The following Open Letter to the Highline School Board was submitted by Alex Myrick, a verified Highline area resident.
[NOTE FROM EDITOR: Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Burien.News or Daniel Media. If you wish to submit a story, photo, article or letter, please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.]
By the end of this week, Highline School District will have over 1,000 newly minted graduates. The tragic irony is that many of them will be unable to read their own diplomas.
At the June 4th school board meeting, Superintendent Duran bragged: “Literacy remains a central priority in Highline, and we continue to invest deeply in the systems, professional learning and supports to ensure every student becomes a strong reader…”
These would be encouraging words if they were sincere and reflected in the record. However, I was present at a board meeting several months ago where former directors Hagos and Petrini proposed a motion to make literacy a legislative priority. This was voted down by Directors Alvarez, Tidholm and Van, with the approval of Superintendent Duran. Are we seeing a 180-degree reversal, or is this a case of just giving lip service to literacy?
If our graduates cannot read and write adequately, prospective employers do not care how much they feel they belonged in school, or how empathetic they are, or how many years of Social Emotional Learning instruction they have received.
In December 2023, Highline School District acknowledged that over 50% of Highline students are three or more years behind academically. We need to invest in literacy programs with proven effectiveness. We need tutoring and intensive remediation for those who have fallen behind. We need robust goals and measurable key performance indicators. If a student is three years behind and meets the goal of progressing one grade level over one year, they are still three years behind.
The American Reading Company has some dedicated line staff, but notoriously poor upper management. We have paid them for their services for over five years, and reading scores have deteriorated during that time. It’s time to find a replacement, or at least diversify. Much damage has already been done, and we have another generation of young people seriously at risk.
~ Alex Myrick
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3 Responses
Yes. Deeply saddened to recently learn from a credible source that a Highline elementary school principal has instructed her K-5 music teacher to cease all paper/pencil activities because “writing triggers students.”
Whatever happened to the READ RIGHT program that Highline Schools Superintendent Joe McGeehan instituted District-wide at the sophomore level many years ago?
The program was created by a woman named Dee Tadlock whose son had trouble reading. Dee was an adult literacy specialist with the Weyerhauser company, and she spent a lot of time looking at brain research. Before he announced that Highline Schools would implement the program District-wide in Highline, McFGeehan – who served as Superintendent for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004 – investigated the results the READ RIGHT program was producing at Kent Meridian high school, and also in the Union Gap school district in the Yakima area. Reportedly, McGeehan personally went to the Union Gap school district himself, met with the Superintendent there, and also visited classrooms where the program was being used; McGeehan was not only a voracious reader himself, he rolled-up his sleeves and jumped-in when it was time to-go-work solving problems, including getting a school bond passed.
The program was instituted District-wide at the sophomore level for students whose reading ability was already 2+ years below grade level.
On average, the READ RIGHT program helped 75% of those students to read at grade level (reading ability, and comprehension) in just 8 weeks! That’s not a typo: 8 weeks!
According to the principal at Mount Rainier high school (who had personal experience with the program at Kent Meridian before taking the top job at Mount Rainier), it was a key factor in students at Mount Rainier high school increasing their writing scores by 20 percentile points in a single year (not 20%, but 20 points), which contributed to Mount Rainier not only being named a Washington School of Distinction, but also being one of only seven schools at any grade level in Washington state to come off the federal “No Child Left Behind” list in the minimum time-period of 2 years.
It’s an expensive program. The Superintendent of the Kent School District at the time (who axed the program in Kent because it was expensive, even though it produced stellar results) asked Superintendent McGeehan why he implemented the program when it was so expensive. In telling the story of that conversation, Superintendent McGeehan indicated it didn’t make a lot of sense to spend money on other subjects (such as science, math, history or vocational programs), if students couldn’t read the textbooks in those other subjects.
According to former Schools Superintendent Randy Dorn (who said he was familiar with the program, and personally liked it) his OSPI staff members opposed the program because there was only 12-years of data demonstrating it worked, and they wanted 20-years of data before they would consider funding it.
And the fates of the students during those 20-years who graduated, or dropped-out, without being able to read…….?
Graduating students who are illiterate are soon going from being financially dependent on their parents to a lifetime of being financially dependent on the taxpayers.
Why is this an acceptable outcome of our school system?