Kids, of course, are settling into their back to school routine.

And there are many changes happening in Kentucky public schools, including a shift to science based methods of teaching, reading and writing.

The Read to Succeed Act passed in Kentucky three years ago in an effort to combat failing reading scores across the Commonwealth.

The legislation requires Kentucky teachers to learn a new phonics based method of teaching students to read.

But reading scores aren't improving as much as advocates had hoped.

And tonight's Education Matters report, our Kristi Dutton sat down with State Representative Tina Bose, asking the sponsor of the legislation to find out why.

Representative Bode, gymnast, Thank you for being here.

You were the sponsor of the Read to Succeed Bill, which supports the science of reading.

So tell me, why was that important for you to get this bill out to our state?

Well, as I started researching how reading was taught in Kentucky, it became gravely concerning that we were using a methodology that wasn't supported in the current research.

And so with the read to Succeed Bill, you know, one of the most important things to me personally is that I did the letters training, which is a two year intensive training program, and that was part of the funding of Read to Succeed.

So giving teachers the training to expertly teach children how to read is just going to be a very, very essential step to improving the achievement of all of our students.

Because a new way of teaching the teachers have to be trained for exactly that.

And so that was part of this bill.

So a lot of people now think that there should be an increase in reading scores for children in Kentucky.

Now, if we changed it, for them to learn to read better, but we're not seeing that.

Can you explain why?

Well, so what we are doing with Read to Succeed is on foundational basic reading.

And what we are measuring in the essay end of year test is none of that.

So we're measuring higher level comprehension and vocabulary concerns.

So I believe that there needs to be a measure specific to the basic reading.

Now, we do know it in our buildings and in our districts, but it's not the measure that happens during our accountability testing.

Those standards are not included in that test.

So a couple of different things.

So in order to to look at the test scores to decide the effectiveness of read succeed, I'm concerned we'll never be at a statistically significant level for two reasons.

Number one, because of the design of the standardized test.

So a standardized test is designed to differentiate students.

It's to differentiate our distinguished students from our apprentice novice students.

And to move a child into another category is not as simple as just answering more questions correctly.

It also is contingent upon what questions are asked of them.

And so my major concern is that even though we've got the millions upon millions of dollars invested very, very deservingly so into instruction in reading, to only look at the test scores as the answer to if it's working may be problematic.

So what's the solution?

If that is a huge investment and, you know, people want to know if that investment is working, how do you how would you measure that?

Well, I think you need a measure that's direct to what you're doing.

So the measure might be, you know, in my classroom, I measure how many words a student can read.

I've got a very direct measure on what I'm doing.

So we could include in our accountability systems measures of foundational reading skills.

Another kind of partial solution is the Department of Education has been working for several years on reimagining our accountability system.

And one of the aspects is an adaptive assessment and so rather than every third grader being given the same questions, the questions change.

If you have a student who's struggling, you'll back up to figure out exactly where they are.

If you have a student who's excelling, it pushes up further and it can measure actually where they are.

And so by having and adaptable system, you can target in to what specific areas where a child might need support as opposed to just giving everyone the same test and saying they're either proficient or not proficient.

Well, an adaptive test.

How likely is that to happen?

Is that going to be a hard thing to do?

I don't think it would be hard.

It will need the will of the General Assembly because we would have to change our statute and there will be a financial commitment.

And I don't know at this point how much it would cost to redesign our accountability system.

But there are a lot of things going on nationally that are going to impact our budget this year.

And so that remains to be seen if the money will be appropriated to do it.

Okay.

Well, Representative Tina Boden asking, thank you so much for your time and your expertise.

You are welcome.