A Huntersville Elementary student works on a reading lesson.
The pandemic created a host of immediate challenges, but the key to long-term economic recovery is teaching North Carolina’s children to read. That’s according to state lawmakers who recently passed a new “science of reading” bill and a group of CEOs who gathered recently to support that strategy.
They re pinning their hopes on what some might consider an unlikely source of inspiration: Mississippi.
Earlier this month, Republicans and Democrats united to pass a bill that mandates a new approach to reading. Soon afterward, a group of North Carolina executives held a virtual news conference to lend their support. They say creating a new generation with strong reading skills is essential to building the work force they need.
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Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday signed into law a controversial bill requiring a phonics-based approach to teaching students to read.
Despite his veto of similar legislation in 2019, Cooper said in a statement that Senate Bill 387 will help students and teachers.
“Learning to read early in life is critical for our children and this legislation will help educators improve the way they teach reading,” the governor said. “But ultimate success will hinge on attracting and keeping the best teachers with significantly better pay and more help in the classroom with tutoring and instructional coaching.”
Senate leader Phil Berger, (R-Rockingham County) sponsored SB 387. It is supposed to fix deficiencies in the state’s “Read to Achieve” law he championed in 2012 to ensure all students read on grade level by the end of third grade.
A school bulletin board posted before 2019 exams notes the limits of standardized testing.
North Carolina recently got a federal waiver from some year-end testing requirements, but that doesn’t mean students can skip those exams.
The federal waiver means North Carolina is not required to issue school letter grades, school report cards or low-performing school labels based on student test scores this year. But unlike last spring, when the exams themselves were canceled because of the pandemic, students will have to take state exams in May.
And they’ll have to come to school to do that, even if they’ve been learning remotely all year. Accountability Director Tammy Howard told the state Board of Education on Wednesday it’s not practical to ensure testing security from students’ homes.
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