Talking Points​

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Public comments are timed and cut off at 3 minutes.

Please choose the talking points that are most important to you, which may or may not be on this list.

Personal stories of how these issues have affected your family are always powerful.

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Instead of approving the review as is, we want our school board to require the district to modify the plan to meet these requirements:

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1. CAN YOU PINPOINT I-READY AS THE SOURCE OF IMPROVEMENT?

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Students are learning from teachers, their parents, each other, and doing the work themselves. If we see improvements, it doesn't mean they're due to the automated i-Ready lessons students use 12 to 20 minutes a day.

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You can only say "i-Ready made kids better at reading" if the study was done carefully enough to isolate i-Ready's effect from other concurring factors, such as improved attendance and the new state law that forced a districtwide shift to evidence-based reading instruction.

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2. EVALUATE THE OPPORTUNITY COST -- TIME

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How much time are students being made to spend on the automated i-Ready lessons per grade level? How much time does it cost in total, including teacher training? How do we know this is a better use of time than human-based math and reading lessons, more recess, art or PE?

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The district has made the argument that there aren’t enough minutes in the day to guarantee at least 45 minutes of recess in the elementary grades, or to offer art or PE. Removing i-Ready lessons would free up those minutes.

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3. EVALUATE THE OPPORTUNITY COST -- MONEY

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Art and PE teachers are not funded in WCSD elementary schools. Parents at each school must raise around $55,000 per year total to pay for both positions, which are typically filled by parents.

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Reallocating our $2M taxpayer dollars from the non-state-mandated i-Ready lessons and assessments would allow the district to fund an art and a PE teacher in all 66 of our elementary schools!

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4. EVALUATE THE DIFFERENT PARTS AND USES OF I-READY SEPARATELY

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The i-Ready assessments and lessons are different products performing different functions. Reading and math are different subjects. Whole-class mandatory lessons, targeted intervention, and state-required K–3 reading screening are different uses. The Board should be able to understand each separately.

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5. SHOW US WHERE THE STATE REQUIRES I-READY FOR RBG3

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If the state has mandated that all districts and charter schools have to use this testing product for the Read By Grade 3 law's K-3 reading screener, and there are no alternative options, show us where.

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DEEPER DIVE: A detailed look at what this evaluation must answer.

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