By Nicole Asbury November 8, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST Washington Post
Montgomery County advocacy groups and afterschool service providers say they have noticed a troubling trend: Students of color were not reading on grade level, but their parents had no idea because a report card indicated the child was passing in the subject.
Now, the Black and Brown Coalition — an advocacy group for families of color — is asking Montgomery County Public Schools to make that information moreeasily accessibleto parents. The group is asking for an “early-warning system” that would require educators toidentify students who are falling behind in reading and communicatethat directly to families through a letter and phone call. They arealso asking that the school system provide interventions once a child is below grade level and that those plans are communicated with parents.
Part of their request mirrors a literacy policy recently approved by the Maryland State Department of Education that requires schools to screen students on their reading progress three times each year and notify families.
“For years, Black and Brown parents had been anesthetized, if you will, because they had no idea the magnitude of the problem facing their own children,” said Diego Uriburu, whose group, Identity, provides afterschool programs to Hispanic and Latino youth in the county.🌸
Wylea Chase, director of operations and community engagement for the Black and Brown Coalition, said parents have talked among themselves for a long time about their confusion with their child’s progress in reading. A report card would indicate a child was performing well in the subject, she said, but parents would later get a notice to enroll them in summer school to improve their academic performance.
“Our parents simply did not know,” she said. “And you can’t support what you don’t know.”
The school system gives other data — like state and district test scores — that say whether a child is behind, but it can be confusing.
MontgomerySuperintendent Thomas Taylor has acknowledgedthere are “a lot of gaps” in how the school system communicates with families. During a recent town hall hosted by the coalition, he told audience members he was compelled by the organization’sidea “of creating a better system of reporting to parents,” and saidit will be piloted at some district schools. The district did not make administrators running the pilot available for comment.
Across Maryland, there are wide performance gaps between Black and Latino students, and their White and Asian peers. Results from Maryland assessments taken in the spring show that, overall 79 percent of both White and Asian students tested in the Montgomery district were proficient in English Language Arts. Meanwhile, 46 percent of Black students and 32 percent of Latino students were proficient.
The Montgomery school system is Maryland’s largest andone of the state’s most diverse. About 35 percent of its student population is Hispanic/Latino, 24 percent is White, 22 percent is Black, and 14 percent is Asian.
But the coalition has said some families of color havehad problems navigating the district.
In 2022, the district released an “antiracist audit” thatincluded comments from focus groups and surveys for district parents, staff and students. It found that “some staff perceive that the current system for communication and family engagement produces barriers for families of color.” And nearly 30 percent of families “didn’t know or disagreed that their child’s school engaged them in ways that respect and honor culture,”according to the report.
Leaders with the Black and Brown Coalition say it is imperative for parents to have better information about their child’s progress in reading, especially given changes at the state level.
Maryland’s new literacy policy includes a component that would hold back third-graders who aren’t reading on grade levelstarting in the 2027-28 school year. As the policy was crafted, associations representingschool board members and superintendentsacross Maryland told the state board of education in a letter that they were worried the policy could disproportionately impact non-White students.
At therecent coalitionforum, Taylor said he had concerns over the policy’s long-term impacts, and cast it as having “very high stakes.” When asked by another parent how many students entered the fourth grade reading below grade level, Taylorsaid he was unsure but guessed it was likely to be “in the 50 percent range.”Hecalled the data point “alarming and really disquieting.”
Thenew statepolicy allows parents to insist their child move on to the fourth gradeeven if they are reading below grade level, but the student would have to enroll in a supplementary reading program. School systems muststart screening students regularly for reading difficulties during the 2026-27 school year.
In the meantime, leaders with the Black and Brown Coalition say they are waiting for more details from Montgomery school leaders about how it will adopt some of the group’s recommendations.
Taylor has said publicly he wants to implement the suggested strategies districtwide, but he has some concerns about how well the school system is positioned to do it. He said the request is “labor intensive” for teachers and would require training.
But he said the request “is high on the list of priorities” for the district.
“There is nothing more frustrating as a parent when your child comes home with something from school, and you don’t know how to help them,” Taylor said. “And I feel like we’re holding the keys to unlocking how to do that well.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/11/08/montgomery-county-student-reading-progress/