Why can't John and Jane read? Ask their schools

The results of the fourth-grade proficiency test in reading are out, and the news they have for Valley residents is not good: 17.6 percent of children in the tricounty area can't read even at a basic level. Every school district where more than a few percent are unable to read at an appropriate level must take responsibility for the failure of these children.
No more blaming parents, transient students, recalcitrant eight-year-olds or the tests themselves.
Districts that want their children to succeed accept the responsibility for teaching every child and insist on accountability at every level within the school system. There are a number of well researched methods for teaching children who don't have the benefit of involved parents, family literacy or suburban wealth -- but they can't wait until a child flunks a test in the fourth grade.
Every teacher worth his or her salt should know well before the tests are administered which pupils can read and which cannot. And after years of fourth-grade tests, building principals should be able to identify any teachers whose pupils are not doing as well as the children of other teachers. Those teachers should be helped to improve or to leave the classroom. Children needing special help should have had it before promotion from first to second to third and now to fourth magnified their inability to read. Districts -- their school boards and superintendents-- that have failed to provide that help must be called to account.
Schools even got a little wiggle room when the General Assembly, recognizing that so few children could read, changed the standards in June so that children need only to achieve a basic -- rather than a proficient -- level to pass. Previously, proficiency scores were divided into three categories: & quot;advanced, & quot; (250 and above), & quot;proficient, & quot; (217 to 249), and & quot;below proficient, & quot; (216 and below). With four categories instead of three, scores below proficient were divided into two levels: "basic" (198 to 216) and "below basic," (197 and below).
Lower river: Rather than raising the bridge, the legislature merely lowered the river. Thus 39 percent of children across the state who would have failed the test last year are now considered to have passed.
But let no one think that reading in Ohios schools has improved when 17 percent of fourth graders cannot read at a basic level -- and 15 local districts didn't even do that well: notably Campbell, where 37 percent scored below basic; Youngstown, at 44 percent; and Warren, at 30 percent.
This school year, the tests were administered early enough for schools to work with those whose reading skills are minimal before tests are offered again in March and July 2002. But it should be clear that the methods a large number of schools have been using do not work and must be changed -- especially for the children who have the least family support.
Innovative reading programs can be brought into the schools. However, don't go looking for them in the state's charter schools: of 1,228 fourth graders in charter schools across Ohio more than half read below the basic level -- the worst scores in the state.
Children who can't read in fourth grade are unlikely to do well in sixth grade or ninth grade or in college or on the job. And that should concern every person whose cares about the future of the Ohio.