Reading skills among Virginia’s public-school children as measured by Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores are dropping through the floor. Among the remedies that Governor Glenn Youngkin proposes to address the threat of mass illiteracy is requiring under-performing students to receive three to five hours of tutoring per week.
Good luck finding the tutors, warns The Washington Post. The teacher shortage is getting worse — about 4.8% of teaching positions were vacant at the start of the school year, up from 3.9% the previous year. And half of schools responding to an Institute of Education Sciences survey reported that their tutoring programs were constricted by lack of funds or inability to find staff.
Here’s an idea: recruit the social justice warriors to teach kids to read.
Thousands of militants in Virginia are seething with outrage at inequities in our society. I would argue that there is no social injustice greater than raising children to be semi-literate and semi-numerate in a knowledge-based economy.
SJWs, you can agitate to change the “system” — which requires minimal sustained effort on your part — or you can do something that has actual positive impact. Redirect the time spent marching, tweeting and shouting at people into tutoring. Make the world a better place by teaching kids to read.
— JAB
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