Greetings!
We hope you are enjoying the spring weather! In this newsletter, you will find:
- Details and registration information for our final Zoom event for this school year, a presentation by language and literacy researcher Dr. Tiffany Hogan this Sunday, May 21 at 7 pm
- Highlights and the recording from our recent conversation with educator and literacy advocate, Kareem J. Weaver.
- Relevant news from Brookline School Committee meetings
Join us for a presentation and conversation with Dr. Tiffany Hogan THIS SUNDAY!
We are thrilled that Dr. Tiffany Hogan will be joining us on Zoom on Sunday, May 21, at 7 pm. REGISTER HERE.
Dr. Hogan is the director of the Speech, Language, and Literacy Lab (SAIL) and a professor in the Department of Communication Science and Disorders at MGH Institute of Health Professions. She studies the links between oral and written language development and is committed to translating research into practice in ways that are informed by the insights and findings from implementation science. Dr. Hogan has a talent for clearly explaining the science in ways that can help parents and educators understand it better and use it in practical ways.
Dr. Hogan also has a wonderful podcast where she hosts a broad range of conversations.
If you have specific questions you would like us to ask Dr. Hogan, please feel free to email us.
“From a social justice perspective, this is the main thing. This isn’t some side issue. This is the heart of the matter.” Our conversation with Kareem J. Weaver
Thank you to everyone who attended our conversation. We were so happy that his co-founder at FULCRUM, Liza Finklestein, as well as their director of growth, Carrie Simon, were both able to attend the discussion as well. We encourage you to view or listen to the recording here.
Kareem helped us frame the issue of literacy instruction in our community, and shared his advice on concrete steps that everyone–families, teachers, administrators, school committee members, and district leaders–can take. It was a wide-ranging conversation. Here are just a few things he said that have been been echoing in our minds since the discussion:
“Even if you don’t have dyslexia, just being on the razor’s edge of literacy creates a sense of insecurity that is hard to shake and manifests in all sorts of ways. “
“It’s ok to ask the questions: How good is good enough when it comes to our kids? What is the acceptable level of proficiency in our community? What are our expectations for our kids?” “How much money do you have (in Brookline) to have to make sure your kid gets what they need?” or do we say “We’re going to make sure everyone gets what they need (in school) because it affects all of us.”…“This is a question of community values. What is Brookline’s threshold?.. And what’s your resolve?”
“Culture beats programs any day of the week. You have to spark a culture of curiosity in your district.”
“If you really want to get this right, we need people in leadership who are vulnerable enough to say…We blew it. We made mistakes…I’m going to learn with you”. I’m on this journey with you.“
“If you want to keep kids in the center, you have to have a season of learning and a season of grace. …..that’s our biggest challenge is finding people who can lead with that mindset.”
We are grateful to Kareem for sharing hard-won wisdom from his years as an educator, school leader, administrator, and activist. His advice about questions to ask and concrete steps to take will surely guide the efforts of the Brookline Literacy Coalition going forward.
Links to some of the resources recommended in the discussion:
Learn more about Marva Collins, an educator has been a tremendous inspiration to Kareem and to many others. You can read her book or watch the 1995 60 Minutes episodes about her work and her students here.
Read the 10 questions that Kareem and his fellow NAACP advocates first presented to the school board in Oakland, CA in order to open up the conversation about literacy.
Explore more in the resources section of the FULCRUM website.
Read this succinct piece from The American Federation of Teachers: Elements of a Successful Reading Program
An important takeaway from the discussion was the need for our leaders to become curious and to see examples of success. To learn what a wide variety of school districts have done to achieve extraordinary results for all students, including the historically underserved, listen to the fascinating Extraordinary Districts Podcast. Better yet, we hope some of you will follow Kareem’s advice and make a Venn diagram to identify the common key elements of these schools’ successes!
And last but not least, Fulcrum co-founder Liza Finklestein recommends these 3 informative 45 min virtual workshops from last fall where you can hear directly from teachers, literacy specialists and principals in 3 California schools that are at different stages of pivoting to reading instruction informed by the science of reading. You can find the webinars here on the California Reading Coalition website.
What’s new on the literacy front in Brookline?
Universal early literacy/dyslexia screening and progress monitoring (DIBELS/mClass)
As many of you know, the 2022-2023 school year is the first year that PSB, in order to comply with state law, has begun to administer an evidence-based reading assessment to students in kindergarten through grade 2. This brief assessment, administered 3 times per year to all students, is designed to identify children who are at risk for developing reading difficulties and to monitor their progress and response to the instruction they receive.
The middle of year data from this assessment was presented to curriculum subcommittee and then to the general school committee on March 30. You can watch the recording of that March 30th meeting here. Presentation about the literacy assessment begins around 1:51, and you can view the presentation slides here.
Based on the mid-year composite results, 36% of K/1 and 24% of 2nd-grade students currently perform below the benchmark. It was unclear to us if these percentages do or do not include students who have been identified with a specific learning disabilities. It’s important to note that this assessment is a universal one; it is designed to be administered to all students in order to track progress over time.
For your reference, here is a chart from the assessment manual that is helpful for understanding the risk-categories.
To us, the number of students performing below benchmark at midyear is a clear indication that overall, literacy instruction in our schools is missing the mark. During the presentation to school committee, we heard that it’s important not to “overreact” to this data. We’re not sure what it would mean to overreact. However, we do think it’s vital that, as Kareem Weaver advised, our district and school leaders, with input from the community, communicate very clearly about the goal for reading proficiency in our district. It’s OK to ask the question:How many students do we expect will learn to read in our schools?
During the earlier curriculum subcommittee meeting, the Interim Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, Grace Wai, emphasized that this is the first time Brookline has attempted to collect valid and reliable data and establish systems of evidence-based support. Brookline is not alone; many other districts have also failed to do this. She pointed out the needs: consistency in Tier 1 instruction, a common understanding of what the “tiers” mean, common practices for choosing students for support, and a common understanding of what that support should look like. There is a lot of work to do.
During the April 27th presentation to SC about disproportionality in referrals to special education for subgroups, we heard that the district is considering expanding this literacy assessment to higher grade levels next year and also planning to routinely analyze this data and evaluate effectiveness of intervention efforts over time (the primary purpose of the assessment). The school committee has requested regular presentation on the results of this assessment so we look forward to hearing about the end-of-year results and more discussion by the end of the school year.
This year, there was no state requirement regarding reporting to families and caregivers about how their children performed on this assessment. Therefore, your child’s results may or may not have been shared with you. If you have a student in kindergarten, first or second grade and did not hear from your child’s teacher about this, we encourage you to ask. Next year, sharing these results will become a requirement for all Massachusetts schools.
New Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning
At the April 27th School Committee meeting, Dr. Linus Guillory introduced our district’s new Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, Dr. Jodi Fortuna. Dr. Fortuna comes to Brookline most recently from the Boston Public Schools. We welcome Dr. Fortuna to the district and we hope that she will be able to lead Brookline schools in a transition away from the dominant “balanced literacy” model and its attendant practices and towards a robust, comprehensive, consistent, evidence-informed approach to literacy throughout the district.
That’s all for now. Don’t forget to register for our next event this Sunday with Dr. Tiffany Hogan. And as always, thanks for reading!