BRICE FIELDER CHECKS IN 6/3/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Very good. All right, I want to jump into things because it's elected. We have some school board members and a chairman running. We also have a lot of the candidates talking about the state of our education system. And you brought something to my attention that there's new data on third graders. Tell us a little bit about what you know.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Yeah, so there's new reporting out showing that uh more third graders were retained, meaning held back in the last school year than in the previous school year. And at a first glance, that might sound alarming or that we're taking a step back, but actually it stems from a law that we passed in 2024. Really, the goal is to make sure that more third graders are reading on grade level and that we're not advancing students ahead when they're not ready.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Can I ask you a question before you go on? Do they use the lights retention scale before making that decision? To make the time, there is a thing in back when my child needed to be held back, I thought they applied the lights retention scale, which my daughter's school district used, which says if your child has special needs or cognitive or is in a special needs a special ed intervention, they do not, they do not qualify to be left back.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

I don't know specifically about that scale, but yes, there are exemptions. And those exemptions are important, and those include students with um special needs and also those that go through what is basically a summer reading camp.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

And can show that they've been caught up before they're uh held back. So there are options available to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Um but what the data shows is that if you compare the last two years of third graders and how many have been held back, it tripled from year to year. So in 2023-24, it was 424. Then that following year it went up to 1,281. And so I was digging into some of the numbers this morning, and basically it seems like a few things are going on. Um, we passed what was uh you can sort of call read to succeed 2.0, right? Read to succeed was landmark legislation that South Carolina passed originally in 2014 with the goal of improving literacy, and we've strengthened that law in 2024 and increased some of those standards. And as part of it, and you mentioned earlier, um exemptions for students that are sort of at an at-risk category of being held back. There was something called a reading portfolio. And basically what that meant is students that were flagged for retention could demonstrate through this body of work and sort of showing that maybe they had a bad day on the test, but there's these other assignments that they performed really well on. That could be used as a reason to uh advance them into fourth grade. And we took that out in this new law. And that in combination with a few other changes seems to be the reason why more third graders were held back, you know, from year over year. And actually, if you look at the data, it's not that academics have gone down, they've actually gone up in reading. So if we're comparing apples to apples, uh more students are performing better. It really just stems from some of these changes, and we can get into that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So let me ask you this question. Was that law proposed prior to 2020? Do you know? Or is it a result of 2020?

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Well, that I mean it feels like a lot of what we've done in the last few years is a result of 2020. So whether directly or indirectly, um it was passed in 24, so my hunch is it it was.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Probably 22 or something.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

You know, uh this this um concerns me, but you're saying that it's not technically alarming. But why aren't that why are that many children not performing at the proper level? Are they going uh and I'm just wondering where they fall in the birthday scale, because we had this conversation um yesterday. You know, are they entering into kindergarten too young?

SPEAKER_02 4:25

I think it's a combination of fact. I don't know that there's a simple answer, right? So much of we talk about this a lot. The number one contributing factor to whether a student excels is having a high-quality teacher. It's not, there are other important factors, school safety, uh, classroom sizes can play a role, but having a high-quality teacher in the classroom is does give kids the greatest chance of being successful in school. And so all schools have sort of different conditions, and some are going to perform better than others. And those low-performing schools are going to have kids that struggle more in reading, particularly at an early age. Um reason third grade is so important is what the data shows is you go from learning how to read to understanding higher concepts once you get into later elementary and then middle. And if you're a student who's struggling with reading, you're likely only to struggle more if you get pushed on when you still don't have those foundational skills. So that's why people uh point to third grade with such focus.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, and I've heard in the past that the third grade reading scores are deterred, they use that to see, like you're saying, to know what they need to prepare for for the high school years for that child.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yes, and and they talk about, and I think this should change. One of the things they'll point to is teachers in these later grades are not as equipped to teach basic literary skills, literary uh SC skills as elementary school teachers. So there's not a lot that they feel that they can do to help students that are struggling with those basic reading concepts once they get into those grades, which is why we want to give them sort of specialized support at a young age before to help, you know, remedy that issue.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Okay. All right, let's move on to the school board candidates before we run out of time. I know that uh your organization is not endorsing any particular candidates, but what can you tell us to look for or who's saying what so that we can have some better information?

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Yeah, well, I'll give you a quick PSA. So you've got school board elections ongoing right now, of course, because of early voting. Uh next week is the primary, that's going to be June 9th, and Ory County is unique because it is one of only two counties where you have partisan school board elections. Some people uh like that idea, some people don't, but what I think is objectively true is you probably have more information on where candidates stand on certain issues because of that party affiliation. So I sent you an article this morning. You've got a lot of really good local reporting in Ori County. I would encourage voters to go look at all the candidates profiles, right? Each of them had a dedicated page where they talk about why am I running, what's motivating me, what issues do we care about, and we need good people on our school board. I mean, make no mistake about that. We just did a candidate training a few weeks ago. It was a public nonpartisan event, and that's what I stress to everyone. Make your focus student achievement. Don't get caught up in the controversies and the you know the grudge holding between people be there to be effective, and that's what we have to do to actually make our schools better.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Uh, what about where does your organization, I don't even know if you comment on this sort of stuff, but um, where does your organization land when it comes to classroom size? Because we're talking about overcrowded schools and they're just building like crazy out here.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Uh if you can if you have the funds available to build the schools that you need and hire the teachers that you need to reduce class sizes, that's great. Um, I don't think anyone wants bigger class sizes. It's really just a question of money and where you appropriate and and what your priorities are. So, yeah, I think in an ideal world, you know, if you're a growing community and you can build new schools and reduce those class sizes, that's great. Um, but I've seen plenty of communities that don't, and they have to put that money elsewhere, really the staff.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Okay. Um, in and do you have an any d do you have any indication of how many people from our area have been attending your events for school board candidate and member training?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

We um as far as our most recent one, we did have one person attend, and then in past events, we might have had a handful. Ori County is, I think, a good three-hour drive here to the Columbia area. So, you know, maybe maybe that's a barrier. Um, but what I will tell you is we hope we have more. And this is what I tell everyone. We've put on what is probably the best candidate training for school board members you can find in the state. So whether you're R running or thinking about it, I encourage everyone to show up.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

All right. What is the website and if you want to mention any upcoming things in particular?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Sure. So you can find us at schoolboardleader.com. You can read some of the research that we have in our upcoming events and sign up for our weekly newsletter on the front page. Uh, we will be in Charleston next month. We are hosting a big summit, a national summit uh from June 24th to 26th, and you can find more about that on our website.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

All right. Thank you so much, Bryce Fielder.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Thanks, Liz.