Guest Viewpoint: High school reality check: Too few readers, too many dropouts

By Susan Frost and Ted Hasselbring

9/14/04 -- Over the past few years, Americans have become increasingly addicted to television "reality" shows. "The Apprentice," "Fear Factor," and "The Bachelor" draw huge audiences of people eager to see who will make it through another episode of emotional abuse and physical privation, going on to win financial rewards and fame.

There is another "reality" in America. This one isn't the topic of any TV series, but if it were, it might be called "Survivor: America's High Schools" or "Who Wants to Be A High School Graduate?"

It probably wouldn't draw much of a viewership, as there is nothing amusing about hundreds of thousands of participants who don't make it to the finale.

Only 68 percent of the American students who entered ninth grade four years ago will graduate with a standard diploma this spring. They haven't been "voted off"; rather, the more than 540,000 students who drop out of school each year leave the education system because they can't read well enough to succeed -- even marginally -- in high school.

In our cities, the dropout rate is around 50 percent, compared to a national dropout rate of 32 percent.

Economically disadvantaged and minority students who attend inner-city schools are at higher risk of dropping out. But young people drop out of rural and suburban schools at alarming rates, as well.

The defining risk factors for dropping out of school aren't only race or income: Students' reading level may be the most important factor.

The reality is that the majority of America's teens are woefully poor readers. More than two-thirds of eighth graders read below grade level proficiency, and one-quarter cannot even read at the most basic level. Millions of young adults cannot even identify the main idea in what they have read.

Obviously, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige was right when, at the October 2003 Education Department's conference on high schools, he said, "We are facing an unrecognized educational crisis in this country" and that "the on-time graduation rates at our inner-city high schools are shockingly low."

However, our story does not have to have a tragic ending. We know a great deal about how to improve student achievement and we can stop the cycle of failure of struggling adolescent readers.

Why don't all students learn to read? Most secondary students' reading problems can be traced back to elementary and middle school, where many of them quietly struggled and began to avoid reading altogether.

Our education system teaches reading to children in kindergarten through third grade, and then expects them to continue to hone those skills needed for middle and high school -- including developing context, vocabulary, and fluency -- often with no additional instruction.

By the time struggling readers reach high school, they face one or more of three major reading challenges: an inability to decode text, to read fluently, and to create "mental models" from text -- to comprehend what they are reading and form pictures in their minds. Poor reading skills lead to loss of confidence and self-esteem.

To help youths who lack reading skills catch up and reverse years of reading failure, a comprehensive approach is needed that includes reading teachers who are specifically trained to work with adolescents and instructional materials that use methods based on scientific research.

In studies conducted over the past 20 years, technology-based interventions, when designed properly and used by well-trained teachers, have proven to be successful tools in helping adolescents learn to read.

The advantage of such interventions is that they can be tailored to meet the individual needs of each student by constantly monitoring performance and adjusting instruction. Technology allows students to progress at their own pace, slowing down when they need more help on a particular skill and speeding up when the material is not sufficiently challenging. The use of supporting audio and video can provide the background knowledge needed to better understand a text passage.

Finally, and equally important, technology motivates teens by removing years of embarrassment of failing in front of their teachers and peers. Working with a computer, these students can try, fail, and try again with only the screen as witness to their private struggles.

But technology alone won't solve the problem. High schools need teachers who are prepared to teach reading across the curriculum.

The Alliance for Excellent Education has called for an Adolescent Literacy Initiative to provide every high-need secondary school with literacy coaches who train teachers across subject areas to improve the literacy skills of all students. Coaches would also identify students' reading difficulties and ensure that they receive extra help to become effective readers and writers.

In addition, this initiative calls for more federal funding to support diagnostic assessments; research-based, proven instructional programs; and ongoing professional development.

Unfortunately, across the nation, schools that have the highest numbers of at-risk students often lack these resources. Local and state budgets are stretched, and only 5 percent of federal funds for high-needs schools and students go to high schools.

There are a few champions in Congress who have recognized this problem and introduced legislation that addresses low literacy and graduation rates.

Reps. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas) and Susan Davis (D-Calif.) have introduced the Graduation for All Act (H.R.3085) which would provide $1 billion in federal funding to place literacy coaches in high schools and implement individualized graduation plans for at-risk students.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) has introduced the Pathways for All Students to Succeed (PASS) Act (S.1554), which would provide adolescent literacy coaches and academic counselors for the nation's secondary schools.

Both of these bills would provide direct, targeted assistance and research-based resources and strategies to high schools that need the most help.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Bush, in his fiscal year 2005 budget, has set aside $333 million in new funding to encourage high schools to help students graduate and succeed in higher education and the work force.

As part of this initiative, the Striving Readers program would receive $100 million to focus on developing and implementing research-based interventions to improve the skills of teenage students who read below grade level. This is a good first step.

As a nation, we cannot afford to ignore our soaring dropout rates and the two-thirds of students who enter high school reading below grade-level proficiency.

One student left behind is tragic, but even more ominous is the possibility of an ever-expanding population of youths without basic reading skills. If we continue to neglect these young people, the negative impact on our businesses, government, communities, and society at large will be staggering.

For countless numbers of poor readers, the future is more about survival than about thriving. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 70 percent of unemployed Americans between the ages of 25 to 64 read at the lowest literacy levels.

Even more disturbing is the fact that 75 percent of state prison inmates are dropouts, and a very high proportion have severe literacy deficits. Each one of them represents an opportunity lost.

Today's young adults are the real survivors of a high school education system that is in serious need of an overhaul.

And here's our reality check: 3,000 students drop out every school day, and every June, hundreds of thousands will receive diplomas that mean very little because they are not accompanied by the basic reading skills they need to continue their education, get jobs, or become productive members of our communities.

If we continue to fail to teach our adolescents to read while they are still in school, then their failure will be all ours.