Texas lawmakers hear solutions to improve math, reading outcomes in youngest students
The value of early childhood education for Texas’ youngest students, and its impact on reading and math benchmarks, took center stage Tuesday during a House committee meeting.
In preparation for Texas’ 2025 legislative session, which begins Jan. 14, members of the House Committee on Public Education heard hours of testimony from experts, educators and researchers who underscored the harsh realities of state test scores and flagged recommendations for lawmakers on policy solutions. Studying ways to improve reading and math outcomes for students in pre-K through third grade was among the interim charges identified by House Speaker Dade Phelan that House committees are addressing in preparation for session.
Shannon Trejo, deputy commissioner of school programs at the Texas Education Agency, who was the first person to testify before the committee, noted that better data collection on these subjects at the state level is needed to inform policy funding and needed support.
“The data indicate in kinder(garten) readiness year over year growth with a 7 percentage point gain, while third grade outcomes indicate declines in reading and inconsistent outcomes in math year over year,” Trejo said. “It’s important to note that the agency does not have direct access to complete data to effectively have insight into projected proficiency between kindergarten and third grade.”
The percentage of third graders meeting grade level in math and reading, as measured by the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), is stagnant and partially lagging when compared to pre-pandemic numbers. In spring 2019, 47% of third-grade students statewide were meeting grade level while only 40% reached this same benchmark in spring 2024. In reading, 43% of third graders were meeting grade level in spring 2019 while 46% met grade level this year. Third grade is a pivotal time in a student’s education career, as research shows students who lack proficiency in reading by that time are four times more likely to drop out or not finish high school on time.
“This year’s results show that reading-language arts proficiency for students varied across grades. While some grades demonstrated improvement, others saw slight declines. Grades 3, 5 and 8 experienced a decrease, each dropping by 2%,” TEA officials said in a June 14 press release when publishing the spring 2024 STAAR results. “The 2024 results show declining mathematics and science performance across all tested grade levels. The decrease in math proficiency is indicative of the significant challenges that persist for students in this subject area following the COVID-19 pandemic. Student performance in math has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, making it clear that recovery will require a sustained effort to improve student outcomes.”
Trejo also testified Tuesday in favor of additional investment and a pivot in related professional development programs for teachers known as the Mathematics Achievement Academies and Texas Reading Academies.
“Some of the considerations we would like for you to think about is the need to shift attention to the transference of this training into the actual classroom application and implementation, so that highly trained teachers are using high quality instruction materials to ensure students can read,” Trejo said. “We hope that you will consider the need to fund math academies as an optional training that will be a necessity.”
Rep. Harold V. Dutton, Jr., a Houston Democrat, mentioned the “Mississippi miracle,” referring to state legislation enacted in 2013 that emphasized phonics and held back third graders who were not reading on grade level. The early literacy law has been viewed as one of the main drivers of Mississippi’s jump in test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam. Dutton asked Trejo if TEA had ever considered looking into a similar model, and Trejo said additional research on emulating Mississippi’s model would be needed to see what resources would be utilized within Texas.
“We were looking at all the different states, that seemed to be the one that was most dramatic in terms of its approach,” Dutton said. “But it’s working in Mississippi, which I found amazing. But they didn’t just put up the bar. They also created all the resources there to address students’ needs so that they could actually be reading on third grade level.”
Testimony from other experts also touched on investing in early childhood education programs that serve infants, toddlers and preschoolers, reiterating the statistic that 90% of brain development happens by age 5.
Cary Wright, CEO of Good Reason Houston, said the organization has found that eligible students in Houston enrolled in a pre-K program are twice as likely to be kindergarten ready compared to their peers, “which is a strong predictor of third grade reading proficiency.” He also pushed for expansion of the early education allotment, which helped fund implementation of full-day pre-K.
“The early education allotment introduced in (House Bill) 3 has been influential in targeting funding for early math and literacy. Expanding this allotment to include pre-K in the funding weight would incentivize district pre-K enrollment efforts and allocate additional funding to improve quality,” Wright said.
Kara Waddell, President and CEO of Fort Worth-based Child Care Associates, highlighted pre-K partnerships to expand the reach of pre-K and early childhood education by connecting school districts with private child care programs. The model bridges the gap between child care and the K-12 system and has the two spaces work collaboratively in serving the child as they begin their education. But the model is challenging to implement, Waddell said.
“We’re certainly available to you as you look at policies and ways of how to expand pre-K. Working parents were not in the room when we decided 30 years ago to create pre-K and give all the money to schools. And I think today, they would really love the chance to be able to also receive pre-k in the context of community-based programs,” she said.
Rep. Brad Buckley, a Salado Republican and chair of the committee, noted after Waddell and her peers’ testimony his personal connection to the world of early childhood education.
“This is a very important subject to me. My mother was an early childhood educator, now deceased, but I find this some of the most interesting, most meaningful work we could do,” Buckley said.
The House Committee on Public Education hearing was the second one this week, following a Monday hearing that included discussion on religion in schools and education savings accounts, a voucher-like program that would allow parents to use public money to pay for their child’s private school tuition. Education savings accounts were a contentious issue during special legislative sessions in 2023 with the fourth special session adjourning in December without lawmakers sending a voucher-like program to Gov. Greg Abbott.
The Monday hearing overlapped with a ruling issued by a Travis County judge that blocked TEA’s accountability ratings from being released to districts and schools for the second year in a row. STAAR test scores weigh heavily on accountability ratings.
