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Audie Alumbaugh is an extraordinary advocate for the children of Arkansas, traveling the state supporting families as they navigate the education system, and working with legislators and the governor to pass important legislation over the last ten years. In this podcast episode, she’ll share her journey and her relentless pursuit of literacy for all; as she states, “society will not rest until we get this fixed.” You will leave this podcast inspired and moved.
Teaching, Reading & Learning: The Podcast elevates important contributions to the educational community, with the goal of inspiring teachers, informing practice, and celebrating people in the community who have influenced teaching and literacy to the betterment of children. The podcast features guests whose life stories are compelling and rich in ways that are instructive to us all. The podcast focuses on literacy as we know it (reading and writing) but will also connect to other “literacies” that impact children’s learning; for example, emotional, physical, and social literacies as they apply to teachers and children.
[00:00:00.610] - Speaker 1
This podcast is sponsored by Zayner Blowser. Zayner Blowsr supports the Reading League's important mission and is committed to helping educators be successful teachers of reading by publishing effective science of Readingbased curriculum. This includes the Superkid's Reading Program and the Superkids Family of resources for grades K through two. To discover whether the Superkid's Comprehensive Program Foundational Skills Kit and New Phonemic Awareness curriculum are a good fit for your literacy goals and instructional approaches, visit Go Zayner Blowser.com Superkids TRL that's Go Zanerbloser.com, S-U-P-E-R-K-I-D-S-T-R Hello everyone and welcome to Teaching, Reading and Learning the TRO Podcast. I'm Laura Stewart, your host and the focus of this podcast is to elevate important conversations in the educational community in order to inform, inspire, and celebrate contributions to teaching and learning. Our guest today is a one of a kind person. Her name is Audi Alamba. She is an incredible advocate for the children of Arkansas and you will love to hear her story today. I am just thrilled to be able to share this time with her. So as a way of introduction, I'll read her biography to you. Audi Alambaugh received her master's degree in special education, but has been an unpaid advocate for Arkansas children for over ten years.
[00:01:56.670] - Speaker 1
Her passion began when teaching mathematics and recognizing that middle school and high school students were unable to perform at their potential when word problems were presented to them. It did not take long after that for her to realize the reading crisis in Arkansas. When her faculty position at the University of Central Arkansas and her advocacy for children resulted in what public school superintendents referred to as a conflict of interest, Audi left her faculty position knowing children's education is more important and much more urgently needed. Audi has advocated for thousands of children and attended thousands of 504 and IEP meetings around the state as well as several outside of her home state. In 2015, Audi founded the Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group and funded its activities herself. Audi works tirelessly with the Arkansas legislature. Through her work, several laws have been enacted strengthening public schools responsibility in identifying children with Dyslexia and providing proper science based interventions. Audi has assisted advocates in other States and work to strengthen their laws as well. This is truly a labor of love for Audi and I am just delighted that she's here with us today. Welcome to the podcast, Audi.
[00:03:26.170] - Speaker 1
Welcome to the podcast, Audi.
[00:03:29.230] - Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.
[00:03:31.810] - Speaker 1
Let's just dive right in, Audi, what is a quote that you live by and return to?
[00:03:38.830] - Speaker 2
Probably Aversa Luke, to whom much is given, much expected. So I've been given a lot in my life. I've earned a lot in my life, but I've also been given a lot. Regardless, I just feel like we're all going to be held accountable if we don't take our talents and our time and better society.
[00:03:58.810] - Speaker 1
Oh, that's wonderful. And I can see why you choose that. Now that I've gotten to know you, that really underscores your work. So we learned a little bit about you in your biography, but just tell us about yourself and where you started on this path and where you are now.
[00:04:15.250] - Speaker 2
Well, probably for me, I was in education for about five and a half, six years, and then I left, I guess five and a half. I started teaching in the middle of the school year. I graduated from College in December. Anyway, I talked for five and a half or so years, and then I left education and went into business for myself. I was very fortunate. And in 2006, I was able to step away from work and retire. But no one my age was retired. So I kind of became everyone's a digit service. And I decided I could go back and I was a math teacher, and I decided I could go back and I would get my master's in a special education because I'd always taught the advanced math classes. And so I guess in education I didn't have some of the students that had some of the same struggles as others. And so I got my master's in special education and then went into teaching. And I had been teaching for about four months when I realized there was a large amount of kids and there was a general education math teacher, but it was in middle school, there was a large amount of kids that just could not capture the language.
[00:05:28.770] - Speaker 2
They could not break the code. And so I had a master's in special Ed, and I thought, surely I can figure this out and realize that we had spent all of about 15 minutes in about 36 hours of Masters on Dyslexia reading difficulties. And then I realized that's the largest piece of the education pie in Arkansas, about 39% of kids are under SLD. We all know that 8% of those kids have Dyslexia. And it was just bizarre to me. And at the same time, I started looking at how we teach kids to read. And I could not wrap my mind around it of how this was happening because being a math teacher, for me, everything is logical, sequential, systematic, and that's how I learned to read. So I just didn't understand what exactly was going on. And then I guess in spring and 2009, I just Dove in headfirst to get this thing lined down. And at the same time, when I had taught earlier at Robinson High School, the English teacher, one of the English teachers was George Elliot, now state Senator George Elliot. And she and I had remained close. And I talked to her about this, and she's like, Audrey, I'm getting so many calls about this.
[00:06:49.650] - Speaker 2
So she and I sat down and we kind of figured this out. And then we had the decoding Dyslexia movement going on. And the head of Arkansas Decoding Dyslexia, the Dyslexia project is Kim head, and she actually lives in Conway. And so she didn't live ten blocks from me. So it just was all of us getting together and working. And then we put our first bill in 2011, and it was kicked out because of the physical impact. The Supreme Court ruling in Arkansas, state Supreme Court ruling before anything is funded, education has to be funded in Arkansas. And that just like everything else in Arkansas, looks so good on paper. And it makes you think this is exactly where our focus is. But that's just it. It's paper. And so every education law that you put forth has to go through a physical impact because even years, we have financial or fiscal sessions, in odd years, we have lawmaking sessions. So we get funded. Everything gets funded in the even years. So we're about to enter into one of those sessions right now. But anyway, it got kicked out. So we went back and we changed some of the screeners came back in 2013 and it passed.
[00:08:08.110] - Speaker 2
And then in 2015, the superintendent's group really wasn't involved in 2013 because I don't think they thought it would pass. And then when it passed, they kind of panicked. So they came back. And just like they typically do in Arkansas, they bastardized the law, watered it down, and made it to where as an educator, IDA really is the only law that parents have to enforce. I mean, you can't call the IDA police, and you just hope that schools are doing right. And the way our law was written, we had told parents for years that we don't recognize Dyslexia in Arkansas, even though I mean, that's literally what parents were told. If your kid has Dyslexia, you go somewhere else. And so they've done a really good job of continuing to try to keep that out of the idea when we all know that specialized instruction is what special Ed is about. And this is the only opportunity in Arkansas that kids with Dyslexia have for specialized instruction. And they're still to this day working to keep it out of the IP. I get a little bit wound tied about that.
[00:09:12.640] - Speaker 1
Yeah. So in 2015, you said 2013, it passed. The law passed. Okay. And then has other legislation passed since then?
[00:09:29.930] - Speaker 2
Yeah. And you asked me that earlier, and I don't really know the account, the number of laws that we've moved to pass in Arkansas regarding literacy somewhere, probably eight to ten, the most recent one that we passed in the 2021 legislative session where we developed an educational Ombudsman in that person for literacy. I mean, that's what they're for because the Commissioner testified the Department of Ed is more of a support role now in that same Supreme Court ruling, state Supreme Court ruling about education have to be funded. It also lays the responsibility of the feet of education at the Department of Education. But they see themselves as more of a support role. So we needed an educational onboardsman that would work kind of independently. So we passed that legislation. And then as a two part of this is if a school district is not using the science of reading to educate their child children, even though we've got all this legislation in place to make them do it, I mean, complete with a list of Dyslexia program, a list of core curriculum that are site based, we have now a situation to where we can go before the state school board and remove 10% of their funding for as long as they choose to, not because really they get the money.
[00:10:54.120] - Speaker 2
They understand the money aspect side of things, not maybe so much the kids side of things, but they get the money.
[00:11:01.490] - Speaker 1
That becomes another lever that you can pull to help enact this. And has this had any impact on teacher preparation in Arkansas?
[00:11:10.410] - Speaker 2
Yes. At the same time, remember, I was friends with Senator George Elliott. She was working in 2017, I had reached out to Alan Clark, Senate state Senator Alan Clark. They're on opposite ends of the political spectrum. And I want to say this about Arkansas literacy has not been political. It has not been a red versus blue or anything like that. It has been a legislative side. Everybody has been on the same side. But in 2017, Senator Elliot was working on a right to read legislation, and Senator Clark was working on the foundations of reading legislation. So Senator Elliot legislation was to retrain the workforce, the education workforce that's already out there retrain them because we've been a balanced lunacy for years. We had a giant hub of it in our capital city. So it was retraining the workforce into the science of reading. That was Senator Elliott's right to read legislation. And then Senator Clark's Foundation's reading test reworked the Department reworked Colleges of Education so that they had to pass the foundations of reading tests. We don't we have a constitutional amendment where we can't control what's taught in a College in our state, but we can control the in test, which means the schools have to get in line to pass this test.
[00:12:45.090] - Speaker 2
And so we changed one of the tests to the foundations of reading tests that Pearson test that Dr. Saski wrote. And so for the Colleges of Education to have a workforce that can pass that, they have to teach the science of reading. So we actually had two pieces of legislation that paired beautifully, one that retrained an entire workforce and one that got people that were in the education pipeline as they come through the College of Education. On top of that, Governor Hutchinson started what's called the Rise Initiative, the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence. And it was a perfect storm because Governor Hutchinson got it. We had these two beautiful pieces of legislation, and he was able to fund that endorse Elliott's bill about retraining the whole workforce. So we have the Rise initiative in Arkansas, where teachers have to be proficient or aware. If you're seven through twelve general Ed teacher, you have to be aware. But if you're K through twelve special Ed or K through six general Ed, you have to be proficient. And then we have pathways of proficiency that the Department of Ed has done. We were really making a lot of headway, and then it's serious.
[00:14:09.750] - Speaker 2
But it's also so typical, what I'm going to say in Copenhagen, and that kind of put the training we had a deadline that we were supposed to have. The state refused to go to those online trainings because you just need to have that face to face. So we kind of backed everything up in this last legislative session regarding proficiency or awareness to give us a little bit more time. So we're going to get to see in Arkansas, is this a skill issue or a will issue? It's going to look odd if, on the note, we don't rise in our reading level because we know Mississippi did and they're probably four years ahead of us. But the kids in Mississippi aren't love more. They're not read too much. They're not in less poverty. All the balanced literacy excuses for kids not learning to read. The Mississippi thing kind of turned that on its head. And while it's not a great growth, it certainly takes a while to turn a ship.
[00:15:05.820] - Speaker 1
Sure. What's really interesting here is you're talking about this intersection of this Rise initiative from the governor, the right to read, which is retraining the workforce, and then the foundations of reading test, which then put pressure on the colleges of education to prepare teachers for the workforce. So it's all these kind of prongs coming together. Right. And it just reminds me of this old adage, it takes a village. There's this intersection of school and parents and community and policymakers and legislators and lawyers involved in helping children. So how have you navigated all these different pieces in the work that you're doing?
[00:15:53.970] - Speaker 2
Well, first of all, I'm boots on the ground basically, because I attend so many meetings. And before COVID, I take COVID very seriously. And I don't feel, number one, that schools need outside people coming in to advocate. Not that advocacy is not important, but when I can do this in another pathway like we're doing today, that's the pathway that I would prefer to do it because it's safe for everybody. But I attend meetings. This morning before our podcast, I had a meeting at 715. I sold a total number on it. I probably attend about 250 to 300 meetings a year. There are days when I have four meetings that's about as much as I can go without everything kind of mixing together and I'm calling the kid a wrong name or something like that. So about four is the maximum that I can go. And Zoom allows me to do that. And I live in central Arkansas. So before we had Zoom in COVID, I could still go to four meetings, but it would be like I would start out the furthest point and work my way back. That's a lot of scheduling that takes place with me and the parents to make sure that I can attend.
[00:17:11.950] - Speaker 1
Audi, these are just to clarify for our listeners, these are IEP meetings, IP or 504 or 504 that you're attending with parents to help them navigate the language and understand the law and what's necessary for the school to do for their child, correct?
[00:17:30.390] - Speaker 2
Yes.
[00:17:32.290] - Speaker 1
And this is a labor of love for you.
[00:17:35.240] - Speaker 2
Yes, it is.
[00:17:37.660] - Speaker 1
You are doing this on your own to support these families in getting the help for their children they need.
[00:17:44.050] - Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, there's so many I get so many calls from parents, text messages, Facebook message, email, whatever, that they would just say, I'm at a loss. And some of them are just devastated when they are told your child has markers of Dyslexia. And sometimes they just need a friendly voice, on the other hand, that says, this is not a death sentence. Okay, we got this. We're all victims to win the time period that we were born in the Wild West, whatever. We all have to deal with that time period. And this is a special time in Arkansas for kids who have Dyslexia. I mean, I've attended meetings for kids who do not have Dyslexia, but word got out that I was coming and all of a sudden they have the district Dyslexia specialist there because they think, I'm going to say, this child has Dyslexia. I'm like, no, this parent got my name from another parent and just asked me to come. I'm not exclusive a Dyslexia advocate. I want all kids to have an opportunity at life. It's just I believe reading you just really cannot have life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this day and time when you cannot read.
[00:18:54.200] - Speaker 2
So I do think it is an absolute denial of rights for a child to graduate and not be able to read.
[00:19:00.740] - Speaker 1
Yes. Audi, I really want our listeners to understand that this is something that you have taken upon yourself because you see this incredible need and that you've been assisting these families and you've been assisting lawmakers to make sure that these kids don't continue to fall through the cracks. And that is such Noble work. And I know that we're grateful to you for doing that work. And there was a short feature about your work on PBS about Arkansas on PBS, by the way, to let our listeners know, I'll put links to all these resources in the notes for the podcast. But did that accelerate your work at all? This feature on PBS?
[00:19:50.870] - Speaker 2
It's sad. I'm going to say this. I guess business is good for me. Business has been good. It's free. I don't get paid. I don't need any more people to advocate it would be great if my phone number range would be great if I never got the PBS. It accelerated some things. Like I cried in that interview because it's just so the weight of it is so unnecessary. I mean, I get choked up just thinking about it. The hope is going out of a little kid's eyes when they can't get it. And then a good friend of mine from Massachusetts, Nancy Dugan, made a point. When we were in Alaska, I flew up to Alaska and spoke with their legislature and with Nancy, and she made a good point. She talked about how when we pull these kids out for intervention and it's still not accurate intervention, they have hope. Oh, I'm finally going to get some relief. And they don't. And so that just further diminishes their self worth, their self confidence. So when they get RTI, they really should get appropriate intervention. And they have it for so long in Arkansas, it didn't necessarily increase here in the state speed it up or whatever.
[00:21:06.110] - Speaker 2
There have been people that I've met and been like, oh, wait a minute. I was eating at a restaurant after that, and a woman came up and said, you're the one on the PBS deal. And thank you for advocating for that kind of stuff. The kids are the real warriors. I mean, they get dressed every day, go to work, I go to school, and I just feel like they're beat down. But no, it's been steady, pretty steady. It's really been steady since probably the fall of 2016. It's been crazy. It's really personal for me. My niece is dyslexic and she's brilliant in math. Didn't miss a problem. I mean, just unbelievable in math. But she has always struggled to read. Now she just graduated in August with her doctorate in occupational therapy. But before we figured out what was, we just could not. And my sister is a special educator as well. That's the sad thing about it. We were actually considered the experts, and we just could not figure it out what was going on with her. And she drove to her own intervention. That's how late in the game we were to get her remediated.
[00:22:32.970] - Speaker 2
We have a whole system in place in Arkansas. It takes 40% of our revenue to fund this system, and we're only meeting 40% of the kids in reading. So we had a big facade in Arkansas, just like every state when we had the state test, we developed. And ours is called the Act Tab. And every year to show growth, they didn't really show growth. They lowered the bar. So it looked like the kids are making growth. So I look back at that, and I think ignorance is blessed. I remember reading we had four schools that had 100% literacy, but we knew something was wrong because the nape showed something different. And then when we went to a nationally known chest, we pulled the curtain back and saw the darkness. So it's heartbreaking and it's unnecessary. It impacts every part of the family, and it impacts you in ways you didn't think it would impact you. But you don't realize how much you read in a day until you can't.
[00:23:35.700] - Speaker 1
Yeah. What a testament to perseverance. Like you said, she had to drive her own intervention. So it took that long to kind of get to the bottom of it and multiply that by the sheer number of kids who face that same issue and who don't have the resources to know what has gone wrong and how we rely on our schools to figure it out so that we can intervene for these kids. That's the heartbreak. That is the heartbreak.
[00:24:14.330] - Speaker 2
I taught at a University. I look back, I was a Stem master teacher at the University of Central Arkansas. And I look back on it and I think some of the things that I taught my students and I would always address because I taught secondary teachers, elementary teachers love kids. I don't know what middle school teachers like. Maybe the smell of Axe body is great because middle school kids have it so much, so strong in the middle school. But high school teachers really love their subject. I always try to give a balance of the kids and the subject. I wanted them to understand how to deliver and the pedicures, how to deliver it. But I'd also be very sensitive. You're going to have kids that don't love math, that don't love physics, and you need to make sure that you reach them. And there's going to be a lot they can't read. If a kid is they're talking to you, they're articulating the class. You think they got it through formative assessment, you give a summative assessment and they bomb it. Chances are that kid is struggling to read and comprehend what they're doing. But one of the things that I regret not teaching so hard at a University is future teachers, how to advocate for students.
[00:25:27.810] - Speaker 2
Because I can't be in every meeting, and oftentimes the only voice that kid has is that teacher in the classroom, because the parents want to have a voice, but they don't know exactly what to say. The language is not there. It's over their head. And I know this because when a parent calls me and they say something that's so out of source, sometimes they call me and tell me something that's so out of source, I'm like, there's no way that can be. And it is. And other times they call me and they tell me that, and they've got it all confused in their head. And so when I attend the meeting, we get it all lined out, and I explained it to the parent. So it's really on an educator's role in an educator. They're in a realtor position, really, because they have to advocate for the kids, and then they also have to watch for their supervisor their administrator and it shouldn't be that way. Education should be about the kids and we've lost that. I mean, we've lost in Arkansas and I feel in other States as well. When I speak to people from other States, we've lost our way with that.
[00:26:34.730] - Speaker 2
Education is working really for one group of people and it's the administrators.
[00:26:42.230] - Speaker 1
Okay. So we should all be on the same page is basically what you're saying. And in advocacy for children and teachers aren't necessarily prepared to do that or they feel pressure. And so how do we bring those administrators along? What's left to do there?
[00:27:01.190] - Speaker 2
Well, I don't really want to drive a pin Penny mail with a ball peen hammer, but I'm getting tired of it. These kids do not have time to waste on these people to get it straight. I mean, even with Anna, she was intervened late, a junior senior before she got her intervention, but she got it outside of school and it was funded by us. Oftentimes she was able to get that one on one instruction. But when you have to do it within the school, it's much slower because they put you sometimes in a group I don't know. I can tell you this, Laura. I'm coming to the realization and maybe I'm a little slow learner on this. You can't legislate change of heart. I cannot continue to legislate and hope that these administrators change their hearts. I don't know member when I talked about we're going to see if it's a will or a skill. And education is plumbing runs downhill and it certainly is a plumbing type set up right now. I struggle in the meetings. Teachers are getting it from all kind of directions, and then we have this virus that can take their life looming in the background.
[00:28:26.890] - Speaker 2
And I struggle to be Curt, although I am short on time with kids and like we talked about before, I am kind of plain spoken when it comes to stuff, but I'm finding it harder to the situation is the problem is not the teachers. The problem is the administration in Arkansas. And when the administrator is not in a class, in a meeting, when a classroom teacher says this is what this child needs and the building level administrator says we're not going to do that, I don't understand what the problem is. That teacher is the professional and touches that kid more than anybody and that child should get what they need. We've have special education administrators that are ignorant. We have building level administrators that are ignorant, and then we have superintendents that are ignorant. The point I'm at is I just have to keep believing that it's not willful ignorance.
[00:29:39.170] - Speaker 1
So what levels of support can we provide for those leaders so that we are all on the same page and that we are all advocating for children, we're all moving in the same direction?
[00:29:51.650] - Speaker 2
Well, for me at the legislative stage, it has to take place above the administrators because they obviously cannot police themselves. I mean, if your phone was on 27%, which is, you know, at one point where we had 8th graders that were literate in the state of Arkansas, if your phone was on 27%, you would look for a charger. Okay, we're at 27% of kids that can read proficiently, and the people who led the schools were perfectly fine with letting that go. The change had to come from outside. Well, that tells me one thing. These people aren't capable of policing themselves. So we took it to the legislative stage, and you can tell in the last three or four legislative sessions that it has gotten the superintendent's lobby group has not had a good run of things. We have legislators now that when a Superintendent comes to testify, they ask, did you take a day off to do this because you're a member of the Superintendent lobby group? And so that group should speak for you and we pay that dues. We pay our tax money, pays the dues for that lobby group that oftentimes lobbies against the best interests of students.
[00:31:12.740] - Speaker 2
It's the most bizarre thing that I've ever seen in my life. But they'll ask just that simple question, and that did a lot for the people that the Superintendent to have a tendency to live at the Capitol during the legislative session because if you're a member of a lobby group, that lobby group should represent you. But that lobby group is losing credibility fast the implementation of the laws. We had a situation where our legislator requested that the school districts give raises to students, and they didn't do that with the money teachers, and they didn't do that with the money. And it came out in the legislative station. And I'll never forget one of my favorite senators said, I will have no pity for you to the superintendents because they didn't spend that money the way it should have been spent. I don't know the hold up in Arkansas, the head is the hold up, not the heart. The teachers are the heart, and they're getting the meetings that I've set in. I went from never hearing the word phonemic awareness. It was all vocabulary development and comprehension. The two of the five that balanced literacy just endorsed and the other three never were mentioned.
[00:32:28.510] - Speaker 2
That's when I first started and then when I heard things like, oh, phoneamic awareness, that's the state of sponics, I'm like, oh, God help me. And then now I'm hearing the true statements in meetings. So I know that the ship is turning and I know that the skills are being given. The question is how long is it going to take us to flush out the balance literacy completely out of the system? And how long is it going to be before the administrators realize, I would love to see some legislation pass where their salaries were linked to their reading rates. I would love to see that because we have administrators in Arkansas that are making $240,000, I think, more than the governor of our state. And the Little Rock school district has some of the poorest reading rates ever and their Superintendent making nearly a quarter of a million dollars. He may be making a little over that now. And don't get me wrong, I think that it's not even the state's largest school district, but I think that being that would be a hard job, but we just can't keep throwing money down the drain when it's not.
[00:33:40.550] - Speaker 2
We're going to see. But I made a post and it was share about the administrators during the fiscal session. They always talk about we've got to have superintendents. We've got to have more money, more money. It's funding. It's funding. We've got these unfunded mandates. Arkansas, I believe, got 1.8 billion. That's billion with the B in Cobin money, Esser funds. And I cannot wait to see all this innovative thinking that these superintendents have, because what I'm seeing is we're going to buy two buses with that money. I'm seeing that kind of stuff, and it's not going to impact student learning so much.
[00:34:18.380] - Speaker 1
So basically, you're saying the buck has to stop somewhere. And if we all agree that the most important thing we can do for our kids is get them reading to create a pathway of success in life, then where does that buck stop, do you think? Is the Ombudsman? Is that going to be helpful at all?
[00:34:39.910] - Speaker 2
We put in the bill that the Ombudsman could not currently be a Superintendent or could not have been a past Superintendent. And we did the one bill and we put the two in there, and I wanted to put the two in there. The two things, the Ombudsman and the financial thing to see which gave problems. And I think there were no really nobody was terribly upset about it, but there were one of the most outspoken people. Wasn't that the bill itself or that the school district is going to lose money but that a Superintendent couldn't apply for it. But if a Superintendent could fix it, they would. We're a local control state, and they just turned so we did hire a nonbudgment I don't know the name of the person I'll get on that this spring, but we did hire an Ombudsman, and this person I have heard came from one of the educational co Ops. And I hope that I think they're probably keeping the name from her because they think I'm going to overwhelm her here in the first and I'm not. But that is another tool in the toolbox to have. We can file state complaints.
[00:35:55.560] - Speaker 2
We have Office of Equity Services that can come out and investigate. We can file due process, and we can do all that. But it really would be nice if some of these Superintendent would take the initiative to police themselves. We got 260, some odd districts in Arkansas ranging from 350 to 22,350 kids to 22,000 kids. And I can count on one hand the ones that try to work to make it. We'll win a due process and put a kid in a program and that kid will fly. No Superintendent ever comes back and go, wait a minute, how did that work so good? What can we do to get that program in? And that's kind of how you know, I don't know if they're interested in fixing it, but in Arkansas, we reward poverty. We have what's called ESA. Every student achieves actors, every student achieves money. And it used to be called NSLA National School Lunch. And people thought that it was school lunch funding and it wasn't that's the federal funding. But we use the data from that to the higher level of poverty. You know, if you have I think it's 50, 70 and 90%, 90% for every student in your school, you get an additional $1,500 70%.
[00:37:12.760] - Speaker 2
You get additional thousand. And if you have 50%, you get an additional 500. And it's supposed to close that gap. The legislature had a really good intent on that. Throw some extra money to close that gap. But then we have school districts that are hiring resource officers with that money. Well, how's that going to close the achievement gap? Taking kids on carriage rise. Now, how's that going to doing this stuff called muddy Greek, taking them to teach them how to deal with dogs and maybe therapy situation? I don't know. So if you think about it, this is the one place in our society that poverty is rewarded. And I hate to say that because it makes me sound like, well, let's starve them out. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is let's do some things that are not rewarding poverty for the school districts because with 40% of kids being able to read, they're creating a poverty issue. And then we turn around and we fund it through more and more when all we have to do is implement appropriate practices. The holdout the teachers have the heart. I mean, they want it.
[00:38:21.880] - Speaker 2
I can go to a meeting and I could a teacher that I've seen teachers break down and cry and say, I can't believe that I did this wrong for this many years.
[00:38:35.390] - Speaker 1
Audi, we hear that all the time, too. I hear that all the time from teachers. And I felt the same way. I mean, coming up as a teacher, I didn't know any of this. You've brought this up consistently, and I really appreciate this. You're saying teachers have the heart and there is an art and a science to teaching. And the piece that they're not getting is they're not getting that science piece.
[00:38:56.650] - Speaker 2
That's exactly right.
[00:38:57.690] - Speaker 1
And it goes back to what you were saying with yourself as a math teacher. You always saw instruction as logical, sequential, systematic. And so it's just puzzling that we can't enact those same kinds of protocols in teaching reading. And why has it taken so long for us to reconcile that and to get that into our teacher's preparation so that they come right out of the gate, right out of the gate understanding how do children learn to read? How do I teach that? What happens if something goes wrong? How do I identify if something goes wrong? How do I advocate for them if they struggle? We're missing all those pieces, I think, in preparing our teachers and in supporting our teachers. And clearly from your experience, we're missing educating our administrators on those pieces as well.
[00:39:51.050] - Speaker 2
Well, educators in Arkansas or in any state, I think are probably one of the largest employment forces. And we're having to retrain an entire workforce, if you think about it. And it is not going to happen overnight. And it's sad because like I said, we're all victims of the time we are born in. But these kids don't have it to waste. You know, I often tell teachers a kid doesn't get off the bus in kindergarten and say, by God, they're not going to teach me how to read. I am not going to learn how to read. And then in first grade, they don't say, hey, I didn't learn last year. I got another year and I'm not going to learn again. And they resist that learning. Kids want to learn. Okay. The same way a teacher doesn't go into a classroom and go, I'm not going to teach. But until we arm those teachers with the toolbox that they need to go in and teach those kids the way that the brain processes the written word, we're banging our heads against the wall.
[00:40:50.010] - Speaker 1
That's right. Don't you believe too? I do that it's relentless. I mean, it's not something that we retrained this workforce and go, we're done. You're a testament to the relentlessness of this pursuit in all these arenas through teacher prep, teacher training, professional development legislation, parent advocacy. It's this relentless intersection of all those players. And I totally agree with you about that motivation. Sometimes people have said to me, well, we don't want to teach systematic, explicit phonics early on because it will destroy their motivation to read. And I always say, how can you be motivated if you don't know what to do, right? I mean, kids come to school inherently motivated, kindergartners come to school expecting to learn to read and expecting to learn to write. And we want to deliver on that promise. And what's going to be motivating to them is success in that, right? Success in that, in those incremental steps which include that logical, sequential, secure, foundational knowledge, that's what's going to motivate them to want to continue.
[00:42:06.890] - Speaker 2
Yes. I'm kind of harsh when it comes to this. I'm just done with having that argument with them. I mean, I just so I've kind of coined this term of educational terrorism. And if you look at the definition of terrorism or terrorist. You're pushing an agenda. It's radicalized. I don't know that I can come up with a term that is more accurate than that for people that continue to want to have this discussion because we've had it this way for 20 some odd years, maybe 30 years now. I don't know. But we've had it and it's not working. I mean, the science is settled to me. It's just that's where I am in Arkansas, we don't have those discussions in that way. I'm glad that we are ahead of other States because when we talk about that, they're still having these discussions. It's so frustrating for me because I'm thinking this is terrible that we're still having to have this. I mean, I feel like there are some of the most archaic practices that we have done that just don't work. Yeah.
[00:43:30.850] - Speaker 1
I mean, I've heard so many people talk about the parallels between education and medicine. And if we practiced our art and science of education, if medicine practiced it in the same way we've been practicing, where would we be?
[00:43:48.150] - Speaker 2
That's right.
[00:43:48.680] - Speaker 1
We need to do no harm. And when we don't have children reading and we know that we can teach virtually everybody to read it's that gap in which we get to choose, are we going to continue to do harm or are we going to continue to do right by these kids?
[00:44:06.510] - Speaker 2
And we need to recognize, like my good friend Nancy said, we are doing more harm than good when we taught this banana way of teaching in the classroom. And then we decided the kid can't get it. He needs to go to RTI, so they pull him out and in a small group, he gets more of the same. I mean, in this kid's mind, he's smart enough to know, I'm not processing this like everybody else. He may not have that word, but he knows I'm different on this. And then when we pull him out, he thinks he's going to get some relief and he doesn't. Well, then he just completely feels like I'm dumb. I'm an idiot. I'm not going to get this. It wears the families that it wears on the whole family structure. When a parent is having to sit down for hours on hours at the table at night and work with a kid who has a weak working memory, they don't understand this child's working memory issues. They don't understand these things. And it's such a stress on everybody.
[00:45:02.070] - Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. And it becomes just a vicious cycle. Right. And I heard somebody recently say students get trapped in the cul de sac of intervention. If we just continue to do the same thing, they're in this cul de sac of intervention.
[00:45:21.630] - Speaker 2
That's a fantastic analogy because it literally is just here in Conway, we have so many roundabouts, I could probably say the roundabout of intervention. And it seems like we passed our first Dyslexia law in 2013 and in 2016, they still really weren't implementing it. So it took at least three years for that to trickle down. But the first time they figure out a way to delay something or whatever, that spreads like wildfires in all the schools, we're still small enough. Oh, wait, we can make this. We've just moved from for determination. Under SLD in 2004, the federal government said, you don't have to use the discrepancy model, the way to fail. It's way to the the kids at the bottom of the pool in blue before we jump into saving. You don't have to do that. You can use the RTI or patterns of strengths and weaknesses. And we just got schools that are dabbling with the strengths and weak patterns of strengths and weaknesses. And it's unbelievable how they're doing it. I mean, I'm like, that's not right. It's like punching air. I know what I'm saying is right, but I can't make them understand what they're saying is not correct.
[00:46:34.330] - Speaker 2
So I thought it would be good when we went to patterns of strengths and weaknesses. And there's so much education. It's got to be I mean, we have a technical assistant manual in Arkansas, and it outlives the three ways, but it's still very difficult for them to just the time. I think a kid got over the hurdle to get some relief. He doesn't Audi.
[00:46:56.230] - Speaker 1
As we wrap up our time together, I just want to say, let's end this with a sense of hope. First of all, I want to say your story is one of relentless and tireless work on behalf of children. And I think all of our listeners would just be filled with gratitude for the work that you're doing. And there have been steps taken in your state to move in the right direction. There's more work to be done. And we thank you for your devotion to that work.
[00:47:33.170] - Speaker 2
Yeah, we're going to get it right. Kids are worth it. We're going to get it right.
[00:47:37.690] - Speaker 1
Well, after listening to you, sister, I think you are going to get it right because you are not giving up on this. And I just want to say Congratulations to Anna, who you said just received her doctorate in physical therapy.
[00:47:51.890] - Speaker 2
She flew home from Florida this weekend in surprises. And I'm telling you, I was so excited to see her, and she flew out yesterday and she sent me a text, and I'm on the planet. So I miss you already. I mean, my sister has three kids. Our mother died young, and so I've been kind of the grandmother to them. And they're just my world. Anna is the only one that has dyslexia, but she was the first oldest grandchild, so it was a steep learning curve for us. But by golly, for the other two, we watched for all the signs that we missed ahead of time. Luckily, they weren't there when I got my master's. One of the professors at the University made a statement one time and he said, if you have a child that's just average, bow down and kiss the ground, be grateful that you just have a child. But that doesn't mean that these kids because they're different, they're any less. It just means they need a little more. And we've got a system set up to give it to them. We just need to utilize that for kids.
[00:48:53.060] - Speaker 1
That's right. We know what to do. We need to do it well, thank you so much. I do want to end with our closing questions that I ask all of our guests. These are kind of rapid fire questions. So, Audi, who was your favorite teacher growing up and why?
[00:49:13.070] - Speaker 2
I would probably say Mr. Ellis Hayes. And it was just probably just the way he delivered the math content. And I also had him for advanced math and physics my senior year. He was no nonsense, probably warm and fuzzy as a razor blade, but he knew how to teach it. He knew how to deliver that content.
[00:49:37.830] - Speaker 1
I'm going to give a shout out to Mr. Hayes for getting you started on this path, for being a teacher and where he has led you since then. What is a favorite book, either as a child or as an adult?
[00:49:51.990] - Speaker 2
As an adult, being on the show without the blueprint for Illiterate Nation.
[00:49:56.190] - Speaker 1
That's a good one. And I'll definitely put this in the show notes, too. It's a great book. What are you reading right now?
[00:50:05.610] - Speaker 2
Right now? Right now I'm reading about 30 psycho educational reports for kids. We're about to enter Christmas break. And so there's a book about the death of democracy or how a democracy ends. I can't remember the title. I've already ordered it in a tier, but I hope to read it over Christmas break. Otherwise, during these breaks, I don't really have an opportunity. I'm always reading a due process file. I'm always reading a psycho educational report on a kid. So during the break, I will flat read some books. A good book for kids to read and for families to read. It's very inspiring. It's written by man here in Arkansas. And periodically I just did some subbing for two weeks at the school and that we read this book together. It's An Uphill Climb by Dave Sergeant. It's no longer in print, so I hate to even say this because I always buy it when it comes on sell Amazon and I stop at every use book for store to get some and give it to people. An Uphill Climb by Dave Sergeant. And Dave is an Arkansas who didn't learn to read until he was in the United States military.
[00:51:16.570] - Speaker 1
Oh, interesting. Okay. And so that's a book that you do recommend for families?
[00:51:21.490] - Speaker 2
Families, yes. And I read it at least once a year. It's something I just always have. I always want to keep close to me the feeling that they've had in the trial that they've experienced.
[00:51:35.190] - Speaker 1
Oh, wonderful. Okay, I'll put that in the show notes as well. What do you have on your desk that symbolizes you or is dear to you?
[00:51:43.810] - Speaker 2
Well, when I just built a new house and moved into it last February, and Luckily, I turned my attic, which is already going to be heated and cooled into a full apartment. So because of my dogs, this is where I have my desk. On my desk right now, I don't really have anything. My iPad stays here, which is most of the time when I'm on every day, all day. My screen time is sinful. Probably. That's it.
[00:52:11.230] - Speaker 1
I see you have a cow picture behind you.
[00:52:14.270] - Speaker 2
Yeah. I have a small cattle farm. It's a Holly farm. And that was a gift from the Hannah School families. That's a school we have in Arkansas that's dedicated to Dyslexia. That's actually one of my cows that was born. I took a picture of it right after it was born, and they had an artist painted for me. So I live on my cattle farm. It's just 30 acres. I've got 20 head of cattle and just something to keep me busy and, you know, give me a little bit of peace.
[00:52:44.180] - Speaker 1
How wonderful. I love cows. And I know you've really pretty much answered this question, but maybe just succinctly. What are your greatest hopes for today's children?
[00:52:55.890] - Speaker 2
One thing, literacy. That's it. It's so overplayed. Once you learn to read, you'll forever be free. But that is overplayed. But that is so accurate, because the flip side of that is true. If you can't learn to read, you will never be free. You will always have something over your head holding you back.
[00:53:22.690] - Speaker 1
Amen Audi, what can people do to support you? What can our listeners do to support you?
[00:53:32.750] - Speaker 2
Just keep believing in kids. Keep believing that kids they're not willfully trying to not learn to read. Just keep believing in the system, but at the same time, believing in the school system, working to change it so that kids, even if you attend a school board meeting just at your local school district, just to be seen, just so they know, hey, I care about this process. I care about these kids. I care about this school get involved because I think it is important that the schools recognize that we fund them. We fund them. Our society is not going to rise if we do not get this literacy thing fixed. I don't see anything. People talk about inflation, the price of gas. The pressing thing for me is going to be literacy every single time because people can solve problems if they can read. It's a lot for kids and families.
[00:54:41.010] - Speaker 1
Keep believing in kids. The society will not rise until we get this fixed. And literacy is the one thing that's it.
[00:54:54.950] - Speaker 2
I want every child to be literary, and I may not live to see that, but I do believe I will live to see every child get a fair shot at it.
[00:55:04.190] - Speaker 1
Well, Bravo to you. Thank you so much. My heart is full with gratitude for the work that you're doing, Audi and we appreciate your time today and I know our listeners are going to really enjoy this episode so thank you.
[00:55:20.330] - Speaker 2
Keep your eye in Arkansas because we will rise.
[00:55:23.510] - Speaker 1
We are going to do that. Bless you. Amen.
[00:55:28.850] - Speaker 2
Okay. Y'all take care.
[00:55:30.240] - Speaker 1
Thank you. Audi really appreciate it.
[00:55:32.990] - Speaker 2
Bye. Bye.
[00:55:33.570] - Speaker 1
Bye. Not much more needs to be said. I think she pretty much said it all literacy one thing. That's it. I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode with Audi Alamba. If you enjoy this podcast please remember to rate us and provide us with feedback. We want to make sure that we're meeting your needs and that these are important and interesting conversations to you. So thank you once again for listening and we'll see you next time.