The data speaks for itself. LESS than half of our students across our country are reading proficiently. In Oregon, only 30% are reading proficiently. Our racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students are disproportionately impacted by not being taught to read. The connection between illiteracy and the school to prison pipeline is well documented. The gross overrepresentation of BIPOC communities in our prison system is also well documented. The history of racist, anti-literacy laws still lingers today in how we approach literacy instruction in our schools and the outcomes they produce. The approaches of creating a "literacy rich environment," "waiting until they are developmentally ready", "waiting to fail" or telling parents to "read more to their children" have proven to be both ineffective and harmful to families of children who struggle to read. This incorrectly places the blame on students and families instead of holding educators, schools and university teacher training programs accountable. Furthermore, this body of research has also shown that instructional methods that incorporate guessing, rating miscues, or using picture clues are not effective for the majority of our students. Many of these approaches are rooted in philosophical beliefs rather than scientific research and are only contributing to the overrepresentation of BIPOC students in special education services and in the school to prison pipeline.

When universities don't adequately respond to this issue, the financial burden falls on families, educators, school districts and tax payers. Oregon's largest school district is projected to spend millions of dollars to retrain their k-5 teachers with a professional development called LETRS: Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, to ensure their teachers have the knowledge and skills to teach reading based upon the consensus of reading research. Another Portland Public School is training all of its teachers in the Orton-Gillingham approach which is also firmly rooted in structured literacy and the scientific findings of reading research. However, this issue should be and must be addressed on the front end at the university level. Districts should not have to retrain their teachers in what should be a foundational component of ALL university teacher training programs.