Did you know that 70% of Americans were not proficient in math and/or reading when they were in 4th and 8th grade? What’s worse, 50% of our students, that’s HALF, are at a BASIC LEVEL or BELOW! Chances are, you’ve heard some of this on the news. But not much is happening aside from the usual political cantor. And year after year, we see the same trend.

Surprisingly, no one is digging deeper into this data. Let’s take a moment to consider these numbers. How many students are we talking about? Where do these students end up? Did they somehow become proficient readers before they graduated? As adults, can they now calculate change for a $10 bill? Or figure out a 15% tip? Let’s look at the data, and then I’ll add my two cents on what I see every day in our school classrooms.

70% of students are not proficient in reading or math — that’s over 2.5 million students every year. To make matters even worse, looking back to the 1990s, we found that about 80% of students (about 3 million) were not proficient in math and reading, with some years showing non-proficiency rates as high as 85%.
Even more alarming, about half of our students were (and still are) at or below the basic level for reading and math – that’s about 1.5 million students! Every year… What becomes of these kiddos?

Let’s not forget about my generation. The 1970s and 1980s were even worse. Although proficiency levels weren't introduced until 1990, the NAEP reported scaled scores that generally hovered just above the basic-level cutoff. For instance, in 1971, the average reading score for 4th graders was exactly at the cutoff score of 208 for the below-basic level. This indicates that 50% of students scored below the basic level, while 50% scored above the basic level. Clearly, these scores fell far short of a proficient level.

Think about these numbers for a few moments. Over 1.5 million students every year are at or below a basic level of reading and math. 2.5 million students below the proficient level. Year after year. What happens to these kids after they graduate or drop out?

Think about what you are seeing in our society these days… homelessness, gangs, crimes, poverty, and mental health issues. I’m sure you’re seeing the connection. What if we could change our educational outcomes? What would our world look like then?

Think about the impact education has on our society. We could change this if we wanted. Let’s look a little deeper. Why are half of our students in such a dire situation? Perhaps it’s just a really hard test.

I asked myself, “Are the test questions too hard?”. So, I looked for myself. Anyone can look up the test questions on the “Nation’s Report Card” website. In my opinion, compared to 4th and 8th grade end-of-grade (EOG) assessments, the NAEP questions are a walk in the park. See for yourself. Released test questions for any state or national assessments sit at your fingertips on the internet. But let’s keep going. There’s so much more to see!

Let's take this a step further. Consider a ten-year span for a moment (about 38 million graduates). Seventeen million students are below a basic level of reading and math. I wonder what they are doing after high school?

You might be thinking, "Folks can manage without basic reading and math skills; we have YouTube and calculators now." While that may be true, that's not my main point. Let's dive a little deeper into this issue.

Approximately 10% of students drop out of school. While 10% may seem small, that still amounts to around half a million students every year. That’s 5 million students every 10 years. Where are these kids today?

I’ll tell you where most of them are. Another staggering statistic that fits into this picture is that nearly 80% of people incarcerated are high school dropouts. Do you see the connection? With almost 2 million people incarcerated at any given moment, over 1.5 million of them are high school dropouts. This situation persists day after day, year after year. While some individuals are serving sentences of 20 years or even life in prison, close to half are serving less than 10 years, with most of those serving less than 1 year in federal prison.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if we could reach these kids before they become a statistic? What would your community look like if these kids wanted to stay in school? They say, it takes a village, but what if the village doesn’t work well together? Teachers blame the parents, parents blame the school system, and the school system blames the politicians. Then, the politicians just make it worse. “No Child Left Behind”… “Every Child Succeeds”…

A Teachers Perspective

All this data is wonderful, but what do these numbers look like in the real world? What does 1.5 million scale down to in a single classroom? Remember, over 1.5 million kids are at or below a basic reading and math level. Let me share with you some of my own experiences from decades in the trenches.

With over 15 years of experience teaching Special Education across Elementary, Middle, and High School levels, I have observed several trends, particularly in middle school. For most of these years, my role involved teaching small class settings for both math and reading, focusing on students who were far below grade level. Additionally, I co-taught mathematics and reading classes for inclusion, collaborating with a regular education lead teacher in the mainstream classroom. I would like to share with you the most valuable insights I've gained from these experiences.

Teaching elementary school was a long time ago, but my big takeaways are still vivid in my mind. There was always a group of students who struggled significantly with foundational skills, such as memorizing math facts and remembering phonics rules and sight words. Many of these students had extremely low working memory scores, as indicated by school psychologists. Each year, one or two working memory scores consistently fell below the 0.1 percentile compared to students from the entire state. These kiddos never had success with math facts despite trying every tool available. Unfortunately, this issue has a ripple effect on many other math skills down the line. Although I encouraged the use of calculators to bridge the gap, it was always a battle, as almost every teacher considers calculators cheating. it becomes problematic when trying to solve more complex problems, like factoring and scaling in high school trigonometry.

From my experience, children who struggle with basic reading and math skills generally fall into one of two categories. The first group consists of those with some form of learning disability, while the second group includes children who frequently move between different schools, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and/or foster care situations. And yes, these two groups often overlap. Children in the second group tend to have unstable home lives and lack support, which means that when they arrive at school, they often have more significant issues on their minds. Both groups can end up getting in a lot of trouble at school and often need behavior support.

While this second group of students may fall behind dramatically, they can often catch up quickly when provided with sufficient support. The first group of students with learning disabilities will need a different approach, with much more patience and perseverance.

Please keep in mind that I'm oversimplifying this issue. There are numerous challenges our kids face today, and I can't list them all. For instance, I often encounter children diagnosed with autism who are placed on behavior intervention plans or behavior support plans. Autistic kids are often misunderstood. What is considered normal behavior for them is frequently viewed as defiant or disrespectful in school—and sometimes even at home. I've witnessed many cases where autistic students transfer from another school with a behavior plan; they hate school until they get to my class. Then, we find out that academically, they are among the top performers for their grade level. Another example is that I’ve observed babies and toddlers drinking Diet Pepsi from their baby bottles and sippy cups, indicating poor nutrition, which can also play a significant role in brain development.
Moving on to some key takeaways from my years in middle school math and reading classrooms, I’ll start with reading. Every year, I would get three eighth graders who were struggling with 2nd-grade level text. That’s words like frog, tree, red, etc… I always wondered how they made it to eighth grade and still couldn’t read at a basic level. In my regular education inclusion classes, I always had three to five students who struggled to read fourth and fifth-grade text. These students made quick progress in reading groups when I was allowed to do this. Sadly, most teachers feel they must “teach the curriculum” to everyone. It wouldn’t be “fair” to leave students out. This is somewhat tied in with the enormous stress and pressure teachers face. We’ll take a deep dive into that further along this path.

Here's a key takeaway from math class. This is especially true for middle school and carries over into high school if left unchecked. Many students are afraid to answer math questions. And when they are forced to do so, they put little to no thought into it. Their only answer is, “I don’t know.” or, “I don’t understand.” These students absolutely need The Magic Mindset. You cannot force a child to learn. If you try to, it will be a painful and stressful experience for all involved, including the other students. I know because I’ve tried many times.

My key takeaway from high school is simply that graduation rates are easily inflated. The numbers don’t add up. Only 6% of our students drop out of high school, while close to 50% of them can barely read or do basic math. Teaching them Trigonometry is nearly impossible. Especially when these students skip most of these classes. High school math teachers, you know what I mean. Eventually, after failing a course two or three times, they have to take an online version of that course where they can get other people or technology to do the work. I believe that this is one big reason why graduation rates have gotten much better over the years.

I’m all for kids getting that diploma, though, if it will help keep them out of jail. Don’t forget that 80% of those incarcerated are high school dropouts.
Sound pretty dismal? Perhaps there’s another way. Does every student need to learn Trigonometry and Calculus, or Earth Science, Chemistry, and foreign languages? When I studied in England, I found that kids finished compulsory school at 16 and either went to “A-Levels” to prepare for college, or they went to “further education” trade schools. That’s a topic for another book and another day.