The student pass rate for the reading portion of Standards of Learning has improved from 55% in 1998 to 83% in 2010. So says a new report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, “Strategies to Promote Third Grade Reading Performance in Virginia.” But given the number of disadvantaged and disabled children in the population, it will be a struggle reaching the ultimate goal of 95%.
Only one school division, Patrick County, exceeded that goal in 2010. However, progress can be met with mo’ money, JLARC contends. The two most costly initiatives proposed in this study — funding more reading coaches and literacy specialists for grades K-3 — would cost between $40 and $70 million.
That’s one approach. Here’s another. Dispatch JLARC to Patrick County: population 18,500; unemployment rate, 9.7%; household income, 37% below the national average; dominant ethnic group, Bubba; and per pupil expenditures, 12% below the state average. Find out what Patrick County is doing, then replicate it. (Could it have something to do with an initiative launched by Patrick County native Gerald Baliles more than a decade ago? I’d love to know.)
— JAB
