Literacy: The Forgotten Social Justice Issue

...In 2017, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that sixty percent of children nationwide are not reading proficiently. If we look to the disaggregated data by race, it becomes even more stark. Though these levels of proficiency have not improved in the last 30 years, we’ve been made to believe that tests don’t matter. That tests are racist and cannot accurately measure what our students know. We can call tests racist (the people making them might be), and  inaccurate measures of achievement (they actually measure general knowledge), but overall, what has this amounted to? A lowering of expectations across the board. 

A school can earn a designation of *high-performing with just 60% of its students on grade level. This means that 40% of the school is not reading and comprehending texts proficiently. Which 40% of our children don’t deserve to read? 

A public school in my neighborhood has approximately 34%  of students meeting or exceeding standards in reading, yet is categorized as “changing the odds” for African-American students. 70% of Black children in this school are still struggling to read, but this is the best choice that parents have for instruction in the area. 

We cannot place our individual notions of what progress and performance looks like on a community that we do not know. Before deciding for our students that tests don’t matter, a proclamation that comes from the privilege of never having had to worry about the implications of tests on our lives, in all things, we must partner with parents and ask: Do they care that their child isn’t reading on grade level? Do they care that faulty theories are being used in their child’s classroom? ..

https://projectforeverfree.org/literacy-the-most-forgotten-social-justice-issue/