By Linda Conner Lambeck
WESTPORT — Westport public schools may have some of the highest reading scores in the state, but they are among 25 school districts to have a requested waiver of the state’s new “Right to Read” mandate denied.
In a report released Tuesday, the state Department of Education said of 85 districts to request waivers, 17 were granted and another four received partial waivers.
Another 39 districts were told they must add or substitute part of their reading programs, and 25 — including Westport — were not approved.
Other programs that failed to win approval include Wilton and Woodbridge.
Among the 17 waivers approved include Achievement First Charter Schools, Amistad Academy Charter School in New Haven, Hartford, New London, Shelton and Waterbury.
Adopted in 2021, the Right to Read legislation aims to get school districts to switch to evidence-based, scientifically proven reading curriculum beginning in July 2024.
Starting July 1, 2025, districts must submit reports detailing the curriculum models or programs they have adopted to comply with state standards.
In waiver applications, school districts, including Westport, submitted evidence to establish that their reading models or programs are robust alternatives to a list of programs approved by the state’s Center for Literacy Research and Reading Success.
Waiver determinations were said to be made by state Education Commissioner Charlene M. Russell-Tucker in consultation with director of the center after one-on-one interviews with district representatives.
“It is our goal that working together we will increase the effectiveness of literacy teaching and learning so that all Connecticut students are reading at or above grade level independently and proficiently by the end of the third grade,” Russell-Tucker said in a press release issued by the state.
Based on 2022-23 data, 54.5 percent — approximately 19,500 — of third-grade students statewide were not proficient in English language arts.
Westport reading proficiency dips, but higher than most
In Westport, 73.8 percent of third graders were proficient last year — 10 percentage points lower than the year before — but still among the highest in the state.
“There is disappointment as a result of the endless hours our faculty and leaders have spent on this waiver process,” Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said in an email Tuesday.
The district’s waiver application was said to be 120 pages long.
The state Department of Education “moved the goal posts throughout the process, and we continued to flex to meet those expectations,” Scarice said.
Yet, he called the result unsurprising.
“The standards expected to approve the district approach to literacy instruction throughout the waiver process are not the same standards applied to the boxed programs approved by the department,” Scarice maintained.
Westport to consider “next steps”
“Programs do not teach kids. Materials do not teach kids. Highly skilled professional educators teach kids, and that is what we have in Westport. We will regroup and consider our next steps moving forward.”
Matthew Cerrone, spokesman for the state Department of Education, in an email Tuesday, said the commissioner and Center for Literacy and Reading Success were statutorily charged with the evaluation of reading curriculum models or programs submitted to them from the districts.
“The purpose of this is to ensure that all districts across the state are providing teaching and learning that is aligned with the science of reading. That is what we were evaluating.” Cerrone wrote.
Cerrone said the determination was based on whether each reading curriculum model was not only evidence-based and scientifically proven, but focused on oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, rapid automatic name or letter name fluency and reading comprehension.
Scarice said the district’s reading curriculum addressed all of those considerations when local officials announced the would seek a waiver nearly a year ago.
Replacing a custom approach with cookie-cutter program
He said the required changes would not only be costly, but replace the district’s custom model with a cookie-cutter program relying on anthologies rather than classroom libraries.
The state-recommended programs were estimated to cost districts between $165,039 and $1.7 million to purchase. The state has allocated $25 million in grants to assist school districts facing financial challenges implementing the legislation.
Westport’s Board of Education was told last January that the district program offers additional instruction for students who get stuck, as well as literacy coaches and interventionists.
Teachers, according to district officials, also receive training by both Teacher’s College and Orton-Gillingham, a structured approach that breaks down reading and spelling into smaller skills involving letters and sounds.
Students who need extra help, the school board was told, get it and the local program combines several approaches that evolved over time.
Previously, the state’s Right to Read Coalition issued a Q&A on its initiative, suggesting that afterschool tutoring programs financed by parents in high-performing and well-resourced districts, helped mask curricular problems and increased inequities.
Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.
I cannot believe the Republicans in Hartford would do that to us. A disgrace. It’s almost as if they were attempting to “dismantle” our “privileged” school district. Vote those Republicans OUT!
Joking aside, thanks to Dr Scarice and the district for at least attempting to stop this. Unfortunately it seems like Hartford is intent on Westport Public Schools joining the ranks of other highly productive public school districts like those found in Baltimore, New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and so forth where “science based” reading metrics have generated literacy rates at graduation between 0 – 30%. We should at a minimum be willing to fight to keep control of our curriculum right here in Westport. I encourage residents to send this message to Hartford, if they even care.
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/SDE/Digest/2022-23/CT-Approved-Reading-Curricula-Programs-09-29-22.pdf
Westport reading proficiency rates are down 10% from last year which is not an insignificant drop and if continued in that direction would be calamitous. Aside from the obvious point that this information and other recent negative assessments of the school system should have been available before last month’s election, the challenge now is to improve. Was the request for a waiver to the state mandates due to concerns
that it would lower reading proficiency requirements down to lower performing districts and thereby hurt our town? If not, what is the objection? If these mandates are designed to help students why is Westport resisting? More information should be provided but the 10% drop indicates something needs to change now.
Unfortunately, my attempts to shed light into the darkness regarding the calamitous decline in the Westport schools have met with censorship, despite countless footnotes evidencing the descent from Niche ranking to State of Ct. BoE reports. Hiring practices of Mr. Scarice who does NOT hold a doctorate despite our learned neighbor’s granting him the title, are based on recruiting unqualified, uneducated candidates who aspire to become teachers under a residency program.
John Bayers, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and General Administration for Westport schools, is hoping to increase staff diversity. But as though Westport was Appalachia, our primary objective is to defer hiring the best and the brightest in favor of building a multicultural pool of teachers. Raising a glass to those who declined the waiver .
You are so right Caroline. It’s all about diversity and inclusion and our town is all in on it. And yet, we are now to believe that Westport educators resist these policies and want to maintain control. Well, I sure do believe they want control but not to reinstate traditional policies in education. Maybe they want to go even further than the state mandates, who knows? I don’t trust the state or the town when it comes to DEI. All we know right now is education is going in the wrong direction and we better figure it out.
Can someone answer, in less than 120 pages!, what the state wants us to do and what we are trying to do as an alternative and why it is as good, better, or worse? Because I am having a difficult time getting to the crux of the matter from the article.
I agree! The reporting does not explain why the state mandates are bad or good. It seems we should all have a common goal…the best education that can be provided and the ability for educators to assess results and intervene if a few children are struggling and change course if most of the indicators are going in the wrong direction.