RSA 193-H:2 says flat out that: Schools shall ensure that all pupils are performing at the proficient level or above on the statewide assessment as established in RSA 193-C.
Notably, it doesn’t make exceptions for kids with special needs, kids with test anxiety, or anyone else.
Now, if you interpret this as saying,
Schools shall assign pupils to grades according to age, and then do whatever is necessary to get all pupils in those grades reading at the corresponding grade levels.
…then it is easy to dismiss it as an impossible task — especially when you consider that the schools don’t actually know how to teach kids to read.
It’s also easy to dismiss as a suggestion rather than as a statute since there is no penalty specified for failure to comply.
But if you interpret it as saying,
Schools shall assign pupils to grades according to their reading levels at the end of the previous year.
…then this would automatically bring every school into compliance with the law. If a pupil reads at a 4th-grade level, then he’s in 4th grade, regardless of how old he is.
Note that nothing else has to change. No new tests have to be administered. No new statutes or regulations have to be enacted. All we have to do is recognize that it makes more sense to understand the phrase ‘shall ensure’ as a method, and not as a goal.
This would also have some important secondary benefits. It would, for example, put an end to social promotion. It would motivate students to learn to read by putting the more enjoyable electives off limits until the more fundamental skills have been mastered — which is simply following the age-old parenting principle of making kids eat dinner before they get to eat dessert.
And it might even, in time, make our graduation rate meaningful. Right now, with a graduation rate above 90%, and proficiency rates below 40%, graduation is little more than a reward for attendance.
What possible reasons could we have for not doing this?
