• Digital Technology and the Reading Brain: What Reading Legislation Overlooks

    The Shanker Institute and Maryland READS recently facilitated a conversation between state and local education leaders in Maryland and literacy expert Dr. Maryanne Wolf to explore the impact of digital technology on students’ reading development. As Maryland joins other states in implementing policy reforms to improve reading instruction, it is essential to recognize and explore additional ecosystemic barriers that might prevent the state from achieving its reading proficiency goals.

    A growing number of studies (discussed below) are showing that choosing to read on screens versus using printed materials can be a significant obstacle to acquiring deep reading and thinking skills. This post explores whether and how reading policy – state legislation in particular – is responding to this emerging concern. 
     
    The Shanker Institute has been tracking and analyzing the content of reading bills enacted into law since 2019. Technology, broadly defined,[1] has been one domain whose presence or absence we identified in these laws. This post focuses on mentions of digital media related to students, including its use in instruction, progress monitoring and assessment, as well as in reading interventions. Our analysis reveals that laws in nine states out of 50 that enacted some reading bill and out of 33 with comprehensive reading legislation discuss these uses of technology, as summarized in Table 1 below. 
      

  • Out of School But in a Book: Leveraging the Socio-Cultural Aspects of Reading

    So often, when we talk about reading, we focus on the technical or cognitive side of it – learning how students decode words and understand their meaning. While this makes sense because schools tend to prioritize the technical aspects of reading for beginning learners, the socio-cultural aspect of reading must not be forgotten. 

    The socio-cultural aspect of reading refers to how our community, environment, and cultural background influence reading. The way that people learn to read, what they decide to read, and how they interpret what they read is largely influenced by their larger socio-cultural environment (Cartin, 2023). 

    When you reflect on your experience learning to read, did just learning how to sound out words make you a strong reader? Or, did your environment play a role? Did learning how to sound out words in collaboration with your peers or the pride and joy from finishing your first book inspire you to keep reading? 

    Only recently have some states – such as Minnesota, Michigan, and Florida – begun to include initiatives incorporating the community and environmental dimension of reading into their legislation. For example, Minnesota’s HF 2497 bill established a grant to support eligible after-school organizations in providing culturally affirming and enriching​ after-school programming that promotes positive learning activities, specifically including community engagement and literacy. Similarly, Michigan’s HB 4411 bill established an innovative community library fund to aid in furthering reading skills and address early childhood literacy gaps through the engagement and connection of students. Another example is Florida’s SB 2524 bill, which established a partnership with Just Read, Florida! to help distribute books at no cost to families to help instill a love of reading in students. Such initiatives can play a significant role in promoting childhood literacy and encourage young readers to view reading as a leisure and social activity. However, we need more states to adopt similar efforts to truly meet the needs of all students.

  • The Tales Are Phantasms, But the Victims Are Real: The Trumpian Crucible in Springfield, Ohio

    Our guest author is Leo Casey, Special Assistant to the President of the AFT, and Executive Director Emeritus of the Albert Shanker Institute.

    In January 1952, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) subpoenaed the well-known American stage and film director Elia Kazan to testify behind closed doors. There he told the Committee about his own participation in the Communist Party, but declined to name others. In April, he was called back for public hearings. Caving in to threats from HUAC and pressure from the Hollywood studios, Kazan named eight individuals who, with him, had been part of a Communist Party cell in the Group Theatre during the1930s.

    Lives were shattered by Kazan’s testimony. The eight named individuals were themselves called before HUAC. The actor J. Edward Bromberg defiantly refused the committee’s demand to name names, but the stress of the ordeal took a terrible toll: he would die young of a heart attack in a matter of months. Others of the eight who resisted HUAC, such as Morris Carnovsky and Phoebe Brand, would never work in film again. Only those who would join Kazan in naming names, such as Clifford Odets and Lewis Leverett, would be able to avoid the Hollywood blacklist and save their film careers.

    Angered in equal measures by HUAC’s star chamber and by Kazan informing on one-time friends and comrades, the distinguished American playwright Arthur Miller decided that it was time to mount a forceful public critique of the McCarthyism that lay behind the HUAC hearings. But rather than comment directly on the events of his day, Miller would take the unusual approach of using the late 17th century witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts as his subject matter.

  • Valuing Teachers’ Voices on World Teachers’ Day—and Every Day

    Our guest author is Julie Vogtman, Senior Director of Job Quality, National Women’s Law Center.

    Did you know that Saturday, October 5th was World Teachers’ Day? According to Unesco, one of the day’s convenors, this year’s theme is “Valuing teacher voices: towards a new social contract for education,” which is meant to “underscor[e] the urgency of calling for and attending to teachers’ voices to address their challenges” and “most importantly, to acknowledge and benefit from the expert knowledge and input that they bring to education.”

    This is a vital mission—one that merits far more than a day to honor. And it’s particularly important in this moment, when teachers in many U.S. school districts feel that the “expert knowledge and input that they bring to education” is being disregarded more than ever. When at least 18 states have enacted laws restricting K-12 public school teachers' instruction on topics related to race, gender, sexuality, and other so-called “divisive concepts”—and PEN America has documented more than 10,000 instances of book bans in the 2023-24 school year alone—many teachers across the country lack the autonomy and respect for their profession that they want and deserve.

  • A Legislator’s Lessons From Fifth Graders

    Our guest author is Massachusetts State Senator Becca Rausch.

    Earlier this year, I walked into one of the elementary schools in my district to visit with the fifth grade –- all 300 of them. (For those who might not work with young people routinely, that is a lot of fifth graders.) School visits and engaging with students is one of my favorite parts of serving in the Massachusetts Senate. Presently, I am the only mother of elementary school aged children or younger in our chamber, and I’ve worked with children for as long as I can remember, so the fact that I love and dedicate real time and energy to youth outreach is unsurprising. But this particular visit sticks with me because of the enormity of its embedded power.

    When I speak with students, I always aim to enhance the existing civics education curriculum. I talk about my path to the State Senate through prior elected service in local government. I present students with an interactive “government tic-tac-toe” grid that shows the three branches of government as implemented within the three levels of government systems. Usually, students know most of the federal branches. Fewer know the state branches. Very few know the local government structures.