Oregon has a student literacy crisis. Is teaching future teachers the way out? – Salem Reporter:
The panel recommended more research-backed teaching methods in college curriculums by next fall, to better reflect decades of findings about how human brains best process written language. Oregon’s teacher licensing agency adopted the report, which outlined nine pages of precise goals that panelists acknowledged would represent “a big shift in practice.”
But a review by The Oregonian/OregonLive of the efforts so far suggests that any actual changes at most of the state’s 16 educator preparation programs could be far more minimal. In July status updates, most schools tentatively claimed little need for overhauls of their course offerings or academic focus to comply with the state’s early literacy standards.
After licensing staff spent the fall doing individual follow-ups at each campus, that position hasn’t shifted.
We literally have been teaching new teachers how to teach reading in a way that, for a large number of students, doesn’t work. And many universities apparently don’t want to change how they do it.
Some literacy advocates are incredulous that colleges would say no changes are needed. They note that only 42% of Oregon third graders can read proficiently, one of the lowest rates in the nation, after the 16 schools in question have trained generations of the state’s elementary teachers.
Many metro-area school districts have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to retrain existing teachers on back-to-the-basics reading principles. Now it’s time, advocates say, for universities to shift curriculum for Oregon’s pipeline for future teachers.
“Now it’s time” is really forgiving. This should have changed years ago.
Many longtime elementary general education teachers in Oregon and nationwide were schooled in an approach known as “balanced literacy.” That method allows young children to choose books on topics that interest them, whether or not they could read the words on the page.
It’s moronic.
But decades of research has shown that the vast majority of children actually need explicit, sequenced instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness to master reading, an approach often shorthanded as “the science of reading.”
No kidding. Anyone giving even a moment’s thought to this could come to this conclusion.
…historically, Oregon has neither funded nor mandated that level of oversight, unlike some other states.
Oregon has long been called out by the National Council on Teacher Quality for its lack of oversight over educator preparation programs. It is one of 14 states that earned a “weak” rating in those categories from the Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit advocacy group noted for its research on teacher preparation and pay.
For example, the test that elementary school educators, special educators and administrators must take to get an Oregon teaching license combines reading knowledge with other subjects.
That approach doesn’t cut it, said Heather Peske, president of the National Council of Teacher Quality.
We don’t even teach our teachers well.
By contrast, 19 states offer literacy specific exams, among them many left-leaning states, including California, Colorado and Massachusetts. So, too, do the conservative states that have been the most successful at helping their students rebound from pandemic setbacks, among them Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.
Oregon, by contrast, is still weighing any changes or expansion of its testing requirements, and is considering multiple ways that a licensing candidate can demonstrate proficiency in early literacy, said Bill Rhoades, the director of education preparation and pathways at the state licensing agency.
Oregon is so far behind that it’s unbelievable.