Distant Dome: Student Reading Scores Follow the Money

By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome

In my public school days, there were no cell phones to find information in an instant, or communicate with friends or family or someone across the universe, or a mind-boggling number of games to play while sitting in class.

We had books. Books for math, science, history and many books for English/literature classes.

We also had lots of records and a few good Boston radio stations to occupy our time when we weren’t reading for school or for our own pleasure.

But for school, we had to read and read a lot.

You often hear today that kids don’t read, and perhaps that is true, but they do read a lot from the screens of their phones, but its value is an open question.

Last week Gov. Kelly Ayotte gave her State-of-the-State address to the Legislature and one of her initiatives was to raise the bar on reading and literacy scores for the state’s public school students.

She directed the education commissioner to determine why some districts do so well and others do not.

“Low reading scores are a challenge here and across the country, and I believe a smart first step for us in addressing this is to dig into our districts that are standouts and ask them what are they doing differently,” Ayotte said. “What can we learn and apply from their example? How can we help all of our schools raise the bar for reading?”

Looking at the Department of Education’s date about schools and how well they perform on the statewide assessment tests under the No Child Left Behind initiative — which is now more than 20 years old — there are a few outstanding schools that reach high proficiency levels in reading, many are in the middle and there are a good number with too many students performing below the proficiency level.

That should not be a surprise to anyone who was around when the last full-blown study of education funding was done in 2019.

The consultants the commission hired crunched the state data to determine what schools produced students with outcomes that pointed toward success and which schools’ students constantly performed below the state’s average achievement level.

They mapped out their findings with a little line in the middle to indicate the acceptable range and the visual was stunning.

Those schools that produced the best outcomes for their students were all in districts that could afford a little extra for their students, i.e. property wealthy communities.

Those districts where the outcomes were below what was considered acceptable were from school districts that struggled to provide an adequate education for their students.

This is not to say that good students were doomed to failure if they attended low-outcome schools, but the overall outcomes for the students were well below what property wealthy communities produced.

We have all heard throwing money at education isn’t the answer, but maybe the way to view that assertion is additional funding may not produce the results you would like to see, but too little investment will all but guarantee a district’s students will be underserved on their way to adulthood.

If you ask US News and World Report which are the best elementary schools in New Hampshire, the results are what you might expect.

The towns where these schools are located are Bedford, Franconia, Grantham, Hanover, Mason, Portsmouth, Rye and Windham.

The magazine uses assessment scores and the results in context of socioeconomics demographics. The magazine writes “the top-ranked schools are all high-achieving and have succeeded at educating all their students.”

The top ranked schools are one to 10: Riddle Brook School, Bedford; Rye Elementary School; Mason Elementary School; Lafayette Regional School, Franconia; Bernice A. Ray School, Hanover; Peter Woodbury School, Bedford; New Franklin School, Portsmouth; Grantham Village School; Memorial School, Bedford, and Windham Center School.

Not a city school to be found on the top 10 list outside of Portsmouth.

Mason and Lafayette are small rural schools with small student populations.

The rest are in property wealthy communities where it is much easier to raise money for education because the tax base provides considerable amounts of property value per student, which aligns with the consultants findings when they did their study.

If you look at the Department of Education’s data on the state assessment tests, some of it incomplete due to school size, the picture is much the same.

Just looking at the reading proficiency scores for the schools. Two stand out in the state: Dresden, which includes Hanover and Norwich, Vt., had 98, with exceptional above 100. The other high-end number of note is Exeter at 92. 

There are probably a lot of educators’ kids in those figures.

Bedford, which had three elementary schools in the US News and World Report’s top-10 rankings, had a districtwide 82, just above Bow, Grantham and Portsmouth at 80, while Newfields was at 85.

On the other end of the scale is Claremont at 38, Farmington at 44, Barnstead at 47 and Manchester at 49.

This is not a scientific listing, but a comparison of known property wealthy communities to those that struggle to provide their students with an adequate education.

The other thing that has been shown to impact students success or achievement is parental involvement and a stable home life.

Parents who read to their children or who read with their children help boost their reading levels and proficiency scores.

Not all education happens in the classroom.

And a child who comes to school hungry is not going to be interested in whatever is being taught and instead will be dreaming of his or her next meal under the free and reduced lunch program.

Teachers received a standing ovation from lawmakers when Ayotte gave them a shout out during her State-of-the-State address, but later that day the House members voted to expand the Education Freedom Account program which draws money out of the Education Trust Fund which provides state aid to schools, and told teachers they could not use materials from the World Economic Forum in school curriculums although President Trump spoke at the group’s forum last week in Switzerland.

Megan Tuttle, President of NEA-New Hampshire, agreed with Ayotte’s message in her speech, that teachers and support staff are the most important component in providing students a quality education. 

“Educators want to do more for our students. We aren’t defending the status quo; we’re fighting for improvement. Teachers and support staff want smaller classes and caseloads, more individualized support, and better outcomes for students. We deserve to know if our children are learning the curriculum and life skills they need to build bright futures. But let’s be clear—standardized tests don’t tell us that. Tests tell us how well kids take tests, whether they have a stable home life, and how well their community is able to invest in their education,” she said. “It is essential to remember that we are educating the whole child, not just delivering textbooks and tests. Educators are doing everything we can to make sure every student reaches their full potential. This is about investment, not excuses.”

And it is important to remember New Hampshire is last in the nation — not first — in state funding for public education providing just over 22 percent of the cost, while your property taxes provide 70 percent of the funding. The national average is just below 50 percent.

The best and most efficient way to improve student reading scores is for the state to live up to its constitutional obligation to provide every public school student an adequate education and to pay for it. 

The state has a long way to go to meet its obligations.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.