For example, early elementary black students overall increased reading proficiency and growth with a 10 percent increase in reading proficiency for third grade in two years, according to the report.
“In our community, we can choose to reinforce these patterns by inaction, by not testing our assumptions, by not testing our assumptions about students and families and by not examining the long-held institutional ways of working that keep those systems in place,” Cheatham said, “or we could choose to disrupt these patterns.”
The district’s next steps are to expand intensive support on literacy and adolescent development to the district’s highest-need middle schools, according to the report. It will also continue planning for the implementation of the Personalized Pathways program, a new model of curriculum where students are able to make real-world connections to their education by taking classes clustered in a thematic structure.
Related: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.