Former Florida governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush lamented the state of student proficiency in reading and math Thursday ahead of the release of the nation’s report card next week.
Bush, the chairman of the board of directors of nonprofit organization Excel in Ed, made the comments during a Thursday Zoom meeting with reporters, saying there are several policy initiatives that can be embraced to address the widespread learning loss, especially in reading and math, after COVID-19-related school closures.
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‘FAILING OUR KIDS’: ACT SCORES FALL TO LOWEST AVERAGE IN 30 YEARS
“There’s been progress made by many states in the last decade or two,” Bush said. “But the pandemic has reversed any of the positive things. We’re going to see some pretty bad numbers, and my guess is there’ll be a lot of finger-pointing, there will be a call for lower expectations, there will be people who will blame the pandemic, and we’ll have a big argument about which states were smart to stay open and which states weren’t.”
But despite the bleak picture expected to be painted by next week’s release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, the former governor of Florida said there are several steps that can be taken to help students excel in academics going forward.
The most basic thing, he said, is parents should read to their children and have their children read to them.
“Reading to your children … or listening to your children read matters,” the one-time presidential candidate said. “If you imagine a parent, after seeing these results, dedicated themselves for 20 minutes [to read to their children], that’s 10 whole school days of extra dedicated reading time.”
Bush called for a “radical transformation of teacher prep programs” for teaching students how to read and said schools should take steps to ensure new teachers approach reading proficiency as a primary objective of education.
“I believe our schools of education should be challenged to be more incisive in making sure that reading is the first objective for teachers,” the former governor said before adding that “literacy coaches have been a really good thing to … teach teachers how to teach reading.”
During his tenure as governor of Florida from 1999-2007, Bush spearheaded several education policy initiatives, including school choice programs. Under his tenure, student test scores for the NAEP jumped by 11 points, far outpacing the national average.
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Since his unsuccessful presidential bid in 2016, Bush has largely maintained a low profile, but through his work with Excel in Ed, he continues to advocate conservative education policies.
