1 in 8 third grade students not promoted under Read to Achieve
Published October 4, 2014
by T. Keung Hui and Andrew Dunn, News and Observer, October 3, 2014.
More than 1 of 8 North Carolina third-grade students were not promoted this school year after failing to meet new state reading requirements – a figure kept from being higher because of policy changes made this year.
Statewide, 87.3 percent of third-grade students either met proficiency requirements in the 2013-2014 school year or received an exemption, for reasons such as certain learning disabilities, according to a report on the Read to Achieve program presented Thursday to the State Board of Education.
The report means that 12.7 percent of third-grade students – 14,755 children – are either repeating the third grade or are getting special attention in fourth-grade transition classes.
“The biggest issue is, all these numbers show the sad reality that our school systems have not been teaching children how to read,” Vice Chairman A.L. “Buddy” Collins said at Thursday’s meeting, which was held in Charlotte.
State officials said they couldn’t compare this year’s retention figures with prior years.
Third-grade promotion rates in the Triangle ranged from 82.2 percent in Durham and 87 percent in Orange County to 90.1 percent in Wake County and 93.5 percent in both Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Johnston County.
Read to Achieve was created by the state legislature in 2012 to make sure students could read at grade level before moving on to the fourth grade. But it also sparked months of debate among school districts about how it would be put into effect.
About two-thirds of educators surveyed in the state report said they did not support the legislation at all, or that it needed major changes.
Amid concerns that large numbers of students would be held back, the state board lowered the score needed to pass state exams and approved additional tests that school districts could use to show students are proficient.
The General Assembly also passed modifications this year to give more flexibility to school districts. Among other changes, legislators dropped a mandate that school systems send students who failed the reading exam to summer classes or else be held back.
Senate leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, focused on the 79.2 percent of students who met reading proficiency standards.
“There is still much work to be done to reduce the number of children struggling,” Berger said in a statement. “But these encouraging results are a testament to the efforts of our students and the parents, educators and public officials working together to ensure our kids are on a path to academic and life-long success.”
Go to http://goo.gl/Qg5y7e to view the state report.
