Op Ed: Untitled

Most public schools fail to teach grade level reading skills to most children. [LINK]
Quote from Reid Lyon. 

Most public schools are not set up for success. 

When the process of offering too little too late does not work, the school assumes that children cannot learn to read. The reality is that the school cannot teach children to read with this approach.
 
If a teacher is to be successful in teaching children to read, she must be well-trained in research based reading instructional methods. She must have access to her students every day. She must have data from assessments to know where she is and where she needs to go with each child. 

If you are looking for someone else to fix this problem, it is not going to happen. The person you are looking for is you. You vote in local elections. You have colleagues, friends, and neighbors. 

Tell your school board members that the failure to teach children to read is not cost-effective. Failure fills prisons with illiterate citizens. Failure fills welfare rolls with illiterate families. Failure wastes taxpayer money.  Failure destroys the lives of children who just need to learn to read.
 
If you continue to tread water in this broken system, your students will not learn to read and the system will have to be fixed by someone else. 

"If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem." 

You need to fix some part of the problem every week. This applies to all of us.
 
Continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome is not logical. You need to become a squeaky wheel. 

You also need to get additional training in research based reading so you have the knowledge and skills to teach children who will not learn to read on their own.  
 
I do not question that you care a great deal about the success of these children. You have spent your life working for them. You know that the system is broken. You need to redirect your efforts so you can save children from the failure of our public school system.