WASHINGTON — Education and Workforce Vice Chair Burgess Owens (UT-04) participated in a Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education hearing titled “Foundations First: Reclaiming Reading and Math through Proven Instruction.”
Click here or above to watch.
Rep. Owens opened by underscoring the severity of America’s education crisis. He cited troubling statistics, including that nearly 70% of eighth graders nationwide cannot read or write proficiently, and stressed the urgent need to restore critical thinking, reading, and math skills in classrooms across the country.
Rep. Owens questioned Dr. Cade Brumley, State Superintendent of Education for Louisiana, about the state’s Let Teachers Teach initiative, which focuses on empowering educators, reducing bureaucracy, and rewarding merit-based performance.
Dr. Brumley highlighted Louisiana’s progress, including rising from 49th to 32nd in overall performance on the Nation’s Report Card, achieving 16th place in fourth-grade literacy, and reducing teacher vacancies from 2,500 to 1,000 through differentiated pay and retention policies.
Dr. Brumley: “We fundamentally believe that there’s nothing more important than the parent for the child’s success. But after that, number one is the teacher.”
Turning to literacy, Rep. Owens asked Ms. Chandra Roughton, Founder of Luminous Minds, how teachers can effectively implement the science of reading even without strong administrative support.
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Ms. Roughton: “The teacher is so powerful in his or her own classroom and there’s a lot that we can do, even if an administrator or district hasn’t adopted the science of reading. … We can’t argue the data. And I would encourage teachers to invite principals into their own classroom, observe a science of reading lesson, and just kind of use that as the force to push this forward at their own site.”
The full hearing is available to watch here.
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