Literacy Now

In 2014, the Virginia State Reading Association (VSRA) created strategic goals as part of our transformation process alongside ILA—then the International Reading Association. One of our goals was to create an initiative that supported a specific area of literacy instruction in our state.

Through discussion with the Virginia Department of Education, our focus became nonfiction. In looking at statewide tests—graphs, charts, and maps appeared to be the most challenging to students—and thinking about students’ comprehension of nonfiction texts, we began to dive more deeply into our topic, and we narrowed our focus to informational texts.

We combined the I in informational and the T in texts to create the acronym in the title of our initiative: “Got IT?”

Developing Got IT?

Authors of informational texts use various formatting tools such as boldface, italics, color, captions, headings and subheadings, and graphics. These tools require readers to understand why the author uses them and how they inform readers of new information. Informational texts provide needed opportunities to support inference, cause and effect, and drawing conclusions skills that, regardless of fiction or nonfiction passages, are all areas that seem to need support on our statewide tests.

Our Got IT? mission is to explore this genre in depth, provide professional development opportunities for our members, and clarify misconceptions within the genre. In addition, we aim to improve students’ ability to navigate and to compose informational texts by improving their comprehension of how text features, graphics, and text structures work.

The first task for us after creating a timeline of what we wanted to accomplish was to lay the foundation for what informational text is so that we are all using the same language. Just like in an informational text, we created a glossary of terms with definitions we use within our work on our statewide initiative. Terms such as flowcharts, graphics, cross-section diagrams, insets, sidebars, and surface diagrams are among a list of 20 technical terms found within informational texts. This glossary list is on our website and can be disseminated to parents and educators across Virginia.

Throughout this past year, we completed the following items and activities to support our initiative and unify our focus.

Slover Library kickoff

Our kickoff activity was held at the Slover Library in Norfolk, VA, in August 2015. This was the first VSRA Board of Directors meeting for our new year. Members of the Board developed activities with informational texts and read books to students. For K–2 students, we introduced charts, diagrams, captions, and informational text vocabulary. For grades 3–5, we focused on bold wording, italics, the table of contents and index, headings, and informational text vocabulary. For the middle school level, we discussed the index and informational text vocabulary.

We spoke with parents about the types of informational texts their children may see in school. All students were invited to participate in a “make and take” workshop, and all participants were able to choose informational texts to take home with them. Bare Books, Lakeshore Publishing, Really Good Stuff, and Scholastic provided us with materials to give to students who attended.

Professional development activities

In the fall of 2015, our Leadership Team worked to determine activities we could accomplish throughout the year to support the initiative. For example, the Public Relations Committee hosted a Twitter chat to focus on informational texts used in the classroom. The Parents and Reading Committee focused on distributing informational texts to parents and students at our annual conference. The Young Writers Committee created a Got IT? writing contest with a focus of students producing informational texts about their summer vacations.

Our November 2015 Leadership Meeting focused completely on our initiative. We collaborated with the Virginia Science Museum, Radford University, and Lakeshore Publishing—all of which either provided staff development or donated materials. For example, the Virginia Science Museum shared online resources available to parents, students, and educators, while Radford University shared a list of professional informational science texts for educators.

Also during the meeting, we asked the leaders of our local councils and committee chairs to form four small groups based on their localities within the state. We call these groups “quads.” The purpose is for groups of leaders who live near each other to develop lists of resources around our state. Leaders in the quads identified authors, maps, science museums, local attractions, and anything that would support the Got IT? initiative. We combined the information and published it on our website so parents and educators would have access to resources in their local communities.

Last winter, we identified informational texts in our Virginia Readers’ Choice List, and we’ve developed a partnership with The Nature Generation, another nonprofit, to consider some of their award-winning books on next year’s voting ballot.

During our conference in March, we placed an emphasis on informational texts by inviting a representative from the Virginia Department of Education, who provided updates on our statewide tests, and speakers such as Nell Duke and Donalyn Miller, who shared insight on informational texts that support instruction.

The future of Got IT?

Our plan is to continue promoting our initiative and to capitalize on the idea of quads. We are hoping that we will be able to build strong collaboration among counties and local councils in the quads and that they may work together to provide professional development opportunities for members in their areas.

We also hope they may want to cross over the boundary lines so we can continue working together to reduce illiteracy across our state.

Tiffany Erdos Brocious is the 2015–2016 Virginia State Reading Association (VSRA) President. During her presidency, VSRA received the ILA Distinguished Council Award. An ILA member since 1991, she is a K–5 literacy coach for Loudoun County Public Schools.

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2016 issue of Literacy Today, ILA’s member magazine.

In the wake of an unprecedented and extraordinary presidential election, the literacy education community waited intently to learn who would be tapped for the top post at the U.S. Department of Education.

The answer came last month when President-elect Donald Trump announced that Betsy DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist from Michigan, is his enthusiastic choice.

“Under her leadership, we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back, so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families,” Trump said.

Betsy DeVos

Accepting the responsibility, DeVos said, “the status quo in education is not acceptable” and added that “together, we can work to make transformational change.”

DeVos, 58, is the daughter of the late Edgar Prince, a wealthy industrialist, and the sister of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that made headlines during the Iraq war.

She is married to Dick DeVos, a one-time Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate and former president of Amway and the NBA’s Orlando Magic.

Betsy DeVos graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and political science. She would not be the first education secretary without an education degree.

Margaret Spellings, who served as Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, also had a degree in political science, and Richard Riley, who served under Bill Clinton, had a law degree.

As with Spellings and Riley, DeVos also has never worked in the public school system but is the founder and chair of the American Federation for Children, a group that works to expand charter schools and school voucher programs. She has twice led the Michigan GOP, and she and her family have donated millions of dollars to help elect Republican candidates.

However, she did not support Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. As a convention delegate, she voted for Ohio Governor John Kasich.

She does have previous ties to the Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, who expanded Indiana’s school voucher system into one of the largest in the United States while he was governor.

As she explained in an interview with Philanthropy magazine, “What we are trying to do is tear down the mind-set that assigns students to a school based solely on the zip code of their parents’ home.”

When candidate Trump announced his education plan, she commented, “We know that millions of children, mostly low-income and minority children, remain trapped in K–12 schools that are not meeting their needs.”

Many see her nomination as proof that Trump intends to follow through on his campaign pledge to spend $20 billion in block grants to expand private and charter school options for minority children, a prospect that may reignite the debate over making Title I funds portable.

Reactions to the DeVos nomination have predictably split along party lines. Rick Snyder, GOP governor of Michigan, said she will mean great things to Michigan and to the children of the nation.

James Goenner, president of the National Charter Schools Institute, said DeVos was a bold pick, an outspoken advocate for school choice and a challenger for the status quo.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush described DeVos as a phenomenal, strong woman and expressed his hope that the new administration will usher in an “earthquake” in terms of federal education funding.

However, there has also been harsh criticism of DeVos. American Federation of Teachers head, Randi Weingarten, said Trump has made it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on “privatizing, defunding, and destroying public education in America.”  

Lonnie Scott, executive director of the advocacy group Progress Michigan, said the nomination proved that “having a shortage of experience means nothing as long as you don’t have a shortage of money.”

Diane Ravitch of the Network for Public Education issued a battle cry, saying that those who believe education is a public responsibility, not a consumer good, must resist her nomination.

Early next year, the DeVos nomination will go to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). Committee Chair, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), praised DeVos as an excellent choice “who will be able to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) just as Congress wrote it.”

The ranking member of HELP, U.S. Sen. Patti Murray (D-WA), was less optimistic, noting the president-elect had made a number of troubling statements over the course of the campaign on a range of issues that a future secretary of education will have to address. She promised “a robust hearing process.”

Dan Mangan is the Director of Public Affairs at the International Literacy Association.

Nathan Lang is all about enthusiasm. As the school year marches on, it’s a real possibility that educators can become complacent or, at worst, burned out, but Lang has a wealth of experience to help rejuvenate educators as 2017 approaches.

Join us on Twitter Thursday, December 8, at 8:00 p.m. ET when Lang will offer suggestions on how to treat—and avoid—classroom burnout.

Lang is a speaker, writer, professional learning facilitator, and education pioneer in the United States. He is currently a consultant with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and was formerly Director of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.

For all of these roles, he draws from his experience as a high school science teacher, assistant principal at both the elementary and high school levels, a university adjunct professor, and an education supervisor at the NASA-Johnson Space Center.

Thursday’s chat will include tips on valuing small victories with students and how to enhance classroom time while balancing current responsibilities.

Follow Lang on Twitter and be sure to follow #ILAchat and @ILAToday on December 8 at 8:00 p.m. ET to join the conversation.

With the filing of a dismissal motion earlier this month in federal district court, the stage was set for a class action suit seeking redress for children in Detroit public schools on the basis of a denial of their constitutional right to literacy.

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, five students from the lowest performing public schools in Detroit, MI, allege they have been denied access to literacy by being deprived of evidence-based instruction and being subject to school conditions that prevent learning in violation of their rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Rick Snyder, governor of Michigan

Defendants in the case, filed in September, are the governor of Michigan, eight members of the Michigan State Board of Education, and three other education officials. The plaintiffs contend that decades of disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to Detroit schools on the part of state officials have denied them and other similarly situated school children access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.

Moreover the schools that the plaintiffs attend serve almost exclusively low-income children of color. The complaint asserts that the abysmal conditions in these schools would be unthinkable in schools serving predominantly white, affluent student populations establishing that the schooling afforded the plaintiffs is both separate and unequal.

The plaintiffs contend that equal access to effective literacy instruction is a fundamental constitutional right. However, there is no federal case-law precedent directly establishing a right to literacy.

The plaintiffs rely heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 case that dealt with a Texas statute that excluded undocumented children from the state’s public education system. The court stated that a status-based denial of basic education does not square with the framework of equality embodied in the Equal Protection Clause.

On November 17, 2016, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the class action complaint, a standard first reply to the initiation of a civil suit. The motion raises technical matters of legal procedure and jurisdiction, and it alleges substantive defects in the plaintiffs’ case.

Defining literacy

How the Detroit plaintiffs define literacy is intrinsic to the structure of their argument. The complaint defines literacy as “the skill to decode letters and words, the ability to read and write well enough to access knowledge and communicate with the world, and the ability to compose, comprehend, synthesize, reflect upon, and critique.”

Building on this definition, the complaint claims that the necessary prerequisite for effective literacy education is a basic environment for teaching and learning. It then goes on to describe the most egregious components of the learning environment in Detroit public schools.

The schools are alleged to be vermin infested, have unsafe drinking water, and have extreme building temperatures. There is little support for the many children who have mental health needs, experience violent trauma, or are English learners. Teacher vacancy and high turnover are systemic, and classes are often taught by students or left unsupervised.

What these conditions have wrought is not surprising. Student achievement outcomes as measured by state and national testing data tied to the Detroit school system’s demographics are dismal, a fact the complaint ties to the lack of any system for literacy instruction and remediation.

To remedy the breakdown of meaningful education in Detroit’s schools, the plaintiffs are asking the court to order the defendants to implement evidence-based programs for literacy instruction and to establish a system of statewide accountability for their performance, including monitoring, intervention, and the provision of compensatory and remedial education.

Who operates Detroit’s public schools?

The defendants assert that Michigan’s constitution only requires the legislature to maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools and that  local school districts have the responsibility to provide for the education of their pupils.

The state never ran Detroit’s schools, according to this argument; although, emergency managers have been appointed to supplant local authority when necessary. Consequently, the defendants claim they cannot be held responsible for an alleged denial of rights owed to the plaintiffs.

Prior to Michigan State’s sequence of administrative interventions, the defendants point out, the Detroit Public School District experienced steep operating losses that reached a deficit of more than $100 million by 1988. Pupil enrollment declined steadily since 1981, and the city’s population also shrank, resulting in an ever-decreasing tax base.

In response to this and other recession-driven emergencies in the state, Michigan enacted successive laws to address local government financial crises. These laws provide for state appointment of officials who act on behalf of local government. According to the defendants, the plaintiffs have conflated the state’s appointment of local officials with state control of local schools.

Constitutional claim a mere proxy

With respect to the plaintiffs’ claim of a constitutional right of access to effective literacy instruction, the defendants note that this putative right has no support in case law or in the text of the constitution.  The defendants cite San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, a 1973 case where the U.S. Supreme Court took up the question whether education is a fundamental right protected by the constitution and held that no such right exists.

The defendants contend that the claimed right of access to literacy is a mere proxy for a right to education, which not only presupposes something that was rejected in Rodriguez but also asks that the Constitution be used to guarantee an outcome of the educational process. Their reasoning is predicated on the conceptual overlap between the dictionary definitions of literacy and access.

Since literacy means “the ability to read and write,” according to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, and access means “the ability to make use of,” a person cannot obtain and make use of literacy without going through the process of becoming literate, and that process, the defendants assert, means nothing more than general education.

Furthermore, the defendants do not accept that other schools in the state constitute the appropriate comparison group for assessing the alleged disparate treatment. They insist that such comparisons must be contained to the same school district, a perspective that relieves them from discussing the schools' conditions outlined in the plaintiffs’ complaint, other than observing that such conditions equally affect all students in the same school regardless of race.

A decision on the defendant’s motion is not expected until early next year.

Dan Mangan is the Director of Public Affairs at the International Literacy Association.

Educators often hear the words rigorous and frustration texts. Finding the right approach to help your students through challenging materials can be frustrating on its own. Join us Thursday, Nov. 10, at 8:00 p.m. ET when we will be joined by educators who challenge and champion their students.

Doug Lemov, managing director of Uncommon Schools, leads its Teach Like a Champion team, designing and implementing teacher training based on the study of high-performing teachers. He is the author of Teach Like a Champion 2.0 and coauthor of Practice Perfect.

Colleen Driggs is a director of professional development for the Teach Like a Champion team at Uncommon Schools. Prior to joining the Teach Like a Champion team, she was a middle school science and literacy teacher.

Erica Woolway is the chief academic officer for the Teach Like a Champion team at Uncommon Schools. She is a coauthor of Practice Perfect. Erica began her career in education as a kindergarten teacher and then worked as a school counselor and dean.

Together, Lemov, Driggs, and Woolway have written Reading Reconsidered, a guide for teachers who want to push their students to meet their potential while being sure to make them confident and successful.

During the #ILAchat, the three will share the tools and approaches they use in their classroom and give a sneak peek of their book. Be sure to follow #ILAchat and @ILAToday on Nov. 10 at 8:00 p.m. ET to join the conversation.