What is Read to Achieve?

Over the last twenty years, multiple states have recognized the importance and lasting impact of students being able to read on grade level by third grade and have taken measures to enact legislation to support this goal through various methods and means. Some states require grade level retention, while others require promotion with the provision of specific intervention supports (Weyer 2019). There are currently 16 states plus Washington D.C. that require retention while allowing for specific exemptions meeting criteria set by the state, and there are eight states that allow for retention but don’t require it.

In response to this the North Carolina General Assembly established the Read to Achieve legislation in 2012 (RMS Research Corporation 2017). The original bill was sponsored by Phil Berger with the goal of all students able to read on grade level by the end of third grade and ending social promotion. This legislation mandated the use of early literacy screeners in grades K-3 to identify students at risk of reading failure. Students not making progress as identified by the universal screener were to be provided reading interventions and progress monitored throughout the year to monitor the impact of the interventions. Summer reading camps were to be provided to deficient third grade students, and the summer camps were expanded to include first and second grade students in 2015. Students are able to show proficiency through various pathways, and the legislation allows for Good Cause Exemptions. In 2016 the General Assembly voted to institute bonuses for teachers falling in the top 25% on EVAAS in the state for third grade teachers. Based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) student scores saw a slight increase in fourth grade proficiency in reading from 2011 to 2015. In 2017 the Foundation for Excellence in Education conducted a study aimed at examining the supports provided through Read to Achieve, examining how information was communicated to stakeholders, analyze stakeholder feedback, and analyze the impact of Read to Achieve on student outcomes through the analysis of focus group data, surveys, and interviews. Representatives from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction indicated an increased  focus on early literacy skills, updates to teacher licensure requirements which required candidates to pass the Reading Foundations licensure exam, and increased training on mClass was provided to preservice teachers. School leaders and teachers reported that Read To Achieve had changed instructional practices and led to improved student outcomes while helping to provide increased learning support for struggling readers.

            In 2018 the William and Ida Friday Institute for Innovation was commissioned to examine the impact of Read to Achieve (Weiss, Stallings, and Porter 2018). The researchers, Sara Weiss, D.T. Stallings, and Stephen Porter, compiled their findings in the report, “Is Read to Achieve Making the Grade? An Assessment of North Carolina’s Elementary Reading Proficiency Initiative.” The researchers examined data on students who had been retained or who were eligible to receive Read to Achieve supports and found no significant gains on End of Grade test scores for these students once they moved on to fourth and fifth grades. They also analyzed End of Grade performance by subgroup and found no improvement in outcomes as well as analyzing performance for summer camp participation versus non participation and found no significant difference. Other states have similar policies to Read to Achieve, but North Carolina has a higher threshold for demonstrating proficiency than other states. The team identified the limitations of the current policy: what is the degree of validity and reliability of alternate assessment tools utilized by districts, the idea that one test score on one test day can determine a student’s true proficiency, assumes the availability of qualified teachers, differences in the capacity of each district to support implementation of the policy, and limited abilities of districts to support intervention implementation.

At the January 2019 State Board of Education monthly meeting, the researchers from the Friday Institute presented their findings and recommendations to the State Board of Education (Hui 2019a). Tara Galloway, the Director of K-3 Literacy for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, presented at the board meeting as well. Both parties pointed out the need for an increased focus on early interventions. Dr. Galloway emphasized that early literacy instruction needs to include a focus on foundational reading skills as gaps in these skills prevent students from being able to read to learn.

            She emphasized, “The data is showing us that those foundational reading skills were not built back in the early grades, and so by third grade it’s showing up that they’re not able to read to learn. They never learned to read, so they can’t read to learn.”

In response to the findings, the bill’s original author, Phil Berger, sponsored a revised version of Read to Achieve entitled, Senate Bill 438 “Excellent Public Schools Act of 2019” (Childress 2019). The revised bill focused on improving instruction, reading camps, educator training, and data collection. Individual reading plans would be developed for struggling students, and the Department of Public Instruction would be tasked with developing a digital repository of resources for parents to use with reading. The legislation, modeled after successful legislation from Florida and Mississippi, also included the creation of a literacy task force and would improve summer reading camps by identifying strategies that had been successful. The revised version attempts to address the concerns identified by the Friday Institute’s report and would offer financial incentives to retired teachers to work at summer reading camps (Hui 2019b). Highly effective teachers, as identified by EVAAS, could get additional licensure credits for working at the camps as well.

However, Governor Cooper vetoed the updated legislation that had been passed by a bipartisan group of legislators in both the North Carolina Senate and the House (Childress 2019). His reasons were the financial cost, the ongoing debate over iStation, and that the program hasn’t produced measurable gains in student achievement.

Works Cited

Childress, G. (2019, April 2). After poor results, lawmakers seek to reinvent Read to Achieve. The Progressive Pulse. Retrieved from http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2019/04/02/after-poor-results-lawmakers-seek-to-reinvent-read-to-achieve/

Childress, G. (2019, August 23). Gov. Cooper vetoes Phil Berger’s bill to improve state’s “read to Achieve” law. The Progressive Pulse. Retrieved from http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2019/08/23/gov-cooper-vetoes-phil-bergers-bill-to-improve-states-read-to-achieve/

Hui, T. K. (2019, January 9). “Moving backwards” on reading. NC is not seeing gains from its Read to Achieve program. The News & Observer. Retrieved from https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article224161310.html

Hui, T. K. (2019, April 1). “If some things need fixing, let’s fix them.” NC leaders want to improve Read to Achieve. The News and Observer. Retrieved from https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article228668034.html

RMS Research Corporation. (2017, January). North Carolina Read to Achieve: An Inside Look. Foundation for Excellence in Education. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED574423

Weiss, S., Stallings, D. T., Porter, S. (2018, October) Is Read to Achieve Making the Grade? An Assessment of North Carolina’s Elementary Reading Proficiency Initiative. The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. Retrieved from https://www.fi.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RtA2018Reportv6.pdf

Weyer, M. (2019, April 16). Third Grade Reading Legislation. National Conference of State Legislatures. Retrieved from https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/third-grade-reading-legislation.aspx