(relaxing ambient music) - We've got a lot of problems in the state and a lot of challenges ahead of us.

More than a fourth of students are chronically absent.

Just about a fourth are college-ready according to the SAT.

And our reading scores are constantly in the news, not just in Bridge, but also in national outlets because a lot of people agree we can do better.

So, we've got a great panel here to talk about all of these things.

- We have seen a change in households, in families, and that has led to a needed change in K-12 and higher ed, and I would argue the workforce as an employer.

It is hard to culturally adjust to that using old models, old amounts of money, old school books.

We as a system need to change for that while we're also locking every door of the school as a building to protect our kids, whereas schools used to be community hubs where we would invite businesses in and parents in.

And, you know, just for me to drop off rubber bands for my kids' braces last week, I basically had to give a blood sample to get in the room.

And I don't blame schools for that because we see what happens when that doesn't happen, but we've got this mix where the school has to perform more like a community resource while also locking itself away from the community.

If we can find more ways to bring the community in so we can serve whole families within that building, I think we get to helping the whole family, which helps the student, which helps the community, helps the school, helps the workforce.

- Judy, you just talked about this.

Just earlier, we were talking about school funding.

We were talking about concerns with funding your schools.

When you're looking at your schools, what are the top three issues that your students or your teachers are facing?

- So, I think obviously school safety, right?

Kids deserve to feel safe in school.

And I'm sure that for many of our families, especially with the news lately, you know, when I'm dropping my kids off in the morning, you know, what will happen during the course of the day?

So I think, obviously, safety and security.

I always say I have two jobs as superintendent, keep everybody safe and keep everybody learning.

And you can't learn if you don't feel safe.

So, I would say in the second piece is continuing to have rigorous teaching and learning in every single classroom, which I think we do a really great job at.

And I think number three, to Ryan's point, is how do we come together as a community?

Because it sounds trite, but literally, the things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us.

And it's very hard to shut out the noise, but that's our job to do that.

- I'm curious, if you have been following the news, you probably know we're now mandating the science of reading training for teachers.

We have new money for curriculum.

We're expanding pre-K, all things hopefully that will lead to better reading scores across the state.

But I also know it's gonna take a lot of time to train these teachers.

It's gonna take money to train these teachers.

Danielle, does this moment in Michigan feel any different than all the other times Michigan has tried to improve reading scores?

- For me, it feels different.

One of the things that I have noticed politicians quoting recently is the Mississippi Miracle, which some of you may be familiar with.

And in Mississippi, certain parameters were put into policy that helped Mississippi be successful in their reading scores in fourth grade over the course of 10 years.

One of the things that politicians keep saying is, "Just implement the Mississippi Miracle."

Well, I'm here to tell you that is what those laws are doing and, in fact, that Michigan is trying to do them better.

Instead of reaching K-3 students, we're working to reach K-12 students and bridge that gap for our secondary learners.

We're including dyslexia as a major component of the law, which was not addressed specifically in the Mississippi bill.

Additionally, we're looking to make sure that we target interventions and screenings and data and evidence-driven ways in a way that also supports what educators are learning as part of that law.

Educators are required K-5 to have science of reading training.

And this is something that I, and you spoke about which sort of brought me here today last October, was the LETRS training that is currently on the table.

That is the name of the two-year long, unpaid, 120-hour teaching credential that involves getting teachers trained in what's called the science of reading.

And the science of reading is not a curriculum.

It's not a philosophy.

It is literally the evidence and data about how children learn how to read, and so Michigan is now requiring that teachers of reading have that experience.

And so, when you do dig into the data or the studies, there is a lot more evidence that these programs do work when implemented with fidelity, when they are supported by evidence-based curriculum, and they are addressed through multi-tiered systems of support when students are identified as having reading difficulties.

So, I think that's how we are trying to expand that focus and why I'm excited about what's to come.

It does take time, but I think it is worth the investment.

- Vanessa, you've been at the state.

You've been in the advocacy space now.

Can we make this happen?

- The short answer is yes, but I'm gonna put a big asterisk by yes and I'm gonna put us all on blast about this.

Here's what Michigan loves to do.

It's just what Isabel said.

We're like, "Wow, we've got a problem.

Let's study it."

And then we say, "Okay, guys, we gotta do the system.

We gotta do what Mississippi did, is they picked a goal and they stuck with it for 10 years."

And everybody says, "Yep, totally.

We're on board."

Until it's time to be on board that one plan, until it's time for your part of the system, our part of the system to do the plan and not say, "Well, maybe I got a better plan or, like, I talked to somebody on Tuesday on the street and they have a better plan.

Let's, like, do their plan."

So, yes, we can do it, but we have to be really honest about the fact that Michigan starts and stops and starts and stops and starts and stops, and we let politics come in.

We make policy competitive and not collaborative, and who pays for that is our kids.

- How are students suffering from this flip-flop that we're doing?

- You know, I think my job as a superintendent, again, as I said, to kinda keep that noise out, right, and to support our teachers to do... They're trained, they're educators.

And yes, I have some staff LETRS-trained.

We'll continue to do that.

We now have another option as well that just came out from MDE this week for training, which is a little bit shorter than the LETRS training.

And so, I think it's saying to teachers, like, "We're gonna roll up our sleeves and be there elbow to elbow with you in this work," right?

And so it's not my job to sit in my office and go, "Go do," right?

It's my job to have bold leadership and to be in the trenches with them.

And even though I wasn't an ELA teacher, you know, to do the best I can to understand those pieces of it so that I can best support them.

But it does feel like a lot of fits and starts over my career.

- What's at stake if we don't get our early learners ready on time?

- The world.

(panelists chuckle) (audience chuckle) Is that good enough?

- It's not a trick question.

(panelists laugh) Do you wanna expand?

- No, everything, right?

Our businesses right now are demanding talented and trained workers.

And even though there's a lot of bad advice from well-meaning and some not so well-meaning adults that college doesn't matter anymore, the business owners are telling us that that's hogwash.

It does matter.

It might not be a four-year degree, but we also need four-year degrees.

We need associate's degrees.

We need certificates.

We need all of those things.

What we need less of is people not going to some sort of training in college after high school.

And so, if we don't get our act together and we don't fix these systems, fewer people are going to get training.

We will end up importing talent from other states and other countries.

And our residents, our folks who went to school here and were born here are going to be on the welfare rolls.

They're gonna be the ones who are needing support and not the ones who can engage and create the community that they live in, and I don't think that's what we want.

- Judy, did you have something to add to that?

- Well, you know, I was thinking about that, and you know from our chats that our district has, even though we're small and rural, I am a firm believer that a school's master schedule is a reflection of their values.

And so, in our middle and high school, we have created 30 minutes every day where kids can do choice reading, because why should that stop in fifth grade, right?

And if we wanna build the love of reading with kids, we've got to give them opportunities to read what they want to read, and so we have that built into our schedule.

We're in our third year this year, and it does do other things.

It builds reading stamina.

It does other things as well for the kids.

We also, two of those five days, if you need a just-in-time intervention, a teacher can pull you for that because there's not always the ability in high school to be after school or to do something at lunch 'cause we wanna provide those social opportunities for our kids as well.

Our teachers read during that time.

And so, we can't just say we're building readers.

We have to be readers.

And that all goes into... There's not a job I can think of that you don't have to be able to read, right?

And so we can't just stop that at fifth grade.

That's gotta be a pre-K-12 piece.

- And a shout-out to our audience.

One of the reasons we recently did a story about what happens when a middle schooler or a high schooler can't read is because we were getting questions from you all saying, "Hey, I know we don't have a third grade gate anymore where if you don't read on third grade level, you get held back, but what happens to those older grades?"

And when I called Judy, Judy was like, "I've got silent reading time, but I also need more support."

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but that the support that you're putting in place, you would still love more, is that right?

- Absolutely, because there's a weird certification called Reading Specialist that secondary teachers can get.

There are very few in the state of teachers that even have this.

I've only known two teachers in my career that have this at the secondary level, but to do a big intervention in middle school or high school with a student who is not just not reading at grade level, but has some severe issues and not disability related, but just for whatever reason is not where we would want them to be, those people are few and far between.

And by the state, I can't even run a class without that person with that certification, right?

So sometimes that red tape and that bureaucracy really gets in the way of us trying to help kids.

And I think I said to you when we talked that day when you said, "What happens when a kid gets to middle school and can't read?"

And I said, "That's the dirty little secret," right?

That that's the thing that we pretend that by fifth grade, everybody's exactly where they should be, and after that, play catch-up.

And I don't believe that.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons kids aren't at grade level.