Study: Parish ‘exceptional’ at teaching reading skills

Even as the Lincoln Parish School District gave a report Tuesday on the literacy rates of its youngest students being below expectations, an independent national reading study was singling the parish out as a success story in overcoming the effects of poverty on education.

Nonprofit education news site “The 74” published a study Tuesday showing that most of the time, an area’s poverty rate has an inverse relationship to its students’ reading proficiency. In fact, every state in the country has a downward-sloping line showing reading scores fall as poverty rates rise.

But some districts are bucking the trend.

Labeled by the study as “exceptional districts,” these school systems show a positive gap between their actual third-grade reading levels and their “expected” levels based on poverty rates.

Some states have many of these. Louisiana has only one: Lincoln Parish.

“This is a validation that we are at least on the right track,” Lincoln Parish Chief Academic Officer Dana Talley said of the study. “We’re not there, but we are absolutely on the right track.”

Lincoln Parish has a poverty rate of 33% among school-age children. In other words, one in three children in the parish is estimated to be in a family or living situation that falls below the federal poverty line.

Some 56% of Lincoln Parish third graders tested as reading on grade level under a new, more rigorous statewide assessment this past spring.

That’s well over the “expected” rate of 35% that The 74’s study predicted the district would have based on its poverty levels.

It’s also by far the highest proficiency rate of any parish with 30% poverty or more. The only districts scoring higher than Lincoln — St. Tammany and Ascenscion Parishes — have just 13% and 12% poverty, respectively.

Though income has a proven relationship to reading and test scores, Talley said Lincoln Parish believe that’s no excuse to see any less than every child reading on grade level.

“In terms of overall proficiency, we are not where we need to be,” she said. “No matter poverty rate or any other factor that potentially affects student achievement, we want 100% of our students to be proficient — that’s the goal.”

Superintendent Ricky Durrett said this new data highlights success that schools are having in engaging various parts of the community in the work of educating their children.

“Our teachers and administrators are trying to reach and build relationships with all of our students and parents,” Durrett said. “We know to be truly successful we need a good teacher, an engaged student, and a parent reinforcing that at home. This shows our schools are trying to work with all facets of our community.”

Leaders say the study also shows the changes they’ve made in early elementary instruction are beginning to take hold, not that everything is OK the way it is now.

Talley said schools are still in the process of ensuring every student — especially those in historically underserved groups — is exposed to grade- appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers with high expectations.

“We don’t want kids just paying attention,” she said. “We want kids doing the thinking, the talking, and the work of the grade-level lesson.”

Another key change schools are working on is checking in on students’ understanding before test time or the middle of the year.

“Every day we’re asking teachers to identify: ‘What is it students should have learned today, how will I know if they’ve learned it, and what am I going to do if they didn’t?’” Talley said. “ Those are questions we’re having teachers ask themselves every day.”

Students in grades K-3 will be taking the newly approved literacy screeners three times throughout the school year.

The district hopes its recent changes will begin leading to higher results and, ultimately, more reading skills for young learners — regardless of socioeconomic factors.