Arizona kids are falling short of literacy goals. This new initiative aims to boost proficiency

A group of advocates has come together to start a new literacy initiative in Arizona.

According to the Arizona Progress Meter, 39% of third-graders in the state were rated proficient or highly proficient on one of a series of English language arts assessments last year. The goal is 72% — and last year’s number is actually down 2%.

Terri Clark, Arizona literacy director for Read on Arizona, joined The Show to talk about the new Arizona Literacy Plan 2030.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: Terri, first off, what prompted this new initiative?

TERRI CLARK: Sure. Well, we have been working for probably over 12 to 18 months, over the last year and a half with education stakeholders across Arizona to get input and feedback on a shared vision for literacy. Because the reality is that we're not where we need ... for our youngest learners around their literacy proficiency. And we felt like it was really important to get shared buy-in and shared commitment to: How do we improve things and work towards a strong and ambitious goal for 2030?

BRODIE: How did you come up with the 72% proficiency rate goal? That seems like a very specific number.

CLARK: It is a specific number. It's actually aligned to the Arizona Progress Meter, which was set about 10 years ago. And we asked partners and stakeholders if they felt that we should look at the goal. And they felt the goal, you know, it was ambitious and we needed to stay focused on it, but that we needed to outline in more detail the strategies that we need and what we need to change to get there.

BRODIE: So I want to talk about the strategies in just a moment, but I want to ask about sort of the feasibility of this. Because we are right now right around 40% of third-graders in Arizona reading at grade level, 30% more in the next five years seems like a pretty tall order.

CLARK: It is a tall order, but only if, again, like I said, we don't look at what we're doing and do more of what works. And that's why part of the plan really spend some time talking about our scale to succeed strategies. Part of why we haven't seen the same kind of progress that other states across the country have seen is that some of what we know works, Arizona is not yet doing at scale.

And until we get to scaling,\ some of those really important interventions and supports and services, so that the kids that need them the most are getting them, we shouldn't expect — we should just sort of not expect to make as much progress.

BRODIE: So in your mind, what are the biggest, maybe the most important things that that you all are going to be doing? Even maybe some new things, maybe things that, as you reference, are being done in some schools or some districts, but really not at scale.

CLARK: Sure, so we've really spent some time on those and partners identified what we're calling scale to succeed strategies. And one of those is to basically expand the number of literacy-mastered literacy coaches that we have in schools that have the highest percentage of struggling readers. ... And what that does is it really puts a literacy coach on the ground, on site that teachers who have a wide gap of, you know, readers from across the spectrum. ...

There's a lot of reasons why a student might be struggling with reading, but they have that coach right there so that they can have real-time feedback and support and instruction, to help them improve and deliver high quality literacy instruction to all of their students.

BRODIE: Are there literacy coaches out there sort of waiting to be brought into these schools?

CLARK: We think so. ... Currently, the Department of Education has 34 literacy coaches that are deployed. There was always a strategy that was meant to expand ... the target goal for that program and is 125 or 150 literacy coaches. Because that's what really serving the bottom 10% of schools with the highest percentage of students that are struggling in reading — that's what they need to be able to really help those schools make progress.

So, they don't have nearly where they would like to see as many coaches as possible. But we're starting somewhere and it's, that's at 34 coaches. And over the next five years we want to see that increase.

Read On Arizona

BRODIE: In a perfect world, would those coaches be paid for by the state Department of Education or would districts be paying for that?

CLARK: So, the way the program works now is there is an allocation in the state budget, and the Department of Education makes that funding. And that it's a grant to schools and districts to be able to put that coach on site. ... They have in the past, I understand, requested funding and not been able to get additional funding, and we hope that eventually that changes.

BRODIE: Was there additional funding in the state budget for this year?

CLARK: There was not.

BRODIE: So, does that mean then that this can't really get going until at least next fiscal year?

CLARK: Not necessarily. I think there are other possible funding sources. There are, you know, you sometimes have to take the funding you have and just figure out how to get that to be used in a more effective way. So I think we have confidence that the department is going to be able to at least keep the 34 they have and possibly even find ways to increase and find other funding sources that would allow them to add some of those additional coaches that they want for their target goal.

BRODIE: Are there other things that can be done, sort of, within existing resources to try to help students who are struggling with their literacy and their reading?

CLARK: Yes, absolutely. And, again, I think this is where we see that there's no one magic solution to how do we improve early literacy. We have to think ... about this more as a combination of the right supports and services. And there are lots of different partners that can play a role in that.

So, you certainly have teachers doing everything they can in the classroom and schools doing everything they can, and utilizing their literacy plans to be as effective as possible. And then you have community partners. And that's, I think, one of the things we're really excited about in the action commitments that have been made as part of the rollout around the Arizona Literacy Plan 2030 is community partners — that may be providing professional development or high-impact tutoring, and other and early-learning programs and services — are committing to doing their part to help support our earliest learners being able to read.

BRODIE: Do you have a sense of where Arizona's literacy rate falls nationally or compared to other states?

CLARK: Yeah, so the story that I tell is, before the pandemic, we were actually — had started about 10 years ago in the bottom five of all states. And then made our incremental progress, and we were almost up to the national average. And then the pandemic happened. And the rug got pulled out from everyone. And although we did rebound, we've now kind of hit a plateau, and we're back down to being in the bottom third of where other states are.

And I guess for me, what that tells me is that we can no longer fall back to what we were doing before the pandemic. It's no longer sufficient. We have to be more strategic and be more committed to really doing these strategies that we know work at scale, and doing things differently. If we are just are going to keep doing what we had been doing, we really can't expect different results.

Success is possible when we're committed to doing what works and doing it at scale. And we really believe literacy has to be a priority because literacy is the key to not just a student's future, but Arizona's future.