Literacy crisis demands citywide urgency : LEVEL UP
By Maribel Gardea
For the Express-News
Last month, a small of group of parents expressed their anger and sadness upon learning at a literacy boot camp the unvarnished truth about their children’s reading scores at their SAISD elementary school. They wanted to do something about it. “How could the school keep this information from us,” they asked. Some parents cried. Other parents positioned themselves to fight.
For the past 3 years, MindshiftED, a parent advocacy movement, has been in the trenches cultivating relationships with parents in San Antonio’s most economically disadvantaged communities, identifying what matters most to parents. Since April, MindshiftED has led Literacy Boot Camps to equip parents with information and tools to support their children’s reading skills. The most recent cohort of parents, who reside in one of America’s oldest public housing communities, decided failure will no longer be accepted.
Reading on grade level by third grade is the most important factor in high school graduation and career success. In the city of San Antonio, only half of the students are reading on grade level And, specifically, at one of SAISD’s lowest performing schools, only 18 percent of third-grade students are reading on grade level. The parents in the Alazan-Apache Courts community, whose children attend the low performing school, have committed to fight for school level and statewide policy changes.
First, parents demand the truth and truth-in-reporting. It is unacceptable for children to receive A’s and B’s on their report card while failing to meet grade level standards on standardized tests. Equally appalling and confusing to parents is learning that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) gave the school a “B” while more than 80 percent fall below grade level in reading and more than 90 percent are below grade level in math.
Second, parents demand that their school implement the right curriculum, support services and programs to drastically improve the literacy levels of our students. To highlight this demand, MindShiftED parents delivered a petition signed by more than 100 parents to the neighborhood school where 50 out of 60 third graders will matriculate to the fourth grade without basic reading skills.
Finally, the literacy crisis demands citywide urgency led by parents and supported by city and district officials. On May 30, 2023, more than 80 parents and children gathered outside the Alazan Apache Community Center to stand in solidarity for a Candlelight Vigil to highlight the literacy crisis in their community and all across San Antonio.
Parents demand an alignment of effort from TEA, SAISD, and individual schools to redirect the trajectory of literacy rates, rewrite the narrative of why children can’t read, and rebuild trust between parents and state and local education officials. Parents are hyper-aware that without reading skills, the children of San Antonio are doomed. A chance for a life reimagined is a distant reality. Failure is no longer an option and our schools need to level up.
Maribel Gardea is the co-founder, Executive Director of MindShiftED, a four-year-old parent-led movement that works to inform and equip parents to advocate for their children.
