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SEPT. 15 WEEKENDER: Second Opinion – B.C. Ministry of Education and Superintendent of Reading Dockendorf will fail with reading improvement plan

The B.C. Ministry of Education has launched an initiative to enhance student achievment that is short-sighted.
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Grand Forks Gazette WEEKENDER columnist Jim Holtz.

The B.C. Ministry of Education has done it again, launched an initiative to enhance student achievement that is short-sighted and destined to be quietly abandoned after it has failed to produce significant positive results.

This time it is the appointment of Coquitlam Assistant Superintendent Maureen Dockendorf as the new superintendent of reading, whose task it will be to improve the reading ability of students throughout the province during the 2012-13 school year.

The previous attempt to miraculously boost achievement occurred in 2007 when Bill 20 created four superintendents of achievement (super superintendents) who, by strict oversight and supervision, were supposed to make all the school districts reach their “specific goals of student achievement” in their mandated achievement (formerly accountability) contracts.

Alas, student achievement didn’t rise. Now only one superintendent of achievement is left and the “specific goals” have become feeble statements like “The District will strive to improve numeracy and literacy.”

Likewise, Ms. Dockendorf’s program will flop.  Not because she lacks intelligence, enthusiasm and good will, but because reading requires an incredibly complex combination of skills, any one of which if not adequately developed, will interfere with one’s reading ability.

With such a variety of potential problems, many different approaches to reading are required in each public school classroom, as well as an array of materials, programs, resources and support for teachers.

This costs a lot more than the $10.7 million former Education Minister George Abbott provided for Ms. Dockendorf’s program, which consists of a province-wide series of consultations with primary grade teachers and various experts to determine “best practices.”

In the end, the $10.7 million will be gone, Ms. Dockendorf will have another impressive paper credential to add to her curriculum vitae, but there will be no measureable improvement in reading levels.

B.C. primary teachers will go back to their classrooms still wishing their school actually had the library and librarian it used to have, to provide the supplementary reading material and programs their students need to become better readers.

Instead, a number of slick binders will be printed and delivered to school districts containing the project’s findings and a summary report.

No doubt included will be a variety of helpful hints, tips, tidbits of methodology and classroom strategy for reading teachers.

The ministry will thank all participants for their involvement and take the recommendations that were made under advisement.  The serious decade-long commitment required to facilitate real change will, of course, be determined to be too expensive. However, a new, fancy, technology-driven reading program will no doubt be recommended because everyone knows that the headline “Ministry restores spending on school libraries” isn’t nearly as impressive as “Ministry launches new program to eliminate illiteracy.”

– Jim Holtz is WEEKENDER columnist and a former reporter for the Grand Forks Gazette