Florida’s reading gains going in the wrong direction. We must turn the page on these losses | Opinion
Reading is foundational throughout life. Whether it’s the adventures a child has paging through a book or writing a résumé as an adult, reading is part of every opportunity. Part of unlocking this success is ensuring all children receive evidence-based reading instruction early on.
Learning to read at grade level by the third grade is critical to a child’s success, and setbacks can follow students throughout their lives. It’s why alarm bells should be ringing across Florida. The most recent third-grade reading test results brought an unwelcome wake-up call: Florida’s record of early literacy improvements could be at risk.
It’s easy to forget how far the Sunshine State has come. In 1998, Florida fourth-graders scored nearly a full grade level below the national average in reading. In response, we started making bold changes.
We began investing in reading specialists to improve reading instruction in every school, and ensured teachers were trained in the latest reading research. We made sure that every student who advanced from third to fourth grade had learned to read. Then, we continually raised the bar, setting higher expectations for reading proficiency while giving students and teachers the support to meet those expectations.
These policies, combined with the hard work of educators, propelled Florida to become a global literacy leader.
By 2003, our Florida’s fourth-graders were outperforming the national average, and by 2009, Florida’s fourth-graders were among the top 10 highest performing states.
After reaching that high point of success, reading scores have slowly waned, and pandemic-era declines erased any improvements made over the past five years. The most recent results show nearly half of Florida’s third-grade students are not reading on grade level, reading scores for low-income students are at a seven-year low, and an estimated 52,571 Florida third-grade students are functionally illiterate.
It’s why we must act with urgency.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have taken steps in the right direction by investing $170 million in reading interventions, a $40 million increase. They have also provided incentives for teachers to receive specialized literacy training, created the New Worlds Reading Initiative and expanded reading scholarships so more families can hire tutors or pay for other education services.
By opening schools in the fall 2020 and using federal funds to focus on early literacy boot camps, Florida likely dampened the pandemic’s harsh impact on young students.
But there is more work to be done.
The best way to improve reading outcomes is a solid foundation for the youngest students making the leap from learning to read to reading to learn. Those early years are when students learn to match sounds with letters and develop knowledge about the world around them, so they can make sense of words on a page and build reading habits that last a lifetime. It’s also the years that were most disrupted for Florida’s current third-graders who are struggling to read.
To address this, school administrators should ensure all K-2 teachers are trained in the science of reading instruction. It’s unrealistic to expect third-grade teachers to remediate students who were promoted and unable to read.
This is why Florida must set a high bar for reading performance on new state assessments — one that matches the benchmarks used on national reading tests. And then schools must be honest with parents as to how their children are doing and not allow a lowering of expectations to falsely mask underperformance.
Additionally, Florida should identify consistent ways in which literacy coaching support can be documented to identify gaps in teacher knowledge and/or classroom practices across regions and the state.
Finally, school leaders must avoid passing students to fourth grade when they can’t read. Florida has long provided a contrast to places like Oregon or Los Angeles schools where students are promoted to the next grade when failing. To better empower parents, Florida should make data more transparent so it’s easier to know how many students in a school are promoted despite scoring below grade level on state reading tests.
More than anything, complacency is not an option. There’s too much at stake and much more to be done to ensure every Florida student can reach their full potential — and that journey begins by mastering the skill of reading.
Jeb Bush was the 43rd governor of Florida. He is founder and chairman of ExcelinEd and ExcelinEd in Action.
