By David Avitabile
MIDDLEBURGH - Schoharie Central School Superintendent David Blanchard has a message to SCS students: Pick up a book and read.
No one can deny that smart phones and the Internet have put more information in the hands of people, including high school students. The question is how much does that information help students understand what they are reading.
Schoharie Central School must promote reading more than ever, Superintendent Blanchard told school board members last week.
At their meeting Thursday, Superintendent Blanchard said he recently reviewed the literacy rate data for high school seniors and the results were "really concerning across the country."
Students are sending and receiving texts, but the Superintendent is concerned with students "not being engaged with books like they used to."
Students just do not retain information as they should, he said.
"If you ask most students about what they scrolled about 15 minutes after they finish, they're going to say, 'What are you talking about?'"
The conversion to digital media has been "at the detriment of our students."
Reading has to be emphasized for all students, Superintendent Blanchard told school board members.
Time during the school has to be set aside to read and "to get books into kid's hands," he said.
"I'm asking all sports teams to read at least one book together during the season. The coach will decide what book and assign chapters to be read.
"We will attempt to engage clubs in a similar way but will need to be more judicious with regard to the club and their activities as they do not meet as often or with the same intensity as our sports teams."
The push needs to be on the elementary school on up, he added.
"There's so many ways to get books into a kid's hands...If you are in the musical, you have a book to read...
"We're going to make it a requirement."
The problem, of course, is not just in Schoharie. "It's a societal problem."
It should be a "full academic" presence, he added. "We've got books in kid's hands again."
According to World Population Review, New York has the second-highest percentage of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills of 22.1 percent, equaling a literacy rate of 77.9 percent. Despite this, New York has the ninth-highest percentage of adults with Bachelor’s degrees or higher of 35.7 percent.
High school seniors’ average reading and math scores have dropped on the “nation’s report card”—and the scores of students struggling the most have fallen to historic lows, according to EducationWeek.
Results released in September from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress show that more students than ever before are scoring below NAEP’s threshold for mastery of “basic” skills. It is the first time the tests have been given to 12th graders since before the pandemic.
The country’s eighth graders also lost ground in science, erasing the average growth students had made in the subject since 2009, EducationWeek noted.
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