THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607280091
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: 74 lines
Frustrated by the lagging academic achievement of many inner-city students, the Norfolk School Board endorsed a tough-love remedy Saturday to make sure students don't slide through elementary school without knowing how to read.
The board's prescription calls for automatic retention of third-graders not reading at grade level and mandatory summer school for below-average readers in kindergarten through third grade. If parents refuse to send their children to the summer session, the students will not be allowed to pass to the next grade.
Board members, huddling for two days in a retreat at the Marriott Hotel, acknowledged that the move may be unpopular with parents, and some teachers.
But the persistently poor achievement of many low-income and minority students - who make up a majority of the city's students - calls for radical changes, they said.
``If they are coming out of our school system without knowing how to read, there's little hope for them,'' said Joseph T. Waldo, who pitched the idea to require summer school for some students.
``We're doing something fundamentally different, and it is a risk sending all these kids to summer school, but we have to embrace new ideas and philosophies.''
Norfolk will become one of the few school districts in Virginia to have mandatory summer school, based on a state Department of Education survey of districts last year. The school district will launch the plan next summer and pay for children it requires to attend. Teachers will provide intensive reading instruction.
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. estimated that 30 percent of students in kindergarten through third grade - about 3,000 children - are reading below their grade level.
Results of the 1996 Iowa Tests of Basic Skills illustrate the problem: On reading comprehension, third-graders in the city's 10 majority-black schools, where much of the concern lies, had an average score in the 31st percentile. The national average is at the 50th percentile.
The systemwide reading average was not much better, at the 44th percentile. Of the city's 35 elementary schools, only 11 scored at or above the national average on reading comprehension.
``At a certain point, you just can't keep passing these children on,'' Waldo said. ``You're doing them a major disservice.''
Knowing how to read, they said, is key not only to success in school but in life.
Board member Junius P. Fulton III, a criminal attorney who knows from courtroom experience the consequences of many students who fail, said Norfolk ``has spent a lot of time and money and effort to create a great city'' but was at risk of ``creating a permanent blue-collar class of workers, while the white-collar workers are coming in from the suburbs. . . . That's not going to drive this city's economic engine.''
Fulton and other board members said the effort to improve reading will be costly, but that money must be found. Several said the board has to convince City Council, which funds the schools, to provide more dollars for education.
``We can make this such an issue that we cannot be denied,'' Fulton said. ``I think we need to be more assertive in championing the needs of the system.''
Nichols estimated that mandatory summer school for poor readers would cost at least $200,000.
The board's annual retreat, held to review the past year and set goals for the year ahead, focused on reading as the No. 1 priority. Members even discussed changing the school district's motto of ``Believe, Achieve, Succeed'' to ``Read, Write, Achieve.''
As part of the district's get-tough approach in the coming year, Nichols discussed plans to hold principals and teachers more accountable for results. Failure to improve test scores in three years, for example, could mean job loss or demotion. On the other hand, in schools that improve, employees would be rewarded with pay bonuses and other resources.
Also, beginning this year, elementary schools will be required to teach reading and other language skills in uninterrupted blocks of up to 2 1/2 hours.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK SCHOOLS READING < by CNB