00:00 - This program has been paid for by the sponsor and does not reflect

00:03 - the views of PCN.

00:27 - Welcome to the Keystone Education Report, where Pennsylvania's education

00:31 - leaders come together to discuss the issues shaping our schools.

00:35 - Today, we're focusing on one of the most foundational elements

00:38 - of student success literacy.

00:41 - Joining us are two members of the Pennsylvania House

00:43 - of Representatives who are deeply engaged in education policy.

00:47 - Representative Justin Fleming represents the 105th Legislative district

00:51 - covering parts of Dauphin County.

00:52 - Representative Jason ORT represents the 46th Legislative District,

00:56 - covering parts of Allegheny and Washington counties.

01:00 - Thank you both for being here.

01:01 - Thank you.

01:02 - Thanks, Robert.

01:03 - Let's let's jump right into it and start with, you know, start at the beginning.

01:06 - Right.

01:07 - Structured literacy and the science of reading.

01:10 - Explain to folks what it is.

01:13 - So, you know, we've we've looked at how the state teaches reading and literacy.

01:18 - And, you know, I'm starting to see this now

01:19 - with my daughter as she is in, basically pre like kindergarten

01:23 - but not she's going to be in your garden later this year, but in preschool.

01:26 - And what we've seen a lot of schools do is use pictures, and they let the kids

01:31 - guess the word.

01:32 - And that's, that's called balanced literacy.

01:34 - Structured literacy is about sounding words out, looking at them phonetically.

01:39 - Phonemic awareness.

01:41 - Usually comprehension

01:44 - and actually breaking down the root of the word by sound.

01:47 - And I'm starting to do this now

01:48 - with my daughter at home with sight words and going back and forth.

01:52 - But in reality, that's what it is.

01:54 - It's really focusing on the root word

01:56 - and the key sounds from the alphabet instead of trying to guess what a word is.

01:59 - Yeah.

01:59 - And the interesting thing for me is Jason's exactly right.

02:04 - And it's you remember the old saying, follow the money.

02:06 - You know, we had this, situation where

02:10 - there was a lot of money tied up in curriculum.

02:13 - You know, the balanced literacy curriculum was often less expensive.

02:17 - And so that's how we got a lot of school districts to transition

02:22 - to balanced literacy and context clues and pictures and things.

02:27 - But you can only gain so much from the picture.

02:30 - You know, when you're reading the words, that's what matters.

02:33 - And so we have finally gotten back to a point where, and it's

02:39 - I go back to Sesame Street, right.

02:41 - Ka at Kat.

02:43 - Right.

02:44 - It's a simple example, but that's phonemic awareness.

02:47 - That's sounding it out.

02:48 - And the English language is is not easy.

02:50 - You know, there are some rules with why does it sound like an F, for example.

02:55 - But kids need to learn that.

02:56 - And that's what structured literacy really

03:00 - hammers home is that phonemic awareness and sounding it out.

03:03 - And, you know, I've got a personal story to tell,

03:06 - which we'll get into later, but it's really the way to go.

03:09 - We've got way off track,

03:11 - you know, not only with that element, with the balanced literacy element,

03:15 - but the way we taught those who were going to become teachers how to teach reading.

03:20 - It got way out of whack.

03:21 - So we are finally bringing it back to something

03:24 - in in structured literacy that we know works and is evidence based.

03:28 - And that's the real key.

03:29 - And I think you've answered a little of this,

03:31 - but I want to go a little bit deeper on the trends that you both saw

03:35 - that led you, to take us on, you know,

03:38 - because this is we're talking about, as you both have outlined already.

03:41 - I mean, this is it makes a difference.

03:43 - And it's different from balanced versus structured.

03:46 - What what did you both see in terms of trends in Pennsylvania

03:49 - that led you to say, wait a minute, I've got a I've got to step up.

03:52 - I've got to to fight this fight.

03:53 - Yeah.

03:54 - So if you look at the data over the last at least 12 to 15 years,

03:57 - and I would say, let's go back to like 2010.

03:59 - And you look at early literacy rates and scores from surveys.

04:03 - They kind of plateaued in 2010, 2012.

04:07 - And ever since then they have done nothing but go down.

04:10 - Covid made it worse and now we're coming out.

04:12 - We saw a small bump, but we've been stuck at like this

04:15 - 32 to 34% proficiency rating for third graders.

04:19 - For the better part of the last decade,

04:21 - with no signs of any improvement, actually seeing it worse.

04:25 - And so as legislators, we see this within our schools.

04:28 - We have to do something like it is a bright

04:30 - flashing red light in your face every single day.

04:34 - And looking at all the stats, you know, you think of one quality of life

04:37 - for the student.

04:38 - If they're not learning to read

04:39 - by the end of third grade at a proficient level,

04:41 - we're not setting them up for success for any other subject

04:44 - for the rest of their academic career.

04:45 - And that leads to, you know, IEPs.

04:48 - It leads to more special education cost.

04:50 - It's just their quality of life just goes down drastically.

04:53 - And to sit by idly and do nothing is just not an option.

04:56 - Now again, that's an aggregate of all the schools,

04:58 - all 500 plus school districts across the state.

05:01 - Some school districts are doing phenomenal with it and some are not.

05:04 - But some of the ones that are not, don't or may not have the means

05:08 - to make the change.

05:09 - And that's something that we're working on now.

05:11 - We did a little bit in last year's budget,

05:13 - but we have a long way to go on that aspect of it.

05:15 - And that's right.

05:16 - And I have to say, I mean, it's really, you know,

05:19 - Jason, with the advocate community,

05:24 - organizations like

05:25 - Excellent Ed Teacher Plus and many others, you know, there's a

05:29 - there's another component to this act of parents who's,

05:32 - who are parents of children who have dyslexia.

05:36 - That's also a big part of this movement, too.

05:38 - They want to ensure that,

05:41 - the things that we put in place, one of the key things

05:43 - that we put in place in our legislation, not only the funding piece,

05:47 - but I think the identification piece.

05:50 - Your legislation calls for early evaluation in grades

05:54 - kindergarten one and two.

05:55 - Consistent evaluation.

05:57 - If you're evaluated, fine, you're good.

05:59 - You you go on.

06:01 - But if you need that intervention, we want to do it as early as possible.

06:04 - So we have a chance to get those kids caught up because as Jason said, I mean,

06:11 - all of the data, when you look at when you look at K-12 education,

06:14 - all of the data says that if you don't have a child proficient

06:18 - in reading by third or fourth grade, you have lost them.

06:21 - And that that means dropouts.

06:24 - As he said, it's quality of life.

06:26 - Your your disinterest in school.

06:29 - You drop out

06:30 - God knows what happens to you and often, you know, even going

06:33 - back to my work as a child advocate, that's why we tried to start it

06:37 - as Jason said, with his daughter, like in the in the pre-K phase,

06:40 - you know, to really build up that, lifelong love of learning.

06:44 - And you do that, as early as possible.

06:47 - But I think that's one of the key pieces of this

06:49 - is that individualized attention, that individualized evaluation.

06:53 - So we can catch those kids

06:55 - who are struggling and intervene as early as possible

06:58 - to get them back on the right track. Yeah.

06:59 - And a lot of things I just want to add on to,

07:01 - to what Justin said, you know, we look at this, this prison pipeline,

07:05 - over half of the inmates in state correctional facilities are

07:09 - basically functionally illiterate. Yes.

07:10 - They can't read.

07:11 - And most times,

07:12 - the first time that these people are ever screened

07:15 - for reading, problem is when they're going to jail. Yeah.

07:17 - And that's something that when I heard that that whole stat

07:21 - ed just opened my mind is like, what are we doing here?

07:23 - Like, we're giving people who are going to prison their first reading, screening

07:27 - and their entire life we should be doing this in school.

07:29 - And the legislation that we laid out, lets it happen three times a year.

07:34 - All the evaluations are sent home to the parents.

07:36 - And then if if they do need to get caught up, there's a plan put in place.

07:39 - It's immediate. It's not.

07:40 - Let's wait and see how this goes.

07:42 - Typically, how this would work is you do the screening,

07:44 - the beginning of the year, middle of the year and end of year.

07:46 - And we just want to make sure you stay on track.

07:48 - And if you fall behind in a little bit, that's okay.

07:50 - There'll be there'll be, pieces in place to help you get to where you need to.

07:53 - And then when you're back to where you need to go, they disappear again.

07:56 - And. God, no.

07:57 - And this is, I mean, alluding to what I said earlier.

08:00 - I saw this myself.

08:02 - My daughter was identified in first grade as having reading difficulty,

08:06 - and we were in a district that was, you know, identified her early.

08:10 - She worked with a reading specialist who, is a is a great friend of mine.

08:14 - She was my son's kindergarten teacher, actually.

08:16 - But by the time my daughter

08:18 - got into elementary school, she was a reading specialist.

08:21 - She's testified her name is Jen Hotz.

08:23 - She's amazing.

08:24 - She's testified, before the House Education

08:26 - Committee on this issue and how critical this issue is.

08:29 - But I saw it. My daughter was identified early.

08:32 - She got the intervention and the help she made and Jason

08:36 - and I want that for every child in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

08:39 - And we're trying to put a structure in place to make that happen.

08:42 - And I wanted to.

08:42 - And you went down the path before I could get there, which is great.

08:45 - I wanted to to draw attention to the fact, I mean, look,

08:48 - we're a little off track here, but but the job of a legislator,

08:51 - you guys have to be kind of a mile wide and an inch deep on issues.

08:54 - All over the place. Right.

08:55 - And I was a little curious.

08:57 - You're clearly passionate about this and have a deep understanding of it

09:01 - and are seeing it all the way through.

09:03 - That's a lot for for somebody that's serving in the House of Representatives

09:07 - to, to be able to tackle something of this stuff.

09:09 - And I was curious

09:10 - why this issue versus the myriad of other things that you're asked for.

09:13 - And I hear it a little bit with, with your daughter.

09:15 - I hear what you're with your child.

09:17 - And I have to say, I mean representative of our t ty deserves a lot of credit.

09:21 - I'm just I'm kind of a late comer to this, but the reason why

09:26 - this partnership works so well is because when he was approached initially,

09:31 - you know, he took this on and I was a child advocate.

09:34 - I worked at Pennsylvania Partnerships for children.

09:37 - We supported it.

09:38 - So I was in conversations with Jason as an advocate, as a lobbyist.

09:42 - While he was doing this fight in the General Assembly, pretty much on your own.

09:47 - I mean, there were, you know, he'd been handed a while.

09:49 - Yeah.

09:50 - In 2019, 2018, 2019 was it was when this started years.

09:54 - Yeah. Yeah.

09:55 - I mean, we started looking after we did all the school safety stuff.

09:59 - I think that was 2017, 2018, a great working organization.

10:03 - And a lot of other school groups, teachers included.

10:06 - I mean, we like that to me was, all right, let's get let's get school safety done.

10:11 - Make sure that we're a gold standard across the country.

10:14 - And I feel like we did that.

10:15 - So I always wanted to be involved in the world of education.

10:18 - And I thought all right, what's next?

10:20 - What can we really focus on that really makes a difference?

10:23 - That's not going to drive a partizan divide

10:25 - because we all we're all aware of all the education issues out there.

10:28 - Who's where, where the right is, where the left is.

10:30 - And I said, I'm tired of this.

10:32 - Like the kids in our schools.

10:33 - Like we have a responsibility as state legislators, as state government

10:37 - to really lead, and really give these kids the best chance of success.

10:42 - And what better indicator and I went to a conference, Exelon.

10:44 - Ed, I was looking at this like these other states doing

10:47 - and all of a sudden they're all focused on on reading.

10:49 - And I'm like, what? What happened?

10:51 - So I started doing more research into this because, you know, growing up,

10:54 - you know, going to school in the 90s, you know, we were sounding out words.

10:57 - I remember Teddy Ruxpin, they they're I mean,

11:01 - you look at all that stuff

11:02 - and like Hooked on Phonics, like, I remember the commercials

11:05 - no longer works for me, right?

11:06 - Yeah. I'm like, aren't we doing that anymore?

11:08 - And then you do research and you find out,

11:09 - well, most schools moved away from that, right?

11:11 - And I'm like, all right, how do we get back to that?

11:13 - And as you start seeing schools

11:14 - go through this, I started digging into a little bit more

11:18 - and I was like, this stuff's actually working.

11:20 - And then we came up with the ideas.

11:22 - All right.

11:22 - So I had my first overall big piece of legislation like in 2019, 2020

11:27 - with then Governor Wolf, working with the Department of Education on it.

11:31 - And it was just too it was too broad.

11:33 - It was too big.

11:34 - It wasn't ready for prime time and afterwards.

11:36 - And we run into that problem with a lot of legislation.

11:39 - But then we got into 2022 was Tom Wolf's last year.

11:42 - And we're like, all right, this is it. Going out of business sale.

11:44 - Let's let's see what we can get.

11:46 - So I threw everything at the wall.

11:48 - I remember working, when Doctor Sherry Smith was still at PD before

11:51 - she left to go over to pass a, she was working with me on this,

11:55 - and she recognized how important this was in the part that we carved out,

11:59 - was part of the teacher prep programs for all the colleges, like, hey,

12:01 - you guys need to learn structured literacy

12:03 - and how to teach it while you're in school.

12:05 - One that will

12:06 - stop the bleeding of teachers coming out, not really understanding this concept.

12:10 - In two, it'll help them be better prepared going into the classroom.

12:12 - So we did that in 2022 was the first iteration of of getting this done.

12:16 - Okay.

12:16 - And then not this budget, but the last budget, we were able to get

12:20 - the Reading Council installed so we could come up with it

12:23 - because what we wanted to do was make it easier for school districts.

12:27 - We don't want you to go vet, you know, 3000 vendors for sure, curriculum

12:31 - for screeners or whatever.

12:32 - What we want to do is and this is something we learned

12:34 - from other states, put together a list of approved vendors.

12:37 - The state's not going to tell you who you have to pick,

12:39 - but we're telling you, we have gone through and vetted these people.

12:42 - We believe they meet all the standards and the criteria that we're looking for.

12:46 - You pick off of this list and we will help fund you.

12:48 - All right.

12:49 - So we did that. We've had some hiccups.

12:52 - But we're working on that. We're working through that.

12:54 - The list will be continually updated, and we're trying to make it

12:56 - as clear as possible for school districts,

12:58 - because those first couple list that came out were even confusing for me.

13:02 - And I being insider baseball, it's kind of hard to go through that, but it is.

13:05 - We were able to get through that, and then we passed the last iteration

13:08 - in November with the last budget to to get the whole thing in there.

13:12 - Yeah.

13:13 - I mean, that's pretty curriculum training, all of that.

13:16 - Right? It was it was huge. It was a big win.

13:18 - And but there's more yet to do.

13:21 - Well, I want to ask you guys, we're going to take a quick break.

13:23 - I want to ask you guys, when we come back about how this will affect districts

13:26 - and what the

13:27 - the options are for districts, right. Because there's going to need

13:29 - to be different solutions to fit different needs.

13:31 - So we will be right back.

13:33 - Excellence isn't just a goal, it's a standard.

13:35 - The great PA schools GPS designation honors Pennsylvania public schools

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13:43 - ties, financial responsibility and resilience come together.

13:47 - Today, we're highlighting one of our GH ribbon recipients.

13:50 - Upper Perkiomen School District.

13:52 - This is an event that is completely run by students

13:55 - to bring together kids in our special ed programs, together

13:59 - with the rest of the student body, to form bonds and friendships.

14:04 - And it's an event that brings clubs

14:06 - together to help them form these bonds.

14:10 - Over the past few years,

14:11 - the amount of clubs who participated in this event has significantly grown.

14:15 - My favorite thing about Fall Fest is really

14:17 - just seeing how many students come out and want to make these bonds with, the kids.

14:21 - I think it's also really great that for the hour and a half that we have for

14:25 - every student in the school who wants to participate

14:28 - is in the same place, doing the same activities as equals.

14:32 - It really shows that no matter what type of student you are, who you are,

14:35 - you're really an on the same page as your peers,

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14:41 - We're looking for the next great Pennsylvania school district.

14:44 - Visit great PA schools.com to share your success story or apply for the GH ribbon.

14:51 - You're watching the

14:51 - Keystone Education report.

14:55 - Welcome back.

14:55 - We're talking to Jason and Justin from the Pennsylvania State

14:58 - House of Representatives Representatives.

15:00 - Thank you both for being here.

15:01 - We're talking about structured literacy.

15:04 - I want to pick up where we we left off before the break.

15:07 - There's obviously a lot of supports.

15:09 - You were talking, I think, a little bit about,

15:11 - funding and being able to whittle down the programs for districts

15:14 - and that sort of thing.

15:14 - But if I'm a school district and I'm looking at, doing this,

15:19 - obviously there isn't a one size fits all as we found there, 500 school districts.

15:23 - There are 500 ways to do things in Pennsylvania.

15:26 - How do you allow for that flexibility?

15:29 - What can a district expect?

15:30 - You know, not just in terms of supports, but the ability to find the solution

15:34 - and the size solution that best fits them.

15:37 - Well, a part of the the joy of the legislation is the flexibility in there.

15:41 - Your current curriculum might be lacking in 1 or 2 areas,

15:45 - and there are bandaid solutions for that or other solution that come in without

15:48 - replace, completely replacing your entire.

15:50 - So we're not reinventing the wheel here. Exactly.

15:52 - Okay. Exactly.

15:53 - And there's also a pathway where if you're doing something that is working

15:56 - and maybe it's not on the approved list,

15:58 - there's an application process that you can submit to the department.

16:02 - And you can get that.

16:03 - I don't want to call it a waiver, but they will allow you to use that,

16:05 - like if you're using your own homegrown approach.

16:07 - We've seen this in other states, and we want to make sure

16:10 - that that was was allowed here as well.

16:12 - So I mean, there's a couple different avenues that you can go.

16:15 - I mean, you could completely revamp everything

16:16 - if you want to bring a new curriculum, new training.

16:19 - I mean, that is entirely up to the school district itself.

16:22 - The mandate is

16:23 - basically as long as you are abiding to the tenets of structured literacy

16:28 - in your curriculum and your training, all works

16:31 - are with that in combination, then you'll be fine.

16:34 - I think I want to ask you about what he said.

16:36 - Such a vital point to make in terms of it's up to the district.

16:40 - If the district is showing success, as I hear you said, it's not about then

16:44 - saying, well, you're going to change it. You're going to adapt.

16:46 - There's really the ability of as long as districts

16:48 - are able to show that it's working, that they have a solution,

16:51 - you're all about whatever solution fits best at the local level.

16:53 - And for me, those were the key pieces, right?

16:56 - It's we have 500 public school districts, so a one size fits

17:00 - all approach is not going to work.

17:01 - School districts have to have the flexibility to do what's best for them.

17:05 - And the other thing is that the $10 million, it's a start.

17:09 - But I didn't we didn't want this to be a massive unfunded mandate.

17:13 - School districts are dealing with enough unfunded mandates.

17:16 - I saw it when I was a township commissioner.

17:19 - Local government.

17:20 - We get unfunded mandates from the Commonwealth all the time.

17:22 - So while 10 million is a start, we do want to do more.

17:25 - And that key pieces is for me.

17:29 - Another key piece is making sure

17:32 - we give the school districts resources to have the curriculum

17:36 - that works for them

17:37 - and their students and their teachers, and that we can properly do

17:41 - the professional development so the teachers know how to do this.

17:45 - And execute this with fidelity.

17:47 - And I, I just want to, kind of should maybe mentioned this at the top,

17:51 - but, you know, they, they say states are the laboratories of democracy, right?

17:55 - And I think, you know, as we see the federal government,

17:58 - the state, the policies in the states

17:59 - are going to become much more important and are much more important.

18:02 - But, you know, there was the thing that really got me on

18:07 - board with this is what they did in the state of Mississippi

18:10 - and Mississippi, did this in 2013.

18:13 - Now, Mississippi is a smaller state, too.

18:15 - So they had a statewide coordinator.

18:17 - They had someone boots on the ground actually going district to district

18:21 - and working with administrators and teachers and reading specialists to

18:25 - to execute this in a way that that, in the way that it was supposed to be.

18:31 - You know, we're we're a very large state,

18:34 - but that model took Mississippi from 49th

18:37 - in literacy into the top ten,

18:41 - in just about 6 or 7 years.

18:44 - They were able to climb the ladder.

18:46 - And so, but, you know, we we actually talked about this

18:50 - a little earlier this week.

18:51 - And the thing I said was, I really hope that in ten years

18:56 - we can look back and we can you know, wherever Jason and I are then

19:01 - and see the scores climb and really know that

19:05 - we in conjunction with a lot of others, the advocates,

19:09 - the administration, we really did good work in this area

19:12 - because we're seeing, you know, those third and fourth grade reading

19:16 - scores, tick up and and we know

19:20 - that, you know, we're not leaving kids behind.

19:24 - Talk to me a little about

19:25 - I've heard there's funding obviously start and there's going to need to be more

19:28 - there's a lot of flexibility built into it.

19:30 - There's the ability to to identify for districts, some

19:34 - called preferred programs or programs that you said have been screened.

19:38 - Yeah.

19:38 - Talk to me more about if I'm an administrator, if I'm a teacher

19:42 - and I'm in the district right now, there's going to need to be

19:45 - there's there's supports for them to be able to really effectively roll out

19:49 - whatever the district is using, what's, what's really available at that level.

19:53 - So in we've been having these conversations and you know, our, our role

19:57 - as being a legislator is is passing legislation enacting policies.

20:02 - What we typically don't get involved in is the actual implementation.

20:06 - But I can tell you, we've been involved in,

20:08 - you know, having many conversations with the secretary,

20:11 - and her team, trying to figure out how are we going to roll this out.

20:15 - We did not find this in a manner that I think is really needed. Yet

20:19 - I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but we are moving in that direction.

20:22 - But building those partnerships is put together.

20:26 - I believe some training to working with Patton as well.

20:29 - I believe we will then coordinate with the IU's.

20:31 - And the IU's will then work with the school districts,

20:33 - because as Justin brought up with Mississippi,

20:35 - they were able to surge reading coaches to certain school districts

20:39 - throughout the state.

20:40 - That's what we'd like to do here.

20:41 - While that's not mentioned specifically in the legislation.

20:44 - We understand there are going to be school

20:45 - districts across the state that are going to need additional help,

20:47 - and we want to be able to provide that help.

20:49 - But to be able to do that, we need to provide the funding,

20:52 - the training aspect of it.

20:54 - I think PD's got some modules out there, some continuing education stuff.

20:58 - It's a start.

20:59 - It's it's not where I think we're going to end up,

21:01 - but it's the start of where we need to be now.

21:04 - The other part of this too, and I'll mention this at the state level,

21:07 - other states have a pretty, I would say, at least a half a dozen to up to 30 people

21:12 - working in their Department of Education, specifically dedicated early literacy.

21:16 - Pennsylvania has one and a half. That's right.

21:18 - And really, it's just big state.

21:20 - Yeah, it's just one because the half is shared responsibility

21:23 - with another, with another department, which in my opinion, is not enough.

21:27 - We need to give them a little bit more of a staff complement.

21:30 - And to the Secretary's credit, she I believe, has just brought on a

21:34 - another person who was introduced on Monday who will be dedicated

21:37 - to, this implementation, which is it's sorely needed.

21:40 - Yeah.

21:40 - And I do have to give in one of my roles.

21:44 - I serve on six committees.

21:45 - One of the committees I do serve on is appropriations.

21:48 - And I have to say, the last couple of years,

21:50 - I really want to compliment Secretary Ro,

21:54 - secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

21:57 - The last two budget cycles, the last two years, I have asked her

22:01 - about structured literacy.

22:03 - And she has not only just, like, passive.

22:07 - Oh, I support this.

22:09 - She is a vociferous supporter of structured literacy.

22:12 - And so, you know, when we're working in an environment where Jason and I

22:16 - are doing all we can with the advocates to pass the policy,

22:19 - and it's going to a secretary of education that really believes

22:25 - and is it thinks it's critically important

22:28 - that's that's worth more than any of us because they it's

22:33 - going to be up to them to work with the districts to implement this.

22:36 - And so that's a really critical piece of this.

22:39 - As Secretary Ro is all on board for, for structured literacy.

22:43 - And so all of the pieces are fitting together in a way that I think we can do

22:47 - a lot of good for a lot of kids.

22:48 - It's been a long journey, but it's kind of built

22:50 - to where you have the right people in the right place.

22:52 - It sounds like.

22:53 - Yeah, I mean, I'm,

22:53 - look at when you come up with the concept for legislation,

22:56 - you hope you get a pass as soon as you can.

22:57 - But in a way, I'm glad because we were able

22:59 - to learn a lot of things along the way to make this so much better.

23:02 - I'm still.

23:04 - I'm still not happy. I'm still not satisfied.

23:06 - Because when we set out to do this, we said we were going to fund this.

23:09 - And the last thing I wanted to do

23:11 - was throw another unfunded mandate to the school districts.

23:14 - While the 10 million is is a start, I think that we're

23:18 - probably statewide, need 100 to $150 million total,

23:21 - and it doesn't need to all come in at one time. Right.

23:24 - I think if we can do this in batches over the next five years, we can get there

23:27 - to help every school get established and set up as needed.

23:32 - And we have different mechanisms that we're working on in this budget cycle

23:35 - to make that a reality.

23:36 - There are there are opportunities that we there might be

23:40 - some leftover unencumbered money in the school safety and security fund

23:43 - that could be a nice down, down payment for this.

23:46 - We're looking at a possible new tax credit.

23:50 - That will be specifically for early literacy implementation.

23:53 - That will sunset in five years.

23:54 - That will raise that 100 to 150 million.

23:57 - Those are just a couple of options we're looking at.

23:58 - I'm sure there are other ways to finding the money,

24:00 - but we know with budgets being tight, it's hard to hard to do.

24:04 - I know a guy on the appropriations.

24:05 - Yeah. And I can I can try to what?

24:07 - And we'll go to the wall for this. I mean, it's it's

24:11 - I said, in, in an earlier interview.

24:14 - I mean, from my perspective, it I know I'm biased as a former child advocate,

24:18 - you know, we cannot ever go wrong with investing money in our kids.

24:23 - There are next generation.

24:24 - There are our next generation of leaders.

24:27 - They need we need to create environment

24:28 - where our children of today become our leaders tomorrow.

24:32 - We can't do that

24:32 - if we're not investing in K-12 education and early learning in a robust way.

24:37 - So I don't think it investment of kids is ever a mistake.

24:40 - And one of the things to, I think we failed to mention this earlier,

24:44 - this is we're flying blind at the state level.

24:45 - We really have no idea what the school districts

24:47 - are doing in regard to teaching literacy, but that's going to change.

24:51 - The surveys went out earlier this month here in March,

24:54 - and we expect the school districts to be returning those,

24:56 - I think either in the next couple of weeks or early April.

24:58 - And that'll give us a real inventory of where we're at as a state.

25:02 - Do we need 90% of all school districts need help?

25:05 - Is it 21st? We don't know, but we're going to find out.

25:07 - And I think that's going to be a big help.

25:09 - We have a long, storied history in Pennsylvania with with the state system

25:12 - of education and, and such a huge number of colleges and universities.

25:16 - And obviously, we have a tradition of getting,

25:19 - the next generation of teachers, you know, kind of homegrown.

25:22 - Right?

25:23 - So you've you've got this network of colleges

25:25 - and universities and we touched on a little earlier,

25:27 - but outside of what's going on with with the legislation

25:31 - and the, the, the law to impact K-12, the 500 school districts, what's in there?

25:36 - Connected to the teaching of of the next generation of teachers?

25:40 - And what can we do to make sure that they're entering the districts,

25:44 - you know, armed and ready to go with with what they need?

25:46 - Well, I take great pride in that.

25:48 - When the when the deans of the schools come in to testify to education committee

25:52 - about their curriculum or the teacher prep program, we did this last year.

25:56 - The education committee had them come in.

25:57 - Look, the the law was passed in 2022.

26:00 - I think it went into effect into in 2024 for all post-secondary schools to,

26:05 - teach structured literacy as a requirement of their teacher prep program.

26:09 - What have we seen? Push back.

26:10 - Absolutely. I have gotten yeah.

26:12 - And honestly, it's not new in other states.

26:15 - Like I believe Iowa has been at this now for five years.

26:18 - It's been in effect and they have 80% compliance. Okay.

26:22 - There's always pushback when you're trying to change something.

26:24 - But my hope is with these schools that they sit down and say,

26:27 - okay, what's best for these teachers moving forward?

26:30 - And what can we do that sets our teacher prep program apart

26:33 - from all the other ones?

26:34 - It would make a prospective teacher want to come to my school.

26:37 - And I think by building that competitive process, we'll drive

26:39 - all of them there, even though they're required to do it by law.

26:43 - I think it's just it's more of a way to say,

26:44 - hey, this is going to make your program better.

26:47 - All the science and data points to that.

26:49 - So I think it's in their best interest to do that. Yeah.

26:51 - And whether they're prospective teachers or current teachers,

26:55 - teachers need to be taught.

26:57 - They need professional development. They need coaching.

26:59 - That's a key piece of staying on top of,

27:02 - the latest and greatest sort of,

27:05 - research and, and,

27:07 - what's working in today's modern education landscape.

27:11 - And so, that the teacher prep thing was a,

27:14 - that was a pretty, precarious,

27:19 - that piece of the legislation.

27:21 - But but we were able to get it through.

27:23 - It was, it was teetering there for a little while.

27:25 - It was I mean, I don't want to say we snuck it in there,

27:27 - but I mean, I think the other thing, too, I want to mention real quickly,

27:30 - is there's been a lot of school districts have implemented this.

27:33 - I've had one back home.

27:34 - I had the Canon-McMillan School District, which is my home district,

27:36 - and we saw pushback

27:38 - when the school district decided they were going to make this change

27:41 - from the teachers,

27:42 - but that all disappeared after they started going through the program.

27:45 - Because change is hard.

27:46 - I mean, everyone's resistant to change. But,

27:48 - just so everyone knows as a school district,

27:51 - when you make this change, teachers will push back.

27:54 - But once they see what they've been doing and how this works,

27:57 - that they will get on board and they will be supportive and it might be hard.

28:01 - There might be some tears shed along the way

28:02 - because, my God, maybe I was teaching these kids

28:04 - how to read the wrong way and now I know better.

28:06 - The important thing is

28:07 - now you know better, and these kids are going to do better

28:09 - and you're going to be a better teacher moving forward.

28:11 - And where we sit right here, Cumberland Valley had the exact same story.

28:15 - I went to them. They implemented this a few years ago.

28:17 - They said it's life changing. The teachers were resistant at first.

28:20 - They got coaches and everything ends up working out for the best.

28:23 - We're about out of time.

28:24 - But before I let you go, so you mentioned,

28:26 - you know, this is going to take time, right?

28:28 - This is this is a long process.

28:30 - We'll have you back in ten years.

28:32 - What what success look like?

28:34 - What what are you going to tell me in ten years?

28:36 - When when we sit down, the three of us and talk about it. What?

28:38 - What mapped out the successor? Yeah.

28:40 - I'm hoping that we're looking at 75% and up.

28:43 - I mean, ideally you want to be 100%.

28:45 - I think that's fair.

28:46 - But, let let's be realistic and say if we can get that third grade

28:50 - reading rate up to 75%, I would consider this wildly successful.

28:54 - And if we do that, it's going to have a massive impact on the lives of kids

28:58 - all throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. To be a leader.

29:00 - Yes, indeed. Absolutely. Gentlemen, thank you both for being here.

29:03 - Thank you.

29:03 - And truly thanks for tuning in to the Keystone Education Report.

29:07 - Today.

29:07 - We discussed literacy in Pennsylvania schools

29:10 - and the role policy plays in supporting school success.

29:14 - Join us next time as we continue exploring

29:16 - the issues shaping public education across the Commonwealth.

30:05 - This program has been paid

30:07 - for by the sponsor and does not reflect the views of PCN.