Raising reading scores of lower achieving minority students at a Florida Middle School - Essay Example

The importance of getting all children off to the right start in reading cannot be overstated. Slavin (2009), stated “In the elementary grades, success in school is virtually synonymous with success in reading, and children without strong reading skills by middle school are headed for disaster.” It is well known that children who fail to read in the early grades sustain so many costs to the education system, through special education, remediation, grade repetition, delinquency, and ultimate school dropout which is more of a burden (Slavin, 2009).

Student dropouts not only become educational matter but societal issue which ultimately increases burden of taxes.       It is believed that very expensive interventions can be justified on cost-effectiveness grounds alone; while at the same time preventing damage to young peoples’ lives (Slavin, 2009). One sad statistic is that reading failure is not distributed randomly, but is focused among schools serving many underprivileged, minority, and Limited English Proficient (LEP) students.

Statistics show that it is in the early elementary grades where the gap in performance between students of different races first appears.       As stated by Rothert (2005), the No Child Left behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has intensified efforts across the country to eliminate racial disparities in academic performance. According to Denbo (2005), this underachievement of a large and growing segment of our population is nothing short of a national crisis. This trend is reflected across the state of Florida.

Ideally, every year students should show progress in their reading skills, but in Florida many students are neither meeting the achievement gap nor show improvement (Lakes, 2005).  In contrast, this piece of legislation can boast an improvement in test scores, increased accountability, brought attention to minority populations; and increased quality of education (No Child Left behind Act, 2008).  The reading problem of middle school students throughout the state of Florida is severe.

The Florida Today (2005) stated the literacy push is needed as the 2004 FCAT showed that 54% of sixth-graders read at grade level and less than half the state’s eighth-graders read at grade level. Furthermore, test scores throughout the state currently show that minority students are performing at a lower level than Caucasian students on the FCAT. The groups most at risk for reading failure are the same groups at risk for school failure in general: students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and students who live in poverty (Education.com 2011).