Want to Take Learning Recovery Seriously?
Want to Take Learning Recovery Seriously? Support and Train Teachers
Nardi Routten teaches 4th grade at Creekside Elementary School in New Bern,
N.C. She has been a member of the National Assessment Governing Board since
2018 and is the 2014 recipient of the Milken Educator Award.
This new year, I’m reflecting on a quote widely attributed to Maya Angelou
that means a lot to me as an educator: “You did what you knew how to do, and
when you knew better, you did better.” Last year opened my eyes to the many
inadequacies in the U.S. education system. Sure, a lot of the gaps we see in
student learning are a result of COVID’s impact on schooling. However, with
the new year, I want to focus on teacher confidence and support.
Teacher confidence is critical—and a problem illuminated by the recent results
of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. NAEP survey data released
alongside the test scores showed many teachers lack confidence when it comes
to addressing students’ knowledge and skill gaps as a result of the pandemic.
Many teachers feel they don’t have the support to close learning gaps in their
classrooms, specifically regarding content that falls outside the current
grade level of their students.
As a 4th grade teacher and a member of the National Assessment Governing
Board, which oversees NAEP, I expect my students to enter the school year
possessing specific foundational reading skills so we can focus more on
reading to learn rather than learning how to read. Unfortunately, kids are
increasingly lacking some foundational reading skills in the 4th grade,
especially as a result of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, it is common to hear teachers say things like, “That’s not my
problem, these students need to know this,” or “I don’t have time to teach it,
I have to move on.” I have said those words myself; but today, those words
make me cringe.
Is it truly a lack of time or is it a lack of knowledge and skills that drive
us to think—or say—those things? I’ll be honest; for me, it was the latter. I
did not know how to teach basic phonemic foundational reading skills and I was
afraid to admit it. But at the start of this school year, my class’ initial
benchmark and diagnostic assessments revealed that 40 percent of my 4th
graders lacked certain foundational phonemic-awareness skills. It was then
clear to me that I couldn’t let my fear and instructional ignorance get in the
way of a proper response.
Training is vital to our craft when addressing learning gaps.
I’ve been able to improve my teaching thanks to new approaches in my state of
North Carolina. Policymakers here have elected to provide P-5 teachers and
other educators access to a professional learning program to help ensure
instruction is aligned to the science of reading and help us address learning
gaps. As a result, I have learned how to integrate important phonemic skills
in my daily reading lessons to benefit all my students—even my advanced
readers—not just those who exhibit gaps.
Training is vital to our craft when addressing learning gaps. If a student
fails to master a specific concept, a different approach may be needed. The
teacher with a vast repertoire of strategies—gained from proper training—will
be more successful helping said student.
And the training is showing improvement in my instruction, too. About three
months into the school year, one of my struggling readers came up to me
beaming after reading a grade-level book with very little support and said,
“Ms. Routten, I’m really getting this and I’m getting to be a better 4th grade
reader.” It made my day. With the proper support, I was better able to help my
students.
It’s not just teachers who need to take steps to help children become better
readers. Policymakers and decisionmakers must use all the education data
available to see where student needs are and come up with targeted,
evidence-based solutions to address learning gaps. My state’s approach to
supporting teachers has been a positive step, and I hope policymakers in my
state and others look for more ways to support educators in meeting the needs
of our young people. This requires engaging teachers in meaningful
conversations and creating the space for them to identify areas where they
need support.
Policymakers should also use data to drive their decisionmaking. The latest
“nation’s report card” is a rich data set that should inform all our work
throughout the education system—from students and teachers to classrooms and
schools—as we help students recover from the pandemic. My hope in this new
year is for all stakeholders (policymakers, administrators, and all educators)
to focus on what is best for students. They are our future. Let’s “know better
in order to do better” by our children.
School Dress Code Debates, Explained
In this Sept. 7, 2018 photo, students socialize at Grant High School in
Portland, Ore., after school let out. Portland Public Schools relaxed its
dress code in 2016 after student complaints that the rules unfairly targeted
female students and sexualized their fashion choices.
In this 2018 photo, students socialize at Grant High School in Portland, Ore.,
after school let out. Portland Public Schools relaxed its dress code in 2016
after student complaints that the rules unfairly targeted female students and
sexualized their fashion choices.
Are school dress codes a tool for student safety or a restriction on their
self-identity? The question has been debated for years.
But more recently, dress codes have come up as an equity issue after reports
that Black students, girls, and LGBTQ students across the country are
disproportionately affected by school dress codes. Some districts have imposed
harsh punishments on those groups of students, including in- or out-of-school
suspensions, for violations of dress codes. And a federal Government
Accountability Office report recently concluded there’s a lack of model
policies to help school districts set dress codes that are fair to everyone.
What are school dress codes?
Ninety-three percent of school districts have dress codes or policies on what
students wear to school. These policies are meant to provide guidelines on
what students can and can’t wear, including specific pieces of clothing,
hairstyles, and accessories. Dress codes can vary widely in what they
restrict. Some schools even require students to wear uniforms. Most often,
though, dress codes ban clothes that the district considers revealing,
distracting, controversial, or pose a safety threat to students.
What do school dress codes ban?
The vast majority of dress codes—90 percent—ban clothing associated with
girls, the GAO report found. They also impose limits on the types of clothes
students can wear. Commonly banned clothing items include halter or strapless
tops, “skirts or shorts shorter than mid-thigh,” and “yoga pants or any type
of skin tight attire,” the report says.
But the enforcement of dress codes often ends up penalizing students for their
clothing or hair, rather than protecting them, some researchers argue.
“A lot of times these codes, while they’re supposed to be designed to keep
students safe and to be able to engage in learning, do more harm than good,
and are not inclusive of all identities,” said Courtney Mauldin, an assistant
professor of educational leadership at Syracuse University.
Some things banned in dress codes, such as hate speech or hate symbols, can
actually do the intended job of protecting students, however. Symbols or
wording that promote racism, homophobia, or intolerance should be banned by
school dress codes, Mauldin said, because dress codes, like all other equity
and school climate initiatives, should aim to make all students feel welcome.
“We have to have some very hard and fast things about what’s not allowed or
tolerated,” Mauldin said. “But we can’t simultaneously, in that same section
of the handbook, criminalize or stigmatize people’s culture and religious
practices.”
When were school dress codes developed?
Schools have had restrictions on dress for decades, though some of them have
been challenged in court. In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Des
Moines district violated students’ First Amendment rights to free speech after
it suspended them for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. But
the high court has never ruled on a school dress code in its entirety.
Schools began widely implementing modern-day dress codes and uniforms in the
1990s as a response to “increasing student-discipline problems, particularly
from gang violence,” according to the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee
State University. Gang-related symbols and clothing items began to be banned,
for example, as well as clothing that obscures students’ faces and makes it
hard to identify intruders on campus.
But as the American student body has diversified, many district dress codes
still cater to the dominant white culture, Mauldin said. This is evident in
schools banning items of clothing, or hairstyles associated with certain
groups, like braids or dreadlocks.
Fifty nine percent of dress codes have rules about students’ hairstyles that
disproportionately impact Black students, the GAO report found.
“A lot of the origins of some of the policies, practices and traditions that
we have in school, they’re antiquated,” Mauldin said. “They come from decades
ago, when schools were designed for a certain group of people in mind, which
was very much white-dominant culture.”
Are school dress codes sexist?
In addition, the enforcement of dress codes is often discriminatory, as the
GAO found. Educators who enforce them often unfairly target students of color,
LGBTQ students, and girls.
That’s because a lot of school dress codes are gendered, and over 90 percent
ban clothing worn predominantly by girls.
For example, dress codes sometimes mandate that boys are prohibited from
wearing long hair, or specify that girls are required to wear skirts of a
certain length.
“There are dress codes, of course, that do distinguish based on gender on
their face,” said Linda Morris, a staff attorney in the Women’s Rights Project
of the American Civil Liberties Union. “But I would say that there are also
other dress codes that are not facially gendered, but still include language
that is clearly gendered, and it’s clearly targeted at girls, and targeted at
hairstyles or pieces of clothing disproportionately worn by students of
color.”
Enforcing dress codes also can require adults to touch children to measure the
length of their skirts or the width of their shoulder straps, which can be
unsafe and demeaning, according to Morris.
To create their own dress codes that don’t reinforce gender or racial
stereotypes, districts need to think about the message they’re sending to
students, Mauldin said. For example, does using words like provocative and
revealing unfairly target girls’ clothing by implying that girls are dressing
a certain way to gain sexual attention or to prompt a strong reaction?
“Those words alone, a very problematic message to girls in a school,” Mauldin
said. “Also it’s a problematic message to all students in the school about
what a woman is supposed to look like, how she should be described, and how
she should present herself in society.”
Equity audits are also good way to analyze what proportion of school
discipline is related to dress code violations, and which groups of students
are most impacted by it.
“You have to do something with that data and let it speak to transform your
policies,” Mauldin said. “And you might need to change these policies because
overwhelmingly they [impact] particular groups of students.”
Students are often the drivers of dress code changes in schools, Morris said,
because they advocate against dress codes they find restrictive. Schools
should listen to their students and think about the message they’re trying to
convey through what is banned and what isn’t included in a dress code, both
experts said.