AISD Trustee Kathryn Whitley Chu (Screenshot via Austin ISD)
You rarely see friction between Austin ISD administrators and the board of trustees at the district’s biweekly board meetings. Typically, the administrators make presentations to the trustees, and the trustees praise them lavishly for their hard work. But the Oct. 10 meeting was different. Tension permeated the room as administrators discussed their work to boost literacy for the district’s elementary students.
The discussion began with Assistant Superintendent Mary Ann Maxwell presenting data suggesting that the district is doing better at teaching its young students to read. The data came from one of the state’s required tests, known as NWEA MAP. It showed that the percentage of second graders who need reading interventions – specialized instruction to bring them up to grade level – has dropped from 48% in 2021 to 30% this past spring. Maxwell said the district’s purchase of a widely used literacy curriculum from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt helps explain the improvement. “Last year, we invested in high quality training materials,” she said. “Our most underserved populations are really, really starting to see a difference.”
“Is there concern about our most talented, creative teachers feeling too constrained by this environment that is coming down from the state?” – Austin ISD Trustee Kathryn Whitley Chu
The district’s Lilliana Kendrick and LaKesha Drinks added detail about the new curriculum. Kendrick said AISD is using the “science of reading,” a type of instruction prioritizing phonics, where students learn words by sounding them out. Drinks said the district no longer allows the instructional method known as “three-cueing,” which de-emphasizes phonics and teaches kids to use contextual cues in order to read. “You have teachers say, ‘I’ve always used this and I’ve always taught my kids to read,’” Drinks said. “But three-cueing isn’t acceptable any longer, and neither are any of the resources associated with it.”
Drinks finished and it was Q&A time. Kathryn Whitley Chu, one of five former teachers on the board, started off. She noted that the administrators had described the new curriculum, called HMH after the company supplying it, as “evidence based.” She asked them to present the evidence.
Maxwell was taken aback. “Would you like us to submit all of the research behind HMH?” she asked. Whitley Chu said that would be helpful. “Okay, because that’s a pretty long list,” Maxwell replied, “but I think we could submit that.” Drinks jumped in, defending HMH as the curriculum the district has chosen, in part because it complies with new state rules.
Chu seemed unpersuaded. “So this is a very high degree of standardization and lack of autonomy for the professional educator, the classroom teacher,” she said.
Superintendent Matias Segura took up the thread. He said the district wants to give teachers the flexibility to use their own teaching methods but that a phonics-based curriculum is now state law.
Chu responded: “Is there concern about our most talented, creative teachers feeling too constrained by this environment that is coming down from the state?”
An hour of discussion on early childhood literacy followed, which highlighted how passionately teachers defend the art of their profession and how deeply they distrust standardized testing, which is bound inextricably to the curricula that companies like HMH sell. Segura came back to the idea of teacher autonomy, placing it in the context of the district’s budget deficit, which is requiring district leaders to find $90 million to cut – one-tenth of district expenditures. “We’re at this point where we’re trying desperately to provide the resources to all of our campuses,” Segura said. “And at the same time, we know that we can’t support them if there’s an infinite number of different curriculums.”
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