Support for this program was provided by the Kansas School Board Resource Center.

From the Alvin and Rosalie Sarah Studio, PBS Kansas presents resolving the Literacy Crisis in Kansas schools.

Hello and welcome to the third and final segment of resolving the literacy crisis in Kansas schools.

I'm your host, Dr.

Mahalia Parikh.

In part one, we learned that one third of Kansas students struggle to read and that only 17% of Kansas graduates are college ready in English reading, math and science.

We also discussed how the literacy crisis is affecting higher education and the workforce, as well as the factors that contributed to its development.

Part two we examined some of the significant barriers to literacy gains, including how school districts are structured and operate.

And there is also a significant academic barrier in reading instruction.

We also heard that responsibility for the literacy crisis is a management issue that includes people of both parties in the legislature, the state school board, the Department of Education, and local school boards.

It cannot be blamed on teachers or students.

In the third and final part, we focused on solutions.

We'll hear how one school district is removing literacy barriers and is already seeing big academic gains.

We will also talk with doctor Mike Schumacher, a lifelong educator and consultant.

We'll talk with Doctor Schumacher about the three big solutions he identifies in his latest book, Results Now 2.0.

In our third segment, we'll discuss actions local school board members can take to unite the community and district staff to drive academic improvement.

We'll also discuss some steps the state legislature can take to encourage school districts to pursue literacy gains with more urgency.

Let's turn our attention now to a great success story at USD 329.

Well, bun C located in north central Kansas between Manhattan and Topeka.

Well, bun C students had traditionally performed just a little above the state average, but district officials weren't satisfied because student outcomes needed to be much higher.

In 2024, for example, 42% of Wabanaki students were proficient in English language arts or reading, while the state average was 34%.

Well, once he was staying ahead of the state average.

But outcomes weren't improving.

So they knew they couldn't succeed unless they were willing to honestly assess the situation and have the courage to change some things.

And they started looking at what needed to change.

At the end of the 2024 school year, and in just one year, they went from being eight percentage points above the state average to 17 points better.

We're joined now by Doctor Troy Pitch.

Superintendent of USD three, 29 Wabanaki and school board President Aaron Pope.

Welcome.

Gentlemen, congratulations on your success.

And let's start with a quick review of your achievement gains.

Tell us about that.

Thank you.

Jamal, it's great to be here.

First of all, I want to be transparent with all the families at home before we start talking about our gains this year.

The state of Kansas changed the way it reported, state testing scores.

And as a result, it appeared that all students across the state, received, some growth.

Knowing that, we wanted to be sure that we didn't confuse the gains that everyone got from the change in the scale scores with actual student learning.

So we took a look at our own individual students and their growth on the scale and were able to, to account for the learning that occurred in the growth that occurred that everyone, received at the state versus what our students learn.

And what we found is that our students gained, substantial amount above and beyond the growth that everyone else experienced, which is fantastic.

Now, why do you think the gains in grades three through five and ten were greater than those in middle school?

That's a great question.

In grades three through five, we typically see a lot of foundational learning for literacy.

It tends to be quite a bit more focused, so gains will usually appear, pretty quickly.

The same with our, our upper level, sophomores in high school.

The expectations are much clearer.

And there's a maturity level that kicks in as well.

A middle school is a transition year for students.

They see a lot more teachers, and a lot of times that learning becomes a little more broad.

And it's gained through different environmental settings.

And so sometimes those, those increases show a little bit more slowly.

But we're seeing those as well.

Okay.

And either one of you guys can answer this, but how do the improvements in Wabanaki compare to the state average.

So the improvements in Wabanaki compare to the state average in the sense that, our growth is comparable plus.

So if you overline our proficiency scores, in average increases over the state, you can see where, they superimpose and where we actually have made, an increase trajectory, in those, in those gains.

And you'll see that some of the data, okay, in some of the data, what motivated the board to get, your turnaround started?

Was everyone on the same page at the beginning?

Yeah, I, I would say that probably what triggered it.

We had an election, and we had four new board members.

Come on, a seven person board.

And so there were some new blood.

Doctor Page, one of our earlier meetings with that new group said, hey, you know, it's been a while since we've done some strategic planning.

I'm in a business where, you know, it's pretty routine to look at.

Where are we at?

Where do we want to go and and set some goals and put some parameters about how we get there.

And so we decided, in 2024 early to start that process.

And, and I would say at the outset, maybe half the board was excited about it.

I don't know if anybody gets excited about pre strategic planning.

But as the process as we went through the process, as we did community meetings, as we talked among the board about identifying those goals, I think by the end of the process it took 6 to 8 months.

I think the board realized the value in doing what we're doing and setting those goals.

Okay.

And you've said listening to the community was a key factor in the turnaround.

How did you go about that and what did you hear from parents and business owners?

Yeah.

So when we decided to do it, we set really five listening sessions, one with our our staff to get their input.

On the process.

And I think that's key.

We have great staff here who want to know what what they think.

But then we have about we have four small communities in our, in our rural district.

And we set a town hall meeting in each for those made sure that we got that out to the communities, and invited, constituents to come and, and give us some input on what they would like to see the school do.

Our strengths, our weaknesses, was led by the Kansas School Resources Board.

Doctor Tracy Frederick, who did a wonderful job.

And we as board members.

Really, it wasn't so much that we were engaged, were more in listening mode, letting Tracy read those meetings.

And we heard by far the number one thing was we want students to be proficient in the core subjects.

And so, that really guided us.

The other thing we heard was we need students ready for the real world.

And two things emerge.

We want them to be able to understand and participate in government, whether that's at the local, state or national level, and be able to handle their own household needs like balancing a checkbook presence, planning, planning, you know, daily, meal needs or other things like that, some basic skills.

And so those are the things that made it into our plan.

Okay.

So what did students and staff had to say about this?

I can say that, students, students enjoyed the clear expectations.

The staff enjoyed the clarity of knowing what the priorities are so that they could focus on on those things and not everything.

What we've learned over time is that you have to limit your focus to the things you want to get really good at.

You can't improve everything all at once.

You have to.

You have to find things to win.

And so they have a clear picture on what they're, what they're focused on.

Tell us about the goals you set after, your listening sessions that you held.

Yeah.

I think, you know, as I mentioned, top of mind was increasing, the proficiency in your core reading math, science.

And we set a goal that we wanted it to be, I believe 50% proficient in those topics, which we thought.

And we set incremental goals.

We actually said we want to spread that over a number of years.

That just happened.

Again, I credit to our great staff and administrators here.

We hit that in year one.

Hopefully we can sustain that over the next few years.

And then the other, like I mentioned, more emphasis on civics and, and, your own, like, home management type skill.

You check books, which we're going to try and work in our curriculum over the next few years.

Yes.

And so what changes did you make in the classroom relative to the focus areas?

You know, I don't think the changes in the classroom were anything beyond where to focus.

And reinforcement of the support behind the classroom.

So data monitoring became more of a supportive monitoring instead of a compliance check.

Professional developments and schedules were aligned around our emphasis as opposed to working against each other.

So all systems are pointing now in the same direction.

Okay.

What about changes outside the classroom?

So again, I would I would say that the support network that we build for students and staff, the programing design and how we carry out our yearly progress, has, has just been more focused.

We're much clearer on expectations of what we need our teachers doing.

They grab that and run with it.

Okay.

Now, did you have to reallocate any resources to implement this plan?

No, we did not.

We simply had to align the the resources that we currently do have and point them in the right direction as well.

Okay.

And how do you monitor progress with all of this.

So we review data at the campus level, the classroom level and at the district level.

And those conversations are exploratory, as opposed to accusatory.

And it allows our teachers to, to operate without the pressure of, of worrying that, that somehow their job is going to be impacted by, by their testing scores.

And we know, guys, it's hard to please everyone.

So we need to ask how have staff and students responded to all these changes?

You know, change is hard.

You know, from the board level, I'd say there when we did have our public meetings on setting the goals, there was some resistance, right?

Because, you know, it is you know, you kind of got up your game, but it is what the community wanted.

I think it's what we ought to be doing for our students.

So, yeah, we did hear some of that.

I defer to Doctor Page.

You know, on the day to day.

But I think since the initial implementation, we haven't heard a lot at the board level.

But perhaps there's more, the doctor can elaborate on.

I think for our staff and our students, we all realize that none of us are so totally evolved that we don't have room for growth.

I think we all realize this.

And with that in mind, we're all headed towards, growing our kids as far as we can grow them in the time that we have them.

Absolutely.

Now, now that you've seen some of the results, how has the community responded?

I think the the conversations that I have with parents, are they're hopeful.

I think it's changed from how are we going to get through this to, what's next, what's coming down the road that's going to that's going to grow our kids even more, an appreciation that the district is taking this mindset of growth.

And don't you guys feel like, I mean, everything we've heard from everyone, it really takes everybody to be on board.

It's a team effort.

It does everyone from custodial all the way up to the the the principal's office.

Everyone is aligned.

And when everyone's pointed in the same direction, progress is easier to obtain.

How proud are you guys of the latest data?

I think it's great.

I never thought.

I think when we first set the goals, there was, from the board, some question about can we achieve this?

And the fact that we hit it in the first year is phenomenal.

Again, a testament to our great staff administrators.

I think the next question in our mind is, can we sustain this, and keep this momentum going?

And I think to, you know, all of us want our kids to succeed if that's in the workforce or higher education, and we have to prepare them.

Yes.

That's our that's our role is public education.

We are to level the playing field and ensure that every student can, can live a great life, the life that they choose.

Well, thank you very much, doctor pitch.

And, Aaron, congratulations on your success and thank you for sharing your inspirational story.

We really appreciate it.

When we return, we'll hear from another education expert who has helped school districts around the country produce amazing results by implementing three powerful initiatives.

Part of that great success story we just heard about in the Wabanaki School District is their focus on curriculum and aligned instruction.

Our next guest will explain why the way students spend their days at school makes an enormous difference in their academic preparedness and future success.

Doctor Mike Shoemaker is a former administrator, English teacher, and football coach.

He has written several bestselling books and dozens of articles for educational journals, newspapers, and time magazine.

His most recent education bestsellers are the expanded second edition of Focus and Results Now 2.0, which was a number one new release on Amazon.

The first edition was a finalist for book of the year by the Association of Educational Publishers.

He is also the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award by the National Association of Secondary School Principals for his publications and presentations, and an Education Week survey of national school leaders.

He was ranked near the top of the best sources of practical nuts and bolts advice, wisdom and insight on effective school improvement.

Doctor Shoemaker, thank you for being a part of our series on resolving the literacy crisis in Kansas schools.

My pleasure.

Great to be here.

You bet.

Now, you recently spoke with some Kansas school board members and shared some surprising information about the way that many students in the United States spend their time in English language arts classes.

Tell us about your findings.

Well, it really is kind of surprising to the average person to find out that not a whole lot of reading and discussion and writing goes on in average English classes in America.

I mean, I you know, the research on that is well established.

And I routinely ask my audiences, what are the 2 or 3 things?

Or at least that even the kitchen English teacher or social studies, which should also be very literacy rich.

What are the 2 or 3 things you're least apt to see kids doing?

Reading and writing comes out almost immediately.

On behalf of of teachers and administrators.

But instead of reading and writing, tremendous amounts of nonacademic activities occur staggering amounts of screen time of of often aimless, even endless group work occurs.

And even starting in the early grades, people would be surprised at how much coloring and cutting and pasting occurs in, in so-called English reading or literacy classes.

All of these things over time have a have, have really subsumed and supplanted what ought to be just good old basic literacy students having plenty of opportunity to to read and talk about what they read and write about what they read, which is also, by the way, the most engaging and enjoyable part of the school day, if we do it right.

And Doctor Smoker, what are some hugely popular classroom actions that have a neutral or negative effect?

Well, I love to talk about for instance, grit and growth mindset.

There are nice concepts and there's research behind the basic theories, but no one's ever shown, including the architects and the advocates for these theories.

Grit and growth mindset are very, very popular in K-12 schooling these days.

No one's ever shown that if you do them, they will impact achievement.

Even even their again, their their arch advocates admit that what happens is instead of professional development, the training the teachers get that's supposed to help them to do the right things the right way.

They're being steeped in, theories like these.

Instead of being shown really simple, basic protocols that can be implemented immediately in any classroom as soon as tomorrow morning.

Built around real or authentic literacy?

Other ones include differentiated instruction, where kids are grouped by ability and by, you know, their they're they're their preferences or their so-called learning style.

All of these concepts are grossly debunked.

And of course, worksheets occupy.

Almost all educators agree with me here.

Worksheets.

Really low value boring worksheets occupy a good 5,060% of the school day.

If you extrapolate that out to 12 years, students spend about six years either staring at a screen or at a worksheet.

That's a that's an awful large amount of of precious educational time that goes down the sink.

So what are the actions that make the biggest impact?

Well, it really starts with, curriculum, which overlaps with literacy, as anyone might guess.

The single largest factor, if you look at all the research that's ever been amassed, it demonstrates that having a schedule of what to teach and when has the biggest impact on what how many kids learn in a classroom, a school or a school district?

The thing is, it's extremely rare.

Let me just, just explain why that curriculum or that schedule of what to teach in one is critical.

If teachers don't know what to teach, they're going to teach.

A very, very different set of topics and skills.

This leaves enormous holes in the average kid's knowledge and their knowledge base, which, as is well known and become it's finally becoming well known.

Really well known.

Is is the key to being able to understand the books and articles and texts that you come across in text books that you read in school.

So they need that knowledge base right now without a curriculum.

We don't provide that knowledge base.

The other really important, if overlooked, unsung factor is the teachers need to know what to teach and when, because that provides them with a guide to what sequence in which they should teach the topics and skills, and how much time to devote.

There are studies that show that one teacher will spend three weeks on something, another teacher spends a couple of days on.

And sad to say, no one in the school or district is really aware of these massive differences from teacher to teacher, even if they're teaching the same course in the same hallway in the same school.

Big big differences.

So that's that's foundational.

The other to support the curriculum literacy, which as I've mentioned large generous amounts of meaningful, purposeful reading and discussion and writing have to be a big part of the almost the engine of the curriculum.

A lot of the learning of the curriculum needs to be driven by reading, writing and discussion.

And then finally, the third element, which every teacher is, is familiar with, but they but doesn't get the emphasis that it deserves is teaching.

That includes something called checking for understanding.

All it means is this there's a lot of complexity you could add to any discussion of what good teaching is.

But the kicker is, if you make clear to kids what they're going to have to learn by the end of that class period, and they know how it will be assessed.

Like you have to you have to get four out of five math problems, correct?

Or write a paragraph comparing two literary figures or two historical figures.

You have to write a decent paragraph.

The minute they know that you double or triple the amount of kids who are engaged and will be successful in that lesson.

The single other big factor that comes in there is you teach whatever you're teaching in small, manageable steps or chunks, as educators like to say.

And between each chunk, you're walking around the room to see if or how well the kids are learning that step.

If they are to, they often are not.

We should be routinely, as teachers.

Reteaching.

Or clarifying or giving students another shot at it with a little bit more explanation that, believe it or not, those are the two major, major factors that account for effective teaching.

And if they align with, you know, so if that kind of teaching supports lots of literacy, good literacy activity and a solid knowledge base curriculum, you're not only going to see improvements, you're going to see achievement soar almost invariably within weeks.

And certainly it's going to show up in test scores within a single school year.

Now, in your book, you write that the three most powerful elements of student improvement are guaranteed curriculum, authentic literacy, and effective lessons.

What do you mean by a guaranteed curriculum and why does that have so much impact?

It's, you know, it's a pretty straightforward term.

Once, once we we encounter it.

The people who use that term open, meaning bar mark, Bob Marzano originated that term.

And he basically used it to make crystal clear that if you can't say to your community, to you, or to your parents that your child will receive, we can guarantee that your child will receive the this basic knowledge and this basic these basic skills in the math or English or social studies or science class or or art class that they take.

We've defined it, and we're not saying that it's 100% the same for all teachers teaching it, but all of those essentials, we guarantee will be taught to your kid.

You don't have to worry about the situation as it exists today, which is there are huge differences.

One teacher to the next and again how much content are taught topics they cover and which ones and how much or or when they teach the sequence in which they teach it.

Those things you can guarantee are done and an offer to your child, uniformly within the school.

And authentic literacy is another powerful element.

Tell us about that.

Well, it is because as as I want to say, the most important part of curriculum, it, authentic literacy is, is simply making sure that your, your child isn't given pseudo literate activities like making posters or drawing pictures of their favorite literary characters.

Authentic literacy simply means.

And this might sound exaggerated, but it's ever so possible to to to do in a school day.

Providing your child with a generous amount, maybe 45 minutes to an hour a day of actual reading with discussions about the text or the reading of the story of the book, or the chapter, or the poem or or the section of a social studies text, or or or the history that they're studying, or the scientific concepts that they're, that they're learning in their science classes.

We make sure lots of lots of text is provided for the kid.

They're engaging that text through discussion.

And then the regular routinely writing about what they read and learn.

Great information is that.

And so what are the effective lessons and how are they different?

Well, they're, they're, they're different in this one key respect.

And it is odd as this might sound, there is less actual teaching occurring in our school with the teacher upfront teaching, teaching a whole class of children than there has ever been.

We've seen this coming on for, oh, a generation or more.

If if a if a teacher is having students spend too much time in extended group work in filling out in sitting passively at a screen and and doing the work on the computer at whatever pace they prefer.

You have a problem if you have too much group work, too much screen time, too much in the early grades and beyond, too much time with students completing what one literacy expert called a literary arts and crafts instead of reading, writing, discussing the content and the knowledge or the literature that you're learning in school.

You've got a problem.

And how long does it take to implement guaranteed curriculum?

Authentic literacy and effective lessons?

And when do you start seeing results?

It doesn't take long to implement a good, clear, teacher friendly curriculum.

There's a teacher's best friend is a schedule of what to teach and when with along with that of course guidance on how much time to spend on each topic or skill or content knowledge as they as they teach.

The results are virtually immediate.

Any teacher using a again a simple, clear curriculum will start to see and realize the benefits within days or weeks.

And the only schools I know who began to do this really energetically and assiduously saw measurable results within a year, usually dramatically.

A school in Boston, the Boston public system, where a friend of mine was the principal.

Nine years of him trying various things.

No gains whatsoever.

The, the, the moment that he implemented asked his teachers to create their own simple curriculum.

That year, they went from the bottom third in the Boston public system to the top in achievement.

And, and it was a school with about 70% poverty rate.

My own wife's school right down the road from where I am.

The moment they implemented a curriculum in a two year period, they saw the largest gains in the state.

And I went to the award ceremony to share their pleasure and, and, and and watch them receive that reward.

Well, thank you so much for sharing all this with us today.

It is so interesting.

We truly appreciate it again.

That was doctor.

Smoker and we appreciate him joining us and sharing all the research.

We welcome school board members to discuss how their leadership in their role and responsibility to ensure our schools are focused on upholding the standards that will teach the skills necessary for our kids to be prepared to succeed in college and careers.

Our panelists are Kathy Budi, a former teacher and current school board member from the Darby district, and Laurie Barnes, current school board member from the Kansas City School District.

And joining them is Doctor Tracy Frederick, executive director from the Kansas School Board Resource Center.

And before we get into our conversation, I want to let you know that you have our sincere gratitude.

You really do, for your service to our school districts.

And we know it's a tough job and appreciate your willingness to step into this challenging role.

I talked with another school board member in another segment, who discussed how important it is for you to have the information and resources you need to make informed decisions as you lead our districts to help us find out the way out of this, out of this literacy crisis.

Many educational leaders say it's obvious that we have been on this downward path for some time, and they've heard some very startling statistics, and the data is disturbing.

But as you sit in a school board members chair and lead our districts, tell us what you believe are some solutions and the essential components of board leadership that is needed to not only address this crisis, but find our way to the other side.

And let's begin with you, Laurie.

What do you believe is a critical component to addressing the crisis and moving the districts forward?

Really honestly, it's kind of simple and indirect, but it's community engagement.

I think when you can have those open and honest, engaging conversations with those in your community and get them on board with, you know, moving our district forward, seeing the vision of where we want our kids to be.

And where we want our district to go.

That that encompasses so much more.

And they buy into the vision that you have for their kids, and that makes them have ownership in what, you know, what we're trying to move our district forward to.

So having that open dialog and letting them, you know, kind of direct some of that, where we're going with our district and what they would like to see and listening to.

I think that so important.

And so, like sometimes that's the piece that's missing is that they want to feel like they're part of where we're moving, and they're not just being, you know, it's not a directive coming from superintendents and board members down that they are part of that vision.

And they know where we want our kids, where we want their kids to be and where we want our own kids to be.

And, you know, they're they're just part of that whole process.

It's not a hierarchy thing.

It's a more of a encompassing circular piece.

Right.

So how do you get that community engagement going?

So, you know, it's it's somebody may not always agree.

And obviously this is just my opinion as a board member, but having that open, dialog, that open communication, open door policy is huge.

Just when people know that they can come to you and that they're going to be heard and listened to and you're going to be able to provide that feedback to them so that when you go to the board table or when you're having a discussion with the superintendent, that transparency is there and they know that you're going to bat for them and what's best for their kids.

And our district.

So it's just, you know, that that open door policy is so huge.

And that's to be able to to provide that.

That's where you see the support come in from, you know, your district because they know you've got their back.

Absolutely.

And now, Kathy, I want to ask you a little bit about school boards and how do school boards really make a difference in that long range success?

Well, I want to start by saying to you that I'm speaking for myself, not my I'm speaking as a one school board member of seven.

But, I feel like our society has moved away from accountability and so we have focused in Derby on bringing back accountability.

I think of it as three pillars to a successful education.

It's a team.

It's the schools.

It's the students and the parents.

And we all have to be accountable to our roles in order for a student to be successful.

If you have one of those pillars that's weak, then the other two can help catch that person up or get them where they need to be.

But if you have two, it's very difficult.

So we have focused on bringing back accountability in all three areas, and I'm pretty proud of what we've been doing.

So I love that.

And we know the teachers are out there in those classrooms.

What can the school boards do to help those teachers?

We're providing them with tools that they need.

First of all, curriculum is paramount to a successful education, and it needs to be research based.

The science of reading is critical for literacy success.

So I just firmly believe that a number one piece of it we need to, make sure that we have things in place so that they're not having disruptions in the classroom.

So, behaviors have really we we've been dealing with a lot more dysregulated children in the schools.

And so we have come up with a behavior matrix.

It's point system.

We've had it for several years now for middle and high school, but we have brought it into the elementary this last year.

And, it's a point system.

We have the Rise program that we brought in for elementary.

And those students, if they reach a certain amount of points, they can go to the Rise program rather than being suspended or expelled.

And it is a very structured, where they earn privileges back and learn how to regulate their behaviors.

And then the last, privilege that they earn back is coming back to the regular classroom.

So we hope that that process goes smoothly.

We've had several, success stories.

And, we're hoping to see this will help, because if there's disruptions in the classroom, it's hard for teachers to teach and students to learn.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And and, Laurie, what are your thoughts on this?

So I, I completely agree.

And piggybacking on the disruptions, you know, one of the things that, we see a lot of, and one thing that we put into place this year was, you know, the cell phone policy, banning cell phones.

And that is a huge disruption that we were seeing across the board.

And it was, you know, it wasn't just that our kids were seeing the disruptions.

It was our teachers were seeing the disruptions.

It was disruptions just across, you know, the schools and, it's it's interesting that, you know, the the kids were probably the ones that fought at the most.

We had a few parents, but now having about six months in, the kids are the ones that are coming to us and saying, thank you for doing that, because I feel like I'm actually being able to engage with my teachers and engage with my students.

And that piece, I think they're so longing for because with Covid, we lost that piece.

Everything was so technology based.

Just so because we wanted to ensure that our kids were still being educated.

That was really our only means of doing it.

Unfortunately, that piece took out that engagement piece, that one on one piece that I think our kids now are so longing for.

And I think that's why we're seeing some of these, you know, concerning statistics that we are especially with literacy and math skills and things like that, we have to be able to go back to the basics and start, you know, it's kind of like an onion.

You've got to peel back the layers to see where where we start and get to the core of and then kind of build it back up and yeah, the disruptions, I mean, unfortunately, technology can be a positive thing or it can be something that is detrimental and it's not detrimental.

It's just right now, it's detrimental to our kids education in a way that instead of using it as an aid to help educate our kids, we're using it as a teaching method.

And we have to take that, you know, pull back some of that.

Absolutely.

And, Tracy, you work with a lot of school boards across the state, and there's a lot on the agenda to get this resolved.

How do you see that happening?

Well, I think you're hearing from two outstanding school board members, as you said, I talked to a lot of school board members daily, and you can see that they're invested deeply into the education of students.

This is not just a symbolic chair that they sit in.

They're certainly very, very interested in getting the information that they need.

So we know that if we can get school board members and we can get teachers together, we've seen some amazing things happen.

So building needs Assessment says that school board members are to they're required to to to find out what are the obstacles that teachers have in order to meet the assessment goals that they have.

And then from there, they they put together their budget.

So being able to put those board members and those teachers together, we see that, you know, these policies in some different, ways in which school board members are really listening to their constituents and trying to figure out what is it that we can do to really tackle this literacy crisis because we didn't get here overnight.

We got here step by step, and then we find our place here, just as we have in a lot of different, you know, different times in our history.

And so it's our it's time that it's such an urgent crisis.

Now we really need to take this by the helm.

And we know that school board members are those that are can do that.

They oversee, they represent their constituents, and they're able to pass those policies just as they have done as so many other school boards have done, in order to ensure that our students are getting that high quality education that you talked about in the introduction, because that's what we all want to play.

We all want to work together, and it's going to take a team effort, because we want all of our kids to get a great education and be ready for the workforce.

That's right.

Okay.

Well, thank you, ladies.

And when we began our discussion, we recognized this is a service.

And it takes a great deal of time and commitment.

And we appreciate you offering your insight and giving us a glimpse into the challenges you face and how great school board leadership.

Working toward solutions is key to resolving our literacy crisis in Kansas.

And when we return, we'll look at some of the opportunities for state legislators to set the stage for improving literacy in Kansas.

Schools.

State legislators don't tell school districts how to spend money or manage the day to day operations.

But our next guest says the legislature has the constitutional and statutory authority to ensure that the state school board and local school boards are complying with existing laws that are designed to improve student outcomes and create an environment that encourages academic improvement.

James Franco is the president of Kansas Policy Institute, which also owns the Kansas School Board Resource Center.

So thank you so much for joining us, James.

We appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm happy to be here.

Yes.

Now let me ask you this.

What is your role at Kansas Policy Institute with regard to education?

So if we think that the the 50 states are the laboratories of democracy, right, then a big part of my job is to help the legislature, legislators, excuse me, understand what's going on in those other laboratories.

If a state is passing a cell phone ban, how is that working in that state?

If a state is passing a school choice, legislation, how is that working?

If a different state is, like we've seen with Mississippi over the last number of years, just exploding in academic achievement, we want to be able to understand what's going on, what they're doing well, but they're not doing well.

Maybe, share that story.

Share those experiences with the legislators and with other policymakers around the state to help them drive academic outcomes.

So that could be doing research papers and analysis on the boring end of things.

Right.

Or it could be, actually crafting policy and helping them understand what a piece of legislation is maybe doing.

Well isn't doing well, and ultimately really trying to drive towards better student outcomes across the state, not just in given school districts or for a given segment of the population.

Now, we've heard from some people that some school board members aren't allowed to visit schools whenever they want.

Can you kind of give us some insight and can the legislature do anything about that?

So the short answer is yes, of course, the legislature can do a lot about that.

Right.

And we've heard those same stories.

And it's easy to, to pick out good stories that tell the story that we want to or stories, unfortunately, you know, that work against, what the story that we're trying to tell.

But the legislature, if we can back up a step not just about school boards themselves or school board visits.

Excuse me.

We can talk about what role the legislature has in setting policy when it comes to education in the state of Kansas.

And the answer is they have broad constitutional and statutory latitude to actually influence policy at the local district level.

And half of every dollar that we spend at the state level is going towards education.

But the legislative remit goes well beyond simply funding education.

And then moving on with their lives.

So to your specific question, yes, they could set a policy that ensured student safety, that made sure that, you know, district, school board members weren't having unfettered access to everything, but to set up a system whereby we want local districts to implement this kind of a policy that gives elected board members the opportunity to come in to interact with faculty members, to interact with administrators, to interact with teachers, and then in a proper, safe way to interact with kids so that way they are directly responsible, and they're hearing from the people who are actually experiencing education in the state of Kansas and getting firsthand knowledge.

That's exactly right.

And we'll talk about this more, I'm sure.

But that's where we want to be with kind of this idea of democratic accountability.

We want the people who are closest to the end user, in this case, kids in schools and teachers, to have direct access and to be very much plugged in in what's going on, not, you know, staying two, three, 4 or 5, ten steps removed from what's actually going on because it's ultimately the district, board members who are accountable to parents, to the patrons of a district for the outcomes that we all want to see in our schools.

Now, some school officials say allowing board members to visit schools on their own would create safety issues.

What do you think about this safety issues?

Again, I think those are legitimate concerns, right?

When we send our kids to schools, be they public or private or a micro school or whatever, we want to know that they're safe and everybody shares that same goal.

Sure.

So the question becomes, how can we do that safely?

And the same kinds of policies that every district in the state has in place to ensure student safety with multiple adults, with reporting systems, all of these different kinds of things, you could have similar systems set up to where board members were able to come to buildings, meet in, you know, groups with kids, but mostly maybe ultimately also with the adults here as well.

So that way we have this free flow of ideas.

We can talk about what's going well, what's not going well.

And we can do that in a safe way, in the same way that we trust teachers and administrators to do those kinds of interactions with kids every single day.

And I don't know why we can't trust board members to have that same kind of an interaction.

Right?

Absolutely.

And I seem to recall that last year, legislation was proposed to require school districts to publish the email addresses of school board members.

Is that really an issue?

It is, and it's funny.

I was thinking about it then, you know, kind of thinking about what we were going to discuss today.

If I want to email a legislator, right.

One of our democratically elected representatives in Topeka, I go to the legislative website.

It's got their official email address.

It, you know, CSGo, some of them have 2 or 3 different personal email addresses.

They have personal phone numbers.

And why wouldn't we want that same kind of idea with our local boards of education as well, just as we would with a city council member or a county commissioner, all these different levels of government, if we believe in federalism, if we believe in subsidiarity, that the people who are closest to, again, kind of that end user in this case, again, it's the kiddos, why wouldn't we want the average citizen to make it just super easy to get in touch with them and say, hey, here's what I'm experiencing so they don't have to just come to a board meeting.

They can have that interaction with their elected officials.

But unfortunately, in many cases, that's not the case.

It has to go through some kind of generic contact form or to some kind of generic account that then is only filtered through staff or what have you into the actual board members, inbox.

And that's got it completely, completely backwards.

And a lot of times that feels like a disconnect.

Yeah it does.

Yeah.

Right.

And you know, without getting into all sorts of other stuff, it's like we want to know we're kind of in this moment where we are culturally that our elected representatives are accountable to us.

And that's part of the job, right?

When they say they raise their hand and they say, hey, I want to help kids, then that should be part of the expectation that they're going to, be accountable and have to engage in those discussions.

And it doesn't necessarily mean it's adversarial or something, but it means that that's part of the job and we should welcome that.

And the state has a role, I think, in ensuring that all subordinate levels of government, are in direct contact with their citizens and are achieving the goals that the state wants.

Great point.

Now, we heard in previous interviews that two state audits determined that school districts are not spending at risk funding as required in law, and the state Board of Education won't make districts follow the law.

Is there anything the legislature can do to get that funding to the students who really need it?

Yes, absolutely.

And this I mean, I mentioned it before, half of every dollar that we spend at the state level goes to K-12 education.

That says nothing of the local districts or what the feds chip in as well.

And about a half $1 billion of that, a half $1 billion every year, goes to at risk funding.

And it's supposed to be for above and beyond services, not just what's going on in the classroom, not just to pay Mrs.

Smith salary or not just for textbooks, but it it is above and beyond.

And we've had two audits that have been done by the state bean counters.

These are the people with the green eyes shades.

Right.

Making sure that laws are being followed, that money is being spent in the way it was appropriated.

It's called the legislative post audit.

Staff, they do a wonderful job.

And on two separate occasions in 2019 and in 2023.

So just before the pandemic and then just after the pandemic, that confirmed what they had found previously.

That said, local districts aren't spending this money on Above and Beyond services, which is very clearly in the statute.

And unfortunately, up to this point, neither the state board nor the legislature has really been willing to hold those local districts feet to the fire when it comes to making sure that that money is getting to the kids, that we want it to get to, the kids who need the most help, the kids who suffered the most through the pandemic when we were doing remote learning and all these other kinds of things.

It's not getting to the kids who need it the most.

Yeah, and it's just it's tragic that we're leaving those kiddos even further and further behind.

And we need the state board or the legislature through the accreditation process or what have you, to really make sure that we're focusing that at rest, all those at risk dollars, and to make sure that we're really focusing on driving the achievement in the opportunities that we want for our kids.

And they get to those kids.

That's right for us.

In previous interviews, we heard concerns about the state school board implementing a new state assessment test and proficiency standards, making it impossible to track progress from prior years.

Can the legislature do anything about that?

Yes, they can, and it gets back to this where we started, right?

We kind of think about the legislature as well.

They're just responsible for funding, right.

Or the state board or the local boards are just responsible for policy.

But the legislature has a broad remit to engage in the policymaking of K-12 education, as well.

And we shouldn't allow this kind of like post No Child Left Behind every 5 or 6 years over the this century to, to let those standards and those assessments change so it makes it harder to track.

So a couple of years ago, in 2024, I believe the legislature passed the blueprint for literacy that, outlined this laser focus on literacy.

And it said we wanted to have a goal as a state from going from one third of every kid being proficient to one out of two or half of kids being proficient in just a number of years.

And by changing that state assessment and then by changing the scores by which we evaluate that assessment, it makes it very, very difficult to track that and know that we're actually getting to the goal.

So the legislature absolutely has the opportunity to do so.

And they could do that via the budget.

They could establish, different rules to say, we're only going to use this test that we use previously.

There were of different ways that they could do that.

It's just whether or not they or the state board for that matter, wants to go to something where we can actually track progress and see how kids are doing.

Right.

Okay.

I was going to ask, could the state board just refuse to give an assessment test?

Can they refuse it?

Could they say, nope, we're not doing it?

No, they could not.

Again, I mentioned No Child Left Behind.

Right.

This was President George H.W.

Bush's like signature pre 911 policy, policy goal that was implemented.

And it said that every state has to do a state assessment.

It didn't dictate a state assessment.

It's been tweaked.

It's been changed.

It's been driven through changes across Trump and Biden and Obama and the end of the Bush years.

But every state has to give a state assessment to their public school kiddos.

It's just a question of who's going to design the assessment, if it's going to be trackable and those kinds of things as well.

Now, one of our previous guests says many school districts don't have specific achievement goals.

Do you think the legislature could do anything in that regard?

I do, and we saw this just a couple of years ago, right, with this blueprint for literacy, where they said, this is this literacy program we want.

We're going to teach the teachers how to teach literacy, right, to, focus on on actual academic, opportunity phonics, the science of reading and these kind of things.

And they set this specific goal.

And there's nothing to prevent them from doing that same thing more broadly across all of the different core subject areas.

When they're spending that money, that they're spending through the funding formula or whatnot and say, hey, we want to achieve this concrete goal of this kind of improvement over the next certain number of years.

And the legislature has that authority.

The state board could implement those same things.

And ultimately, as I'm sure you've talked about, is we could also have local boards doing those same kind of like rigorous goal setting to just, again, be laser focused on student achievement because it's going to take everybody.

Right?

That's right.

It really is.

That's right.

And it's it's a lot of these things.

It becomes almost like a crutch to where it's like, well, that's not my responsibility.

That's the other person's responsibility, or that's the local board, not the state board or no, no, no, no, that's not the legislature.

And it's not this Kumbaya kind of thing.

Right.

But it's a responsibility that each and every adult in this system is going to have to focus on these things, put down their ego a little bit, which is hard to do.

Right.

But really make sure that we're in this for the right reasons and that we're focusing on the kids.

And when those adult behaviors start to change is ultimately when we'll see the kiddos have the opportunities that they deserve.

Absolutely.

Now you have laid out some big ideas.

And what do you really think is the likelihood that the legislature that the legislature will act on them?

I think there is a growing realization in the legislature, if not in the state, with the districts and things like this, that something has got to change and it's just a matter of who and when is going to change.

Again.

We talked about the laboratories of democracy at the beginning here.

Right.

And that we've got all of these different states doing all of these different kinds of things.

And the question is whether or not it's going to happen in Kansas.

And I think it will.

And that number is growing of the legislators who are really focused on these things at the state level.

And it's not a Partizan issue.

It's not Republican and Democrat.

It's not blue and red.

It's just a growing realization that how education is being delivered is changing in this day and age.

Right.

With learning pods and online education and all of these different, you know, educational opportunities that just didn't exist, maybe when you and I were in school and they are.

So it's a question of whether or not the legislature is really going to focus on those things.

And that number is growing.

Right.

But it's an election year.

So that always, you know, shuffles the deck a little bit.

But ultimately this is where these discussions are going to be had.

And it's how people are going to focus on these things is what are you doing to ensure that my kids and my neighbors, kids and the kids in the other corner of the state have the opportunities that they deserve, that we expect them to have when we send them to school every morning.

Well, thank you, James, so much for being here.

We appreciate all.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

You've certainly given us a lot to think about for sure.

Now, this concludes our three part series on resolving the literacy crisis in Kansas schools.

It's very encouraging to know that solutions exist and are working in some parts of Kansas and across the nation.

It just takes courage.

Well, one thing Superintendent Doctor Troy Pitch said it best take the approach that no one is to blame for where we are, but everyone is responsible for implementing what needs to change.

Start where you are, listen deeply and measure what matters.

I hope you found this series to be worth your time, and please encourage your friends and your neighbors to watch.

It's available to watch online at the web address right here on your screen.

I'm your host, Jamal Hall.

Patrick, thanks for joining us.

Support for this program was provided by the Kansas School Board Resource Center.