I spent most of 2021 learning. I learned about the false dichotomy between content and skills. I learned about cognitive load theory. I learned about various teacher education programs, the process by which school psychologists recommend accommodations, and Scarborough’s Reading Rope. I learned about different screeners for dyslexia and conflicting theories of student support, and evidence-based tutoring programs. I learned how to build a website. I didn’t really learn how to use social media. 

At the end of the day, though, I keep coming back to four major lessons from the year. 

First, schools, teachers, administrators, scientists, professors of education, non-profits, politicians, and parents need to share what they’re teaching, what they’re observing, what they’re learning, and what they’re struggling with….with each other. Constantly. 

This is true for supporting students with learning differences and without learning differences. We need these partnerships in order to better equip teachers, inform academic research, and frankly develop respectful and collaborative relationships between all relevant parties. The Tremaine Foundation is working with AIM Institute and Haskins Global Literacy Hub and various leaders from state DoEs to facilitate some of this. St. Andrews School’s Episcopal School houses The Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning. 

But this doesn’t happen enough or at all in most parts of the country. We need multiple models for productive partnership and knowledge sharing at the state and district levels. Many education and psychology professors and researchers that I’ve spoken with have claimed that “teacher practice lags our research by ten years.” This may be true. But if those researchers want to translate their work into actual classrooms, they need to collaborate with the ones doing the translation. 

Second, there is no magic lever to pull or fund that will suddenly help students with learning differences thrive.  

There are numerous levers, none of them are magic, and we keep identifying more levers. Consider all of the different external variables that are going to affect the experience of just one 6 year who has dyslexia and is struggling to learn how to read: 

1. Parents (beliefs about LD, understanding of LD, ability to advocate for child, EVERYING else that’s happening at home) 

2.  Identification Tool (timing of screener, quality of screener, ability of school/teacher to interpret the results) 

3. Teacher (expertise, training, beliefs about LD) 

4. Reading Curriculum (multi-sensory vs. whole language, implementation) 

5. Larger School Culture (beliefs about LD, attentiveness to mental health and self-image of students)

6. School-wide professional development (type, quality, effectiveness) 

7. External Supports for Teacher (coaching, mentorship)

8. External Supports for Student (tutoring, small-group, mentorship)

The list could go on. And then you multiply it for each struggling student and the ways in which their teachers, parents, and larger community need to be prepared to support them. Organizations and foundations, out of necessity, generally end up focusing on changing or improving or dismantling just one or two levers. That’s a reasonable approach. But these organizations and foundations and reformers and leaders in these spaces need to collaborate more. After all, an excellent multi-sensory reading curriculum that first-grade teachers aren’t prepared or trained to implement isn’t very useful. A supportive elementary school community that completely neglects effective tier two interventions isn’t going to teach that struggling first grader how to read. 

Third, parents should be furious about what’s being taught in kindergarten and first grade, but not in the way you might think. 

They should be angry that more than 60 percent of American 4th graders are not proficient readers. Students with learning differences are disproportionately represented in that group. Parents should be demanding that school districts throw out popular, discredited curricula and replace them with high-quality ones. They should be demanding that education schools teach elementary and middle teachers how to use multi-sensory reading instruction. As far as I can tell, poor literacy instruction is the educational crime of the 21st century. 

Fourth, I don’t think anyone really fully understands or even agrees on what makes an individual school successful or unsuccessful. 

I’m also not sure if this is a controversial thing to think or an uncontroversial thing to think. High or improving test scores for students? High or improving test scores for marginalized students? Those are nice data points to be sure and are probably necessary but not sufficient for a “successful school.” How do you measure school culture and community? Or student contentedness and connectedness? Schools in South Korea, for example, tend to do a very good job preparing students to pass difficult exams. But I am pretty confident that most Americans would be uncomfortable with the schools’ culture and community, although we covet those scores. So is that success? 

We know that students didn’t learn much or very well during remote school. And they were also missing time with classmates, time away from their families, time to develop their own identities, not to mention things like regular meals. We don’t know how to measure these things, and I’m not sure we even know how to create them, even though many of us consider them to be essential components of any successful school.

So where do these lessons leave me and the Goyen Foundation? Come back soon for those plans.