2015/05/26 – The potential for nearly 15 percent of Mississippi students to repeat the third grade after flunking reading tests has amped up the political, partisan fear and loathing that passes for public education policy debate in this state.

It’s somber news that more than 5,600 third-graders failed their first try at a reading test required by a new law for promotion to fourth grade. But this didn’t bring about any kumbaya moment among state political and education leaders. Heck no. In Mississippi politics, it’s not what you do about public education, it’s what you say the other guy should have done. Cry havoc, and let slip the press releases.

State House Democratic Leader Bobby Moak fired off a missive last week decrying a “GOP education disaster … the third-grade reading gate calamity created by Republicans.”

“This is the disastrous result of the Republican education plan that chronically underfunds our schools and then asks even more of our children,” Moak said of the Republican-led Literacy Based Promotion Act of 2013 taking effect this year.

Them were fightin’ words for Republican House Appropriations Chairman Herb Frierson. Frierson said many education leaders and advocates use “we’re underfunded” as a crutch that prevents schools from making improvements.

“I’m tired of it,” Frierson said. “… The expectation — the response — always is ‘We can’t do it unless we have more money’ … We recognize the need for more money. But it’s not just about more money. It’s also about leadership.”

Frierson said some school districts “that had all the reasons in the world” — low per-pupil spending, poverty — to do poorly on the reading tests did well, and vice versa. He said communities should demand better performance from school administrators, like they do for athletics coaches.

The literacy act, or “third-grade reading gate,” championed by Gov. Phil Bryant and other Republican leaders, is modeled after successful programs in Florida and South Carolina. Statistics show students moving into fourth grade unable to read well are far more likely to repeat other grades and not graduate high school.

But superintendents and education advocates, who lobbied unsuccessfully this year to delay the program, said lawmakers haven’t adequately funded the program to hire enough reading coaches. And, they said, the Legislature continually failing to fully fund its own adequate education formula will make it hard to deal with large numbers of extra third-graders who need special attention.

Frierson countered that the Republican-led Legislature increased K-12 funding to a record level of $2.52 billion, an increase of $110 million. Proponents of the literacy act say it has initially been funded at levels similar to where Florida started. Lawmakers approved $15 million this year, and said to match, per capita, Florida’s program would require $25 million a year, a feasible goal in the near future.

“This is (Republicans’) baby,” Frierson said. “We are going to come up with evidence-based reading programs. We are going to fund them and make them work, but we are also going to expect leadership on the local level with our schools. And there’s going to be some real serious evaluation of the schools that did poorly. If they feel like they got handed lemons, then they need to make them into lemonade, or put them in a crawfish boil.”

Moak co-opted and changed a slogan the state Republican Party has used to criticize Democrats about how one cannot any longer be both a Democrat and conservative.

“(Republicans) have repeatedly made one thing abundantly clear,” Moak said. “You can be a Republican in Mississippi, or you can support education, but you can’t do both.”

Frierson co-opted a George W. Bush slogan for the current debate.

“It’s the subtle discrimination of low expectations,” Frierson said, “based on money.”

Moak said: “The Republican leadership has failed to fund education so that schools cannot hire reading interventionists and they refuse to pass pre-K, which is vital for children reading by the third grade.”

Voters will help decide the school funding issue in November, with a ballot initiative seeking to change the state constitution to force full funding of the adequate education program. Democratic leaders hope this will help their candidates in the ballot box as well.

Frierson said that’s not likely.

“Republicans are going to come back, be in control, and have a chip on our shoulder,” Frierson said, “… over all these surrogate advocacies that lambast us, try to destroy anything we try to do for education … They are hurting themselves politically, and they are too stupid to realize they are hurting themselves.”

So there you go. Looks like state leaders this election year are putting all party and other politics aside and working together on education. Kumbaya.

Source: The Clarion-Ledger 

Geoff Pender