig into the data, recite proficiency statistics to you, etc. I’m asking you to trust me as a professional educator, and I bet if you do dig in you won’t find much discrepancy. (Much like the comparison of an experienced codriver’s handwritten notes to those generated by a Jemba computer; there are some differences here and there, but the driver would still understand what’s coming on the road.)
Let’s do a thought experiment. If you have, or know a 6th grader, imagine handing them this:
Shall the Garden City Public Schools, County of Wayne, Michigan, borrow the principal sum of not to exceed Fifty Million Dollars ($50,000,000) and issue its general obligation unlimited tax bonds for the purpose of defraying the cost of making the following improvements:
· remodeling School District buildings, including security, roof and energy improvements and restoring the high school pool;
· equipping, furnishing, reequipping and refurnishing School District buildings, including the acquisition of musical instruments;
· acquiring and installing instructional technology infrastructure and equipment; and
· improving and developing sites, including outdoor athletic fields, facilities, structures and parking lots, in the School District?
The debt millage levy required to retire all bonds of the School District currently outstanding and proposed by this ballot proposal is estimated to be at or below 6.40 mills, resulting in an estimated net increase of 1.65 mills over the prior year's levy. The estimated millage to be levied in 2020 to service this issue of bonds is 2.31 mills ($2.31 per $1,000 of taxable value) and the estimated simple average annual millage rate required to retire the bonds of this issue is 5.12 mills ($5.12 per $1,000 of taxable value). The bonds may be issued in multiple series, payable in the case of each series in not to exceed 26 years from the date of issue of such series.
The School District currently has $16,520,000 of qualified bonds outstanding and $0 of qualified loans outstanding under the State School Bond Qualification and Loan Program. The School District does not expect to borrow from the program to pay debt service on these bonds. The computed millage rate may change based on changes in circumstances.
(Under state law, bond proceeds may not be used to pay teacher or administrator salaries, routine maintenance costs or other School District operating expenses.)
This is an actual ballot from a Wayne county precinct in 2020. I am highly literate, but I would have to read this several times, and employ a multitude of strategies in order to functionally understand what is being proposed.
Visualize that 6th grader with this ballot. They may be an EXTREMELY intelligent 6th grader with all of the potential in the world. Imagine them reading it aloud to you. How long do they last before they lose focus or before you sense frustration? If you ask them afterwords what it MEANS, can they tell you? Now, ask them to vote yes or no on a piece of paper. Once you have their answer, put the statement on the ballot to them in layman’s terms and have them vote again. See if their answer is the same as what they wrote on the paper, knowing that they likely have the same chance of correctly predicting a coin flip. Is your 6th grader stupid, or have they simply not yet gained the functional literacy skills to process the meaning of the document?
So now you are Mr. Hall, and you have walked into the high school gym to cast your ballot. You want to exercise your legal right to have your voice heard and your vote counted. But you are confronted with a proposal like the one shown above. You are really smart, and you did well in school, but you know your school “wasn’t great.” Therefore, you worry that some double negative somewhere, or simply some language that isn’t accessible to you, might cause you to choose incorrectly based upon your actual beliefs. So you leave it blank, and you leave, and maybe you never come back.
There is not a single human being in America, a country perceived (perhaps previously) as one of the most advanced in the world, who should ever live this reality. I am not saying that it is the fault of current DPSCD district leadership, or even the governor. But, the problem exists and I AM saying that it is their responsibility to FIX IT. Like, now.
Here is a sample item from the 11th grade M-STEP exam, which is used state-wide to evaluate proficiency of students, and therefore school districts, in the core subject areas.
This is ONE question of several on the test, (the question count seems to change every year) which are supposed to help the school, district, and state evaluate proficiency in SCIENCE! What if:
- You can’t functionally read it, or think you can’t, or don’t have time to do so.
- You have not had adequate exposure to charts and graphs due to a lack of textbooks or technology.
- You have had a substitute “teacher” nearly every year for middle and high school science class.
- You are taking this test in a room with 40 other students in the spring, on a hot day, in a school with no air conditioning. Or its freezing but you’re not allowed to wear your hoodie; school policy.
- The overwhelming nature of the content in the question, along with the knowledge that you yourself will never see the results, makes guessing seem like a valid option.
These are REALITIES! As a Detroit Public School Community District employee, I can tell you that every effort is being made at the district level to improve outcomes for children. There are phenomenal teachers out there busting their asses to improve literacy and content knowledge. But, you cannot build a bridge by yourself without structural supports. Parents have to trust schools and get their kids there...every day. The infrastructure and funding has to be in place for parents, especially single parents working 2-3 jobs, to do just that. There has to be money for materials and staff, and it has to be properly allocated by experts in education rather than by politicians. There need to be (more) vocal and visible community committees and organizations that step up to ensure equitable distribution of funding, advocate for teacher training and pay, and help design legislation that is about KIDS LEARNING and not the almighty dollar. (Check out Strategic Community Partners if you would like one great example!)
One disturbing tidbit I recently stumbled upon was that the primary representative for ‘urban education’ for a committee within the Michigan Department of Education is from Novi. If you are from Michigan, you know how laughable that is. (If you are not, Novi is a large and well-off SUBURB north of Detroit, and in no way do Novi Public Schools mirror urban ed.) This is just one example of the extreme disfunction and misrepresentation that exists at so many levels...and enforces the critical importance of this lawsuit and subsequent court finding.
Legally, (if you can’t accept it morally,) EVERY kid, despite their race, ethnicity, gender, status, income, disability, or living situation has a right to an equitable education. It brings me great hope to see this right upheld by a federal court. Kudos to the students who stood up to remind this country that inequity is real and widespread, and for initiating a real conversation around accountability and finding solutions.
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