A recent news article stating a quarter of Iowa’s 3rd graders are not reading proficiently has really struck a cord with one of our local state lawmakers.
“I haven’t been able to get someone to define for me exactly what proficiently is, but that number astounds me. Just on the basis of that alone, the top should come off of the capitol down there. Seeing that we get those numbers out of our school system in Iowa.”
State Representative Ralph Watts says the legislature needs to help find a fix for this issue. He says the answer is not more central involvement with things like the Common Core Curriculum. Watts says if it takes major reform at the Department of Education level, so be it.
“As far as I’m concerned, we could throw every other bill overboard down at the legislature and concentrate on that issue alone and Iowans would be well paid for our time if we did that. The solutions seem sometimes hard to come by and I’m not an educator, I’m not a teacher, I’m not even on the education committee but I know I’ve cast votes over the last 15 years to support the Department of Education and it’s time that we make them accountable.”
We will wrap up our conversation with Representative Watts on today’s Let’s Talk Dallas County during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours.