KSD Citizens offers a forum for opinions about programs affecting children in the district. This comment from KSD teacher, Kurt Clemmens, continues a dialogue about the KSD third grade reading goal, its consequences for students and related issues. See the KSD Citizens post for September 19, 2010 to read the original article. Your comments can be added to this article by clicking in the comments box.
It is no secret that Lynn Fielding [school board member] has been micro-managing the Kennewick School District for at least the last ten years now. Through his “Children’s Reading Foundation” and “Ready” and “20 minutes a day” programs, he has convinced most of the influential people in our community that he is the Messiah of literacy. Doctors, fellow lawyers, bankers, real estate brokers, and key members of the Tri-City Herald are either board members, sponsors, or “friends” of the Reading Foundation. So these movers and shakers in our town are already heavily invested in Mr. Fielding and his misguided version of a quality education without realizing how damaging his policies really are to our kids.
But the teachers know!
However, to criticize him or his programs is problematic for teachers because it immediately appears we must be against literacy for our children. In reality though, what teachers want is a much higher quality education for our kids. Mr. Fielding’s policies are producing mediocre students who are drilled for up to three hours a day to pass a very particular and narrow reading test. In the spring the students take this test in a room with a para-educator provided by Mr. Fielding’s policies, who, in many instances, READ the test questions aloud to the students. The scores that result are what comprise the much-heralded 90% Reading Goal.
Plain and simple: It’s bogus! It’s smoke and mirrors with policies, tests, and statistics. It has already been mentioned on this site that the students only have to be at the 38th percentile to qualify for “at grade level” in the 3rd grade! Why is the bar so low?
Mr. Fielding has figured out that the educational arena is a very profitable place for snake-oil salesmen. His books and services are all for sale, and most what he has for sale is based on the bogus reading statistics he is producing in our district.
Think about it: He is like the great and powerful Oz behind the curtain. He has his hands on all the controls in the Kennewick School District–the texts, programs, procedures, tests, facilities, and money. It is no mystery why he should bring his own draft of the district strategic plan to a board meeting and try to unilaterally shove it down everyone’s throat. He has been doing it for years.
I have personally gone to a school board meeting and told Mr. Fielding that he has a huge conflict of interest between his role as a board member and his books and educational consulting business, and the right thing to do is step down. It puts his ethics in question, and as a teacher in the district, I now have to always wonder what is really motivating Mr. Fielding’s policies–our children’s welfare or his personal gain? Voters and taxpayers should be asking the same question.
His defense to the charge was that he “recuses” himself from any votes dealing with tax money going to his foundation, and his books are non-profit. But anyone with any sense knows that as soon as he is no longer a board member, he can flip the shingle around and be completely open for business and profit. He may very well be building the infrastructure of a lucrative retirement program for himself on the backs of Kennewick children, parents, teachers, and administrators. How do we know?
In the past couple years Mr. Fielding has missed a number of board meetings because he has been consulting with other districts around the country promoting his books and the hyped statistics that support them. I understand he has now become an expert on Response to Intervention (RTI) as well.
As an elected official, he can be publically scrutinized by anyone including teachers in the district without fear of reprisal (teachers are voters and taxpayers also). It’s time more teachers spoke up and pulled the curtain back on the Great and Powerful Oz. Our kids are certainly worth the effort.
I will be posting a report of the KSD Elementary School Report to the Community which was offered at ESD123 this past Friday. The report offers details about elementary goals and curriculum as related by KSD administrators and elementary principals.
WOW! Succinct and accurate. I believe the opinions expressed in the post are shared by many teachers in the KSD. Every year we have the celebratory, day before school starts assembly and many of us leave there wondering how is it possible for so many 3rd graders to be at or above grade level and then when these same kids reach middle school the reading gains claimed by 3rd grade simply do not exist.
In my 13 years of experience teaching a science/technology course requiring reading for the science content behind lab projects, I became convinced that KSD students may know how to decode, but they sure don’t LIKE to read. It was almost like somebody checked a box in third grade and that was it; the kid can now read. Maybe they are then ready for Harry Potter, but the world is more complex than Harry and the reading necessary for their further progress is a good deal less fun. And the fun value decreases markedly if a student can’t infer meaning from context…
Hello. I keep thinking how great it would be if reading was incorporated into all other curriculum areas instead of taught by itself. A music student could read about his/her passion in music. An art student could read Lust For Life or about da-Vinci, etc. If the text corresponded with the genuine interest of the learners it would be seamless and meaningful. To remove art, shop, home ec etc to score well on an isolated reading test in counterproductive at best and ruinous at most. I have substituted in the second math class of the day for learners who did poorly on the WASL. These middle school classes are an obscene waste of time at best and totally disenfranchising at worst. If the curriculum was holistic so that all courses were interrelated think what could be accomplished. It might actually seem relevant to students such as I was. Thanks. Pat