IRA’s legislative proposal generates interest on Capitol Hill

Bill would make professional development a national priority

IRA’s new professional development legislative initiative that would guarantee high-needs students get quality reading instruction from elementary through high school is generating interest on Capitol Hill.

Richard M. Long, IRA’s director of government relations, said participants in the Government Relations Legislative Workshop in Washington, DC, in February visited their senators and representatives with a list of “talking points,” among which was the professional development initiative. The informal meetings garnered attention from several members of Congress, and IRA hopes a bill can be crafted and introduced before the IRA Annual Convention in May.

IRA’s proposal would change preservice teacher preparation and inservice training to reflect the need for sustained, focused, quality reading instruction and make it a national priority. IRA is pushing for significant sums–approaching $1 billion a year–in order to fund its proposal at an appropriate level to achieve the desired results.

The legislative proposal is actually based on previous IRA policy, much of which already has been published in various IRA position papers. In December, the Board of Directors authorized a committee to envision a federal program that would fund multiyear professional development in reading instruction. The committee met by telephone over the winter and came up with the principles embodied in the proposal.

Professional development cannot be done in a piecemeal fashion, Long said. It must be for extended periods of time, both preservice and inservice, and involve literally hundreds of hours of clock time in order to be effective.

The initiative outlined

IRA’s proposal outlines what is required to implement its comprehensive vision:

There must be adequate resources dedicated to reading instruction so that it is continuously and effectively improved.

Despite funding and programs such as Reading First directed at improving reading achievement in the early years, not all young children can read at a basic—let alone proficient—level. Reports from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that often, despite quality instruction in the early years, student achievement stalls in the middle and upper grades and the achievement gap between affluent and poorer students widens.
To improve such lackluster results, IRA’s proposal recommends that states must raise the bar for licensure and certification of both elementary and secondary teachers to demonstrate a strong working knowledge of how to teach reading.

A strong recruitment and retention program must be in place in order to boost overall reading achievement and close the achievement gap between rich and poor students.

Studies show that teacher turnover is consistently higher in high-poverty, high-minority schools than in more affluent schools and schools serving more white students.
IRA believes every child deserves to have an excellent teacher in her or his classroom. A simultaneous investment in improving teacher preparation programs coupled with ongoing professional development will ensure a healthy supply of highly qualified teachers ready and able to reach children of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds in all school settings.

There must be a robust, ongoing effort to identify and disseminate effective evidence-based reading practices for teachers and administrators to implement.

Excellent reading instruction requires specialized knowledge about language; how children learn, develop, and acquire literacy skills; and a variety of instructional strategies. No single instructional strategy has been found to be unvaryingly successful; instead, teachers who are familiar with a wide range of research and able to skillfully use a broad repertoire of approaches are typically most successful.
When professional development is sustained and focused on academic content and research-based instructional strategies, both teaching practice and student achievement improve. Administrators must be trained as instructional leaders who support and understand teachers’ efforts to improve reading instruction.

Developing community partnerships will lead to improved reading instruction throughout the educational system.

A reading professional development initiative should require states, institutions of higher education, and school districts to work together to achieve consistency in teacher preparation and professional development as aligned with school curriculums and education policy.
Reading course work in teacher preparation programs must be required for all teachers to become certified. According to a recent study, some beginning teachers may have as many as 24 semester hours of work related to reading instruction while others have as few as 3 semester hours. The national average ranges between 1.3 courses for primary teachers and 2.2 courses for all elementary teachers.
In addition, teacher trainees should be required to have field experiences with high-needs students, as well as modeling and mentoring by master teachers.

Initiative calls for major national investment

IRA’s proposed legislative initiation reflects its core belief that high-quality education is critical to the future well-being of children and thus to the nation’s future. Although most children do learn to read, there are a significant number of children who do not read as well as they must in order to function in a global society with its increased demands for high-level literacy.

All schools—especially high-poverty, low-performing schools—should have excellent reading teachers. Reversing the current situation so that the best teachers teach the students who most need expert teachers requires a comprehensive approach. Teachers in these schools must be well prepared to implement research-based programs and practices, and they must have the knowledge and skill to use professional judgment when those programs and practices are not working for particular children.

There must be a major national investment in teacher preparation and professional development to ensure that every teacher is competent to teach reading to students of various ability levels. Students deserve nothing less than a comprehensive effort to support their continued development as readers and writers.

IRA members, many of whom have expressed pride in IRA’s involvement in this initiative, are encouraged to contact IRA’s Government Relations Division about working with representatives in Congress to cosponsor legislation. For more information, e-mail IRAWash@reading.org.

IRA’s legislative proposal generates interest on Capitol Hill. (April 2008). Reading Today, 25(5), 8.