North Carolina

PRESS RELEASE

PRESS CONFERENCE ON THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2001

Former Speakers of the North Carolina House of Representatives Dan Blue and Harold Brubaker and Representative Fern Shubert believe every child should be taught to read. Today they announced their introduction of a bill intended to make this happen, a bill so basic that it may completely restructure education in North Carolina. The bill tells the State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction to start teaching all children to read well enough to enjoy reading before they enter the second grade and how to go about doing so.

This bill is the first step in responding to Judge Howard Manning's recent ruling. Judge Manning determined that, regardless of funding availability in local school systems, at-risk children are not being taught. He has told the state to develop a plan to address the needs of these students. This bill addresses their primary need. A child who can't read is unlikely to succeed.

The News & Observer (February 20, 2001), talking about a group of at-risk middle school students, said "It's easy to see why they're struggling. The reading skills of some students are so weak that they can't remember the point of a passage by the time they stumble to the end." How did they get to middle school without learning to read?

When the United States entered World War II, just about every male in the country entered the armed forces. Those who had been to school could read. Ask people who went to school in the fifties and sixties and they'll tell you it was rare for a child to be unable to read

Yet according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, fewer than 1 in 3 fourth graders in North Carolina's public schools is actually proficient in reading. Among black students, barely 1 in 10 is proficient. This is the source of the racial gap, as well as the reason for the educational failure Judge Manning discovered.

Many have heard the saying "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." In education this is known as the Matthew effect, since the source of the saying is the gospel of Saint Matthew. Because so much learning is through reading, the later a child learns to read, the farther behind they fall. There is no excuse for postponing teaching reading.

Children taught to read by their parents succeed. Children who are not taught to read by their parents may succeed, if they're lucky enough to get a school teacher in K-1 who will teach them. Education should not be a lottery. Every teacher should realize the foundation for all education is reading, and the sooner the child is taught how to read, the better for all concerned.

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