Tommy Tuberville Grills Experts On Higher Literacy Rates In Charter Schools Than Public Schools

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Health Committee hearing in July, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) asked CEO of New Schools for Alabama Tyler Barnett about rising literacy rates in charter schools as opposed to public schools.

Transcript

00:00Um, Mr. Barnett, we've had a tremendous growth in the number of students across America enrolling

00:08in charter schools over four million students to be exact. How does that success of charter

00:15schools impact our district public school system? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so there are really

00:23two large national studies that speak to this. One comes out of the Progressive Policy Institute

00:29and another comes out of the Fordham Institute. Both actually show that the presence of charter

00:34schools has in some way improved outcomes within district schools. Uh, there's a certain threshold

00:43that the Progressive Policy Institute's study showed, um, somewhere around 30%. So the presence

00:49of charter schools, uh, that give up to 30% of students in a given market, the opportunity to

00:56enroll has positive net impact on not only charter school performance, but also district

01:02performance. Yeah. Why are we seeing, um, literacy, uh, stats rise in charter schools versus public

01:10schools? Why is that happening? I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question, Senator? Why is this,

01:17the literacy rate rising? In other words, we're, we're, we're having better scores in charter schools

01:23schools and not as well in public schools. Well, I can really only speak to the results in Alabama.

01:29Um, Alabama has adopted the science of reading, uh, by law, um, as, uh, as mandatory. Um, every

01:39charter school participates in what we call letters training, which is essentially teaching teachers

01:45how to implement the science of reading. Um, and that's through the Alabama reading initiative.

01:49And so, uh, uh, statewide in Alabama reading scores are improving and the, the latest NAEP scores show

01:57that, um, they are also improving among charter schools and our charter schools are improving at

02:02a faster rate currently in the state of Alabama, uh, writ large. What I would say is we do have a

02:08number of districts where, um, at least within specific schools, we are not seeing those trends.

02:14Uh, and I'll, I'll use Birmingham city schools as an example, Birmingham city schools, 43 schools in

02:20the district. There are still two schools in that district where, uh, 1% or fewer of kids are

02:27proficient in reading outcomes. Um, there are a number of schools in the district, seven schools,

02:31I believe where, uh, zero to 1% of kids are proficient in reading or math. And there are 13 schools where

02:38less than 5% are proficient in either subject. So it's still a problem. Um, but I think it's

02:44kind of localized a little bit more in Alabama. Ms. Wicks, you talked about teacher preparedness

02:50and professional development in your testimony. How important is preparing our educators to teach

02:55the science of reading method? Senator, thank you for that important question. It's critical

03:00that we give educators the right preparedness to understand this issue and be able to deploy it

03:06in their classrooms. I referenced in my opening remarks that only 25% of educator prep programs

03:12are currently teaching the science of reading to their aspiring teachers. Um, and even worse,

03:17about 40% of them are teaching the wrong stuff. So they're teaching these brand new teachers the

03:22wrong way to teach reading. If they're interested in more, the national council on teacher quality

03:26put out that report. They're the best at studying teacher prep programs. And I think this comes down

03:31to a matter of state leadership and accreditation. They make some recommendations

03:36about the importance of setting state standards for what these programs need to be teaching.

03:40Um, have some way to measure that if it's through accreditation or others. And then to tie the state

03:46licensure exams to those standards to ensure that those candidates have actually learned this and can

03:51do it in their classroom. And you see the same thing for sitting teachers who maybe never got this

03:56in their training and need that professional development. Thank you. Um, Ms. Jindal's,

04:01uh, you know, on both sides, there's an argument whether, uh, President Trump and the Department

04:07of Education is undermining public school and because of the work done to expand school choice.

04:15Uh, do you think there's a truth to that, that argument?

04:20Uh, consistently studies show that when states have implemented school choice programs,

04:25the nearby public schools have benefited. So increasing competition inspires innovation

04:30and a rising tide lifts all boats. So we're, we were pleased to see the executive order from the

04:37president supporting expanding school choice, educational freedom. And we're also pleased to see

04:43the executive order, uh, ordering the secretary of education to look into dismantling the department

04:50of education within, within federal law and with the understanding that the secretary will be working

04:57with Congress on that because we do think that freeing up federal regulations, uh, freeing up states

05:02from federal regulations, from monitoring, from compliance all the time that all those bureaucrats

05:07at the state and district level, uh, are spending on federal paperwork is going to benefit public education.

05:13It's going to benefit public school students. It's going to benefit public school educators.

05:17Do you think we should give more power back to the states when it's education?

05:22Absolutely. We need to give power to the states. I think we've heard such great news today on what

05:26strong state leaders, sensible state leaders implementing common sense policies are doing.

05:32It's very encouraging to see what's happening. We didn't mention, uh, Louisiana, but Louisiana is a

05:37bright spot amidst the 2024 NAEP scores. The only state where fourth grade reading scores exceeded

05:44pre-COVID results. More so than Alabama. Alabama's pretty awesome too. It's been referred to as the

05:50southern surge. There's really good news coming out of the states and encouraging that, fostering

05:55that is absolutely the right direction. Policy, education policies set at the state level and let's,

06:02let's foster that and let's get the federal government out of the way. Thank you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended