SC: If You Can't Read, You Should Not Be in Fourth Grade

Common sense says that a fourth grader who cannot read will not feel good about himself, so why is keeping him back a year bad for his psyche? It's a lose-lose phenomenon unless someone addresses his lack of skills. What if the non-reading fourth grader is then passed on to fifth grade to avoid hurt feelings?

Think this scenario doesn't happen? Then you haven't read about the entering ninth graders at North Charleston High School who read below the fourth-grade level. In the past if a student couldn't read, he or she was passed on to the next level to become someone else's problem. 

Now, why would a non-reader drop out of high school?

Duh.

That's the premise behind South Carolina's Read to Succeed Act. No one should be surprised that some non-readers must comply with its guidelines. Summer reading camp is a must for them.

"Put another way: In a representative class of 30 third-graders from across the state, two children would face the prospect of getting held back."

Sounds about right, actually. The problem is, that's not what's happening.

What's disturbing is that all but four of Charleston County's 51 students affected by the law attended Title I schools. 

How long, oh Lord, how long will it take CCSD to do what's necessary for these failing schools? 

To suggest, as one expert did at the Charleston Forum, that standardized testing has been a "major setback" for black students is incredible. Standardized testing has revealed what school districts have tried to hide. Not knowing that a student can't read would be better? Nonsense.

"It also remains to be seen how many students will really have to repeat the third grade. The 2014 Read to Succeed Act, which set the new cutoff this year, includes a list of seven "good cause exemptions" that could allow students to progress to fourth grade even if they scored "Not Met 1" — the lowest failing grade — on the reading sub-test of the SC READY assessment in the spring."

"Students who have been in an English for Speakers of Other Languages program for less than two years, who have certain learning disabilities, who have received two years of reading intervention and were previously retained, or who submit a "reading portfolio" that demonstrates adequate reading skills can all be passed on to fourth grade."

Too many exemptions, but at least it's a start. And the camps are using phonics.😃