ELA teacher here, reading scores are down across the country. This is the most infuriating thing I’ve ever seen.

I teach high school English, I have for over 15 years. I started my teaching career in special education with younger kids and after a few years of that I moved to high school. I’ve always taught both special ed and general ed. I’ve seen changes in kids over the years, and I’ve adapted my way of teaching to meet the needs of my students. I’m fairly good at my job, I think. My kids do better than the average kids in my district on state tests, my seniors are preparred for college, professional, technical, and vocational pursuits in the English department. My colleagues are impressed by my ability to get even the most difficult-to-reach kids to do their work. I’m very happily a “my class isn’t fun and nobody likes me” teacher. I was trained in a traditional teaching program and I believe in traditional teaching. <br><br>This year has been a challenge. The students seem much less capable of doing their work than they were last year and the year before. They are so easily distracted. They are unable to focus. Their writing is very delayed for their age and grade level. Their ability to read a grade level text and make inferences and identify a main idea are very lacking. <br><br>I got my state scores back this week for both of my special ed kids and my gen ed kids and the scores are the lowest they have been in my career. Over 50% of my kids scored “emergent” and many scored “novice.” I have never seen scores this low. I called a meeting with my colleagues and we compared scores and everyone had the same issue. We brainstormed ways to change our instruction to meet their needs. We already have tier 1,2, and 3 instruction in place, extra help sessions, tutoring with upperclassmen, after school tutoring with teachers, and virtual tutoring options. We are a pretty progressive school with a lot to offer, as much as any private school. <br><br>I went to our district in-service yesterday. There were many duly noted statements about reading improvement. The state is tweaking the state test, the district is altering and creating curriculum, outside agencies are being hired to come in and provide intervention. Manyvaleuable teacher hours being spent on creating assessment tools and rubrics. <br><br>I sat and listened and I thought, this cannot be the problem with these kids. They can’t write a paragraph, they can’t focus on a text longer than 2 minutes. They can’t identify a theme in a book we’ve read all semester. They can’t identify the main idea in a cartoon. They cannot read at all. Let’s fix their reading. <br><br>I went home and started reading about the fall in reading scores all over the country. And then I did something I never do, I looked at readiness scores. And there it is. The problem. They can’t read. <br><br>I don’t know if anyone else is feeling the way I am but these kids are not prepared to do anything but stare blankly into space. They are not ready for high school. I have seniors who cannot read on a 5th grade level. Sophomores who cannot read at a 2nd grade level. Seniors who cannot write more than 2 sentences. No one wants to accept that a large portion of our students cannot read. We deal with it by passing them anyway. <br><br>I know this is a long rambling post but I am so mad and worried. These kids are not equipped to go out into the world. We are over accommodating them in the name of a false sense of self esteem. How is this going to serve them? I am so worried for the future.