[00:00:00.670] - Speaker 1
This podcast is sponsored by Zayner Blozer. 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 curricula. This includes the Superkids Reading Program and the Superkid's Family of Resources for grades K Two. To discover whether the Superkit's Comprehensive Program Foundational Skills Kit, and New Phonemic Awareness curriculum are a good fit for your literacy goals and instructional approaches, visit Go Zaynarblosar.com Superkids TRL that's Go Zanerbloser.com, S-U-P-E-R-K-I-D-S-T-R. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teaching Reading and Learning, the TRL Podcast. My name is Laura Stewart and I am your host as we elevate important conversations in the educational community. It is my pleasure to welcome Kelly Butler to the podcast today. I have known Kelly for several years and I have had the good fortune to work with her on several projects. I find her to be a passionate leader in advocating for evidence based and equitable instruction for all students with true devotion to her home state of Mississippi. In this episode, you'll learn about the Mississippi Success Story, including lessons learned, Kelly's professional journey, and the five credos that she lives by.
[00:01:57.150] - Speaker 1
So as way of starting the podcast, I will introduce Kelly to you by reading her biography. Kelly Butler is the Chief Executive Officer at the Barksdale Reading Institute. The Institute's literacy work encompasses early childhood parenting, professional development for teachers, teacher preparation, and developing literacy leaders. Ms. Butler is the author of two statewide studies and developed a subsequent statewide initiative to improve teacher preparation programs focused on early literacy instruction in Mississippi's 15 public and private universities. A former high school teacher in the Greenwich, Connecticut Public Schools, Kelly holds a Bachelor's degree in special Education and a Master's degree in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University. She served by appointment to the Governor's Task Force on Teacher Preparation for Early Literacy Instruction and the State Reading Panel and most recently, the Governor's Task Force on Educator Workforce Development. Kelly has leveraged the Institute's successful track record to initiate several multi organization and multi state initiatives, including the Big Dipper's Short Course in the Science of Reading for Teach for America's National Summer Institute, the Path Forward, Bringing the Science of Reading to teacher prep programs and Licensure, and a 20 member national team of reading experts to review the teacher preparation programs in a neighboring state.
[00:03:28.350] - Speaker 1
Kelly is frequently called upon to tell the story of Mississippi's literacy challenges and successes, and as more States are responding to the literacy instruction crisis, Barksdale Reading Institute has provided consultation to a number of legislative and philanthropic groups from various States. Kelly is a recipient of the Reading League's 2021 Bonita Blackman Award for Advancing Evidence to Practice. Welcome Kelly to the podcast.
[00:04:07.810] - Speaker 2
Welcome Kelly to the podcast.
[00:04:10.160] - Speaker 3
Thanks. Good to be here.
[00:04:11.840] - Speaker 2
It's delightful to have you here, so let's just jump right in. And I'm going to start with a question I've been asking all of our guests. What is a quote that you live by and return to?
[00:04:25.250] - Speaker 3
Well, it's a great question, and I actually love words, so I have lots of quotes. But I think what that question prompts me to think about is I have a twin brother who is a clinical psychologist. And many years ago when we were talking about his practice, he talked about sort of some emerging themes that reoccurred in his practice and working with people to try to sort out their lives. And he's kind of codified what he called five credos, which I really have adopted, embraced. I've used it in my work at Barksdale. There's a picture of them on my wall here, and the five credos are there. I've tried to get him to write a book about it, and he's never been compelled to do that. So here are the five credos that I really do live. The first one is Face the Day, and I think we probably get this from our mother who said, get up, get out of bed, get out there. The world needs you. The second is Bridge the Gap. I find myself doing that a lot. You're going to hear that some in my story today. And that may be a racial gap, a cultural gap, an economic gap, generational gap.
[00:05:44.630] - Speaker 3
The third one is act in good faith. And that essentially means if you work and act with integrity, even if you screw up, you can get up, Face the Day again. The fourth one is avoid extremes. That essentially is live in moderation. My brother says that people who work too much or drink too much or exercise too much are really just avoiding feeling things. And if they stop doing those things, I'll have to do. And the fifth one is remember that this is not all there is, that Grace will save you in the end. So sort of look up from your life and recognize that you're just part of the universe. So I kind of come back to those.
[00:06:37.160] - Speaker 2
Yes, I love that. And now that I know that and maybe I saw that when I visited your office, but now that I know that, that really helps me understand you and your work even more. I think these are really very beautiful. Lovely. And the whole thing about bridging the gap, too, I know we'll definitely touch on that today. Wow. Thank you for opening with that. Lovely. So what made you decide? Let's kind of go back to your origins. Kelly, what made you decide to go into education? I know you started out as a special Ed teacher or you got your first degree there. What made you go into education?
[00:07:15.030] - Speaker 3
Well, education really kind of chose me. I didn't really choose it. I'm in that generation where women were sort of sorted at the start. You either go into nursing or teaching and I'm one of those women I got to undergraduate school, had no idea what I wanted to do was not a particularly strong student. I mean, I liked school and it did well in high school, but I didn't really look far and wide when I even decided to go to College. I followed a sister who was a year or two ahead of me and into the University of Alabama. But I have to say that over time that this career has served me well. My undergraduate degree is in special Ed, and it was a while program. The year that I entered it was the first year that they had brought it into a bachelor's level. It had always been a master's level program, and I ended up with a license in K twelve special Ed to teach virtually any child anything. I knew how to do nothing, but I was licensed to do everything. And my student teaching experience, I literally had one of everything in my class.
[00:08:31.240] - Speaker 3
It was selfcontained classroom. And I remember I had a deaf child, a blind child, a child with spina bifida. The child was cerebral palsy. And I didn't know the first thing about dealing with any of those conditions. But it was a good launch and it's been a great career, and I've been fortunate to have had wonderful opportunities open up to me.
[00:08:53.490] - Speaker 2
That's interesting. I feel the same way, Kelly. I mean, I started as a teacher, and I feel like there's been many twists and turns, there's been many Forks in the road. But I do think it's a calling in whatever form that takes. And maybe you're like me when people ask what you do or who you are. I kind of always return to I'm a teacher, maybe in a different way than I started out as a teacher, but I'm teacher at heart, I guess that's funny. You mentioned, you know, we're from the same generation, and my mom was a Secretary, my sister was a nurse, and I was a teacher. But the triumvirant of women's professions back then.
[00:09:28.770] - Speaker 3
Yeah. I got very interested early on in the policy side of education, though. I started my career in Greenwich Public Schools in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is one of the finest well funded districts in the country. And my last teaching job was in Holmes County, Mississippi, through their Institute. I was not full time then, but I was teaching in those and modeling instruction in those classes. And so my experience has been kind of bookended by the really best of public education. And the really worst thing being that I was in a district that had little funding, little community support. And so my experience is really influenced by those two experiences of how broad and inequitable our system of schooling is.
[00:10:28.230] - Speaker 2
So do you think that those experiences really led you into the work that you're doing now in this bridge building that you're doing that you're engaged in?
[00:10:41.190] - Speaker 3
Yeah. And I think my early story, growing up in the south and through what we failed to do to integrate our schools really influenced me. My parents work and position in the community that influenced us growing up. My father was a school Bishop, and he was very involved in some of the civil rights efforts during that period, including building black churches when the clan was burning them down. And I remember waking up one morning to go to school, and my mother put us at the breakfast table to explain why the rabbi's house had just been bombed. The Rabbi lived four or five houses down from ours, and there was real peril that we might be next. I was in some ways, sheltered through that period by my parents and at the same time came to appreciate the importance of community and how divided our community was. And it played out in my schooling. I graduated from high school the year that the Homes County, the school district that I ended up teaching in. Homes versus was it Alexander versus Homes, which was the national court case, federal court case that essentially said to Mississippi, all deliberate speed now means immediately because you've taken 15 years to try to integrate your schools.
[00:12:17.610] - Speaker 3
And so I was a senior in high school, and so that first half of that year, I was in virtually an all white public school. And the second half, we were attempting to integrate the schools, and they first integrated the staff. So half of our teachers were moved out and half of the black teachers were moved in. And overnight, this segregation academies formed, and my parents would have none of it, and we stuck with the public schools. And that period really shaped my life. In fact, many years later is what brought me back to Mississippi. I left Mississippi thinking I would never come back. And an organization that was founded here called Parents for Public Schools, which my sister actually had founded, brought me back to Mississippi and really engaged me in the kind of work that I'm drawn to now. In fact, Syracuse has a chapter of Parents of Public Schools. It was a national organization, and the purpose of it was to keep middle class. And in Mississippi at that point in time, really meant white families in the public schools so that the communities would stick together and build equitable schools for everybody.
[00:13:37.050] - Speaker 3
So that period really shaped my life.
[00:13:40.110] - Speaker 2
And it sounds like your parents and your siblings were all really influential during those formative years for you. Yeah, that's lovely. So the Parents for Public Schools that's still in existence.
[00:13:55.350] - Speaker 3
I don't know if the chapter is still in Syracuse, but they're all over the country. San Francisco, Cincinnati. I was in that role for ten years, and it's still organization working to help make public schools equitable today.
[00:14:12.680] - Speaker 2
Oh, interesting. Okay. I will definitely have to put the link for that in our show notes for our listeners. Yeah. So in addition to your parents, your siblings, are there other people or places or books or experiences that shaped your early work?
[00:14:37.450] - Speaker 3
Well, when I think about my early work, I think about my first teaching experience, which was in Greenwich and in Connecticut at that point in time, in order to maintain your teaching license, you had to get a master's degree within three year period of time. And I really wanted to do it full time. I didn't want to work and do a Masters at the same time, which was when I think about it as such a luxury. But I managed to make it happen. And I applied to a number of schools, and the Superintendent in Greenwich at the time had been a student at school at Harvard, and he wrote me a lovely recommendation, which I'm forever grateful for. And I think I was probably the token of Mississippi in that year that they accepted. But when I look back on it, what I've learned about that since is that actually Louisa Moz was at Harvard at the same time that I was. I never knew her. I never met her then, and I regret that. So and this was before I was really deeply into reading. My orientation at that point was still kind of legislative policy special Ed.
[00:15:57.000] - Speaker 3
The first year I taught was the first year of 94 142, which tells you exactly how old I am. And I took a course with Gene Chaw, not really appreciating at all who Jean Chaw was or is, but as I look back on it and pull out the great debate that's still on my bookshelf realized the seeds were being planted back then and have helped kind of form the work I'm doing now.
[00:16:30.590] - Speaker 2
Kelly, isn't that so interesting when you have the opportunity to look back and see all those people and all the influences that kind of shaped where you are? I just find it fascinating to be able to do that and to know that Gene Chal and that work was really influential and has played out in much of what you're doing even today. So interesting. So what led you back to Mississippi and what led you to Barksdale and then just kind of tell us more about Barksdale and the work that you're doing there?
[00:17:09.970] - Speaker 3
Well, the Paris for Public Schools position brought me back. I was living in Cincinnati, happy to be there. Our three daughters were born there, and we were enjoying good public schools. And my sister and the board of PPS national called and said, we'd like for you to come around the national organization. And I said, well, I'd be happy to do that if I could stay in Cincinnati. I really don't want to come back to Mississippi. And they said, no, you have to come back. And so I came back some trepidation. I was worried about my daughters and the schools, but I did, and my husband, who is a New Yorker who I met in graduate school, was actually in between two positions. And so it was easy for him to relocate. He was very willing and happy to do that and has loved it down here and has lots of friends, and it's very much involved in the community here. But we came back and I found myself then recruiting families to stay with the public school. It was hard initially because this little white community of folks were trying to stick with the public schools and connect and bridge the gap with the African American community.
[00:18:38.750] - Speaker 3
To get our kids to be together in schools was hard because many of the folks that I'd grown up with and graduated from high school with were in all those segregated academies so often found myself living two different worlds. And that was hard. It was hard for my children, but they have thrived, and they have all gone on to do interesting work. They got a good education. I have no regrets about the education that they got, but it was a challenging time. So I did that for ten years. And after about ten years, I decided I'd taken parents from the schools about as far as I knew how to take it. And that thought it was time for them to have some fresh flood. So I stepped away from that work, much to my husband's horror, that I just left it and didn't have a new job lined up. But it was about the time that the Barksdale Institute was being formed. And Clavern Barksdale, who was the Barksdale family, was friends with my family. We knew each other growing up. Clayburn was the youngest of six brothers, and he and I actually were in high school together.
[00:19:55.950] - Speaker 3
And he came to town. He had just taken over as the CEO for his brother Jim. And we had lunch, and I remember and he reminds me of this, that I told him that day, you're sitting on a great opportunity. Don't blow it from that conversation. He hired me as a contractor to do the first study that we did of teacher preparation. So that was my introduction to Barksdale was kind of pushing the envelope then. And I've continued to sort of play that role within the Institute. I think.
[00:20:35.710] - Speaker 2
Kelly, he was basically saying, Face the day, face the day, Kelly. We are credos were starting to live out right there.
[00:20:48.830] - Speaker 3
And so when the report came out that I wrote, which was pretty negative, I mean, it was a pretty damning report about the state of teacher preparation. Here the early findings where you could go to any one of these eight public institutions, which Institute was funding. That's why they did the study. They were funding faculty members in these eight public EPP educator prep programs. And I honestly think Clayborn hired me full time because he realized that my report was so negative. Nobody was going to hire me to do anything. It turned out to be a nice launch, though, and the work has been good. Barcelona has been very committed from the very beginning to getting teacher preparation right. We need to train teachers right from the very get go. And I've begun to think about it as a food chain, that teacher preparation is the bottom of this food chain, and we need to make sure it's healthy and producing the next piece of the food chain, which is strong candidates.
[00:21:57.650] - Speaker 2
So, Kelly, after you wrote that damning report and then you started the work, what did you learn from your first steps in trying to improve teacher preparation?
[00:22:14.490] - Speaker 3
Well, in addition to doing teacher prep work, we were also working in about 80 schools at a time. We created the original model that the state ultimately adopted when the Literacy Based Promotion Act was passed, which is our third grade law. So we were working shoulder to shoulder in schools with teachers. We created a model that still exists today, which is the design of a literacy block. We introduced that way back then what high quality materials look like. We happen to use the program Readwell. We introduced the Reading Universe, which we can talk about here in a minute, which was really happening at the same time Louisa was writing letters, but we created a 38 week course for the number of weeks in a school year, and we would go into schools and conduct pure coaching study teams, which is what we used to call PLCs, and introduce this professional development and work with teachers, model instruction, practice what we were teaching, and then come back the next week and give them another dose of something.
[00:23:27.340] - Speaker 2
So this was going on in 80 schools then throughout the state while you.
[00:23:32.500] - Speaker 3
Were 30 literacy got it.
[00:23:36.470] - Speaker 2
Okay. This was funded by Barksdale, and then you were simultaneously working on teacher preparation.
[00:23:43.290] - Speaker 3
Yeah, we were doing both. And one of the things that was fueling our work in the K Three classes was the fact that we would get there, and the teachers really knew nothing about teaching reading. They were operating out of antiquated basals. So we had coaches who were trying to help them use these basal textbooks and provide more explicit, systematic instruction. And it was from there that the Reading Universe concept really emerged, and it was from that first study. I was sitting in the back of a classroom on one of the University campuses observing an early diversity course, and it became very apparent that neither the instructor nor her students really understood what these five components were or how they work together. And I drove home that day and said to myself, I'm going to put this process on a single page. There ought to be a way to define what's involved in reading instruction in a big picture, so that at any point in time, you know, kind of where you're standing in the universe and even if you're knee deep in phony segmentation, you need to have some concept of how that connects to everything else.
[00:25:05.970] - Speaker 3
It's based on the simple view of reading. The simple view of reading is at the top of the reading universe, and everything else comes from that. But it was that sense that we really didn't know how to teach reading. So by the time the Literacy Based Promotion Act came around and the light bulbs began to go on and superintendents and school leaders were saying maybe we really don't know how to teach reading. The barbecued reading is positioned to really help inform the State Department and work with them in partnership to roll out the Literacy Based Promotion Act, which is how I got to know Kim Yana Burke. She was hired as state literacy director, and I'd known Kim Yana many years before in other projects. And so it was a good partnership. And I think that the Institute has played an important role in being a relatively neutral broker for stepping in to bridge the gap when we needed to. It's a role that I think more philanthropists should be playing.
[00:26:20.350] - Speaker 2
So, Kelly, it sounds like as you got into this work, you realize that all these pieces have to fit together kind of at once. So in other words, you had to be working with teachers who were already in service. You had the Literacy Based Promotion Act, so you had to have some heft behind the work. And you also have to work at the teacher preparation level so that those teachers coming out of these universities could then move into schools more prepared. And it also sounds like the pieces were not only the literacy block, but high quality materials and teacher knowledge. So did all these pieces have to is that something that you all discovered as you were engaged in this work?
[00:27:06.250] - Speaker 3
Well, I remember when Clayburn was CEO and we were traveling a lot those days visiting schools. And in the afternoon he would head back to Oxford and I would head back to Jackson, and we would get on the phone. And over time he called me one day. I remember I was boarding an airplane. It was in October. Must have been about 2005. It was early on in our work together, and we realized that every call we ended up talking about school leadership, that we could train teachers one by one. But if the school leader didn't know and appreciate the importance of the literacy block and what to look for, it was going to be a long time to sustain in order to sustain the work. So we did two things. Initially, we created some demonstration classrooms to sort of demonstrate in a set of schools. We had 15 at the time what this literacy block would look like and to try to help inform those school leaders in a very intensive way what that looked like. And I remember that in the first six months or not even that many. Between August start of school and January Christmas break, the kids in the demonstration classrooms were outperforming, the kids that were in the home room.
[00:28:37.640] - Speaker 3
So we took the lowest performing kids in the school, K, the three, and we became their reading teachers. That's where we created this literacy block and established the high quality materials. What interventions look like? We trained interventions. We trained pair of professionals. And so by January, we were really proving the point. And one of the principals called us and said, I need you to teach all of our teachers how to do this, and we need to expand it. So we pulled out of that demonstration classroom and put these coaches back in and coaching roles, and from there moved into school leadership and to really focus on training school leaders about the science of reading and how to coach. We really feel like school leaders need to be able to jump in and teach reading if they needed to. So we learned a lot along the way that led to the next piece, and we've been involved in the policy conversation as well. For example, that first study led to some licensure changes requiring the Early Literacy One and Early Literacy Two, which were just the foundational part of the EPP programs that are now required in every one of the programs, public and private.
[00:30:06.330] - Speaker 2
So Kelly, share with our listeners what that content was or what the content is in those reading courses that teachers have to have.
[00:30:17.550] - Speaker 3
Early Literacy One covers concepts of print, phonological awareness, and phonics. Early Literacy Two addresses fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. We also have identified a third leg of that stool, which is assessment. And so we're working to develop a third course that would sort of be really clear. 9 hours of reading in Mississippi right now, programs are required to address to teach 15 hours of reading. And Bart sales been brought back in by the State Department over the past couple of years to reevaluate where those courses are, and they're all over the map. So we are now working with them to design probably a twelve to 15 hours sequence that would really continue to beef up Early Literacy One and Two, create this assessment course that would also address some Dyslexia and English language learning issues, and then bring in writing, which is terribly neglected in preserves.
[00:31:24.990] - Speaker 2
Yeah, I see that as well. So, Kelly, in all of this work and taking these steps and continuing to discover what was the next best step.
[00:31:35.010] - Speaker 3
What would you say?
[00:31:37.290] - Speaker 2
Was there anything surprising to you or is there anything that's continually surprising to you?
[00:31:45.070] - Speaker 3
Well, I guess I'm somewhat surprised or fly by how slow the progress has been in teacher preparation. And even though we've gotten a lot of national play for the work we've been doing down here, and we are in our fifth year of the Mississippi Momentum Project, which is really what garnered the attention. It was Emily Hanford's featuring of that work that it's still been relatively slow to change what's happening in teacher preparation. We have done a good job of changing syllabi. So if you look at our syllabi, many of those early literacy one and two syllabi courses are all using letters or speech to print as their text. They are based on the knowledge and practice standards of IDA. So we've come a long way in terms of the intended curriculum, but we are still needing to strengthen the delivery of preservice instruction. And thanks to my colleague Antonio Fiero, who has really ingratiated himself to these colleagues in teacher prep, we are beginning to see the needle move, but it's been slow. And for me, it's been 20 years. It's not been just the five years of missing momentum. We've been identifying this as an issue since 2002, and so it's time to get with it.
[00:33:23.100] - Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think the other thing I think you and I have talked about is, I mean, yes, it just feels like everything just moves at such a snail's pace. But you and I have also talked about that requires us to just continue to be relentless in the pursuit. You can't take your foot off the gas in any of this work. Do you find that retention of leaders, retention of teachers is part of the issue here? And if so, what have you learned or discovered about that, about how we can keep people in the profession, keep good leaders at schools for longer than three years?
[00:34:10.950] - Speaker 3
Well, I'm grateful that our chief leader, Kerry Wright, who is the state Superintendent, who is now enjoying one of the longest terms in state Superintendent and has been a real gift to us. I'm always grateful that she stayed as long as she has to create some continuity at the district and school level. We have seen a lot of turnover, but it tends to be lateral moving from schools to school, district to district. There's not an influx of people are not flocking here to teach and lead schools. And even though we have a fledgling charter law and effort here, that movement has been very slow, and in part because communities that need perhaps a redesign of a school don't have the resources to pull it off. And so we are challenged. The governor is we just completed a task force with the governor on workforce development for education. And so we're looking seriously at compensation and recruitment and retention strategies to help increase just the influx of new teachers as well as retain them. I also think, though, that we haven't really studied this, but I think it will be interesting to see over time what impact the literacy based promotion has had that act has had in terms of retaining elementary teachers, because I do believe that if teachers know what to do and are having success with their students, they are inclined to stay.
[00:36:01.570] - Speaker 3
And so the work that we do to help improve that talent is I think it's the biggest retention factor.
[00:36:12.680] - Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we go into teaching in order to help our students learn and achieve. So when we meet that goal that propels us forward in our profession. I think the other thing you mentioned, Emily Hanford, and we'll put the link to that in our show notes and the APM reports. I don't know if you had a chance to listen to the latest one about the teaching profession and the shortage of teachers, and they especially call up our friends in Oklahoma and the difficulty they have in recruiting and retaining teachers there. And they mentioned that the number one factor in retaining teachers is not salary or working conditions, it's support. And so you named that you named that in your work with school leaders, how critical that is.
[00:37:02.330] - Speaker 3
And I think school conditions I think one of the things Covet has exposed is not just that we've got to make schools sanitized and safe for kids. The air quality buildings themselves are in deplorable shape. This is part of the national infrastructure problem that we have is that it's horrifying the conditions of buildings that some of our kids are reporting to every day. When you go into a bank lobby and they just renovated and thrown out all their chairs that are five years old, do you think where is the equity in this, that corporate America goes to these well, at least in noncovet times goes to these beautiful facilities, but our children go into these antiquated leaky, roof, poor, poorly operating bathroom facilities every day. And I think that matters. But it's expensive.
[00:38:04.860] - Speaker 2
Yes, I agree with you. That just reminded me about I was recently serving on a panel and we were talking about how can we support teachers. And one of the panelists said we have to support teachers through what he characterized as multiple pandemics, climate change, economic disparity, racial reckoning, and Covet right. We're navigating all of these at the same time. So I think that level of support really has to be expanded to think about how are we supporting educators through these multiple pandemics. I thought that was an interesting thought. So, Kelly, I think when I think about you and I've known you now for a few years, I see you as a very passionate leader. I see you as a bridge builder. You like to bring people together and help make connections between people that are involved in the work. So let's talk about some of the ways you've done that specifically. Maybe talk about the Path Forward initiative, because I think that's something I've been involved in. I think it's really interesting that people have looked to you and the success with Mississippi momentum to continue the work and expand the work nationally. So maybe talk about Path Forward and anything else you'd like to discuss that really illustrates the ways that you're expanding out the work that you've been doing in Mississippi.
[00:39:41.990] - Speaker 3
Well, you know, that question reminds me of the day I met you. And I don't know if you remember this or not, but it was in the Chicago airport, and we were there to gather. We were gathered by Halme with folks from all over the country. It was the day I met Steve Dijkstra. Remember sitting there before the Reading League, and it was a group of folks trying to figure out how to build a network of advocacy for structured literacy across the country. And good look where we are now. But for me, living in Mississippi and this even harkens back to my days with parents of public schools, I have always viewed outside resources as really important to our work here. We are a poor state, we are a rural state. And I have always welcomed and sought external partners who bring good ideas and resources to us. So that's really been my mode of operation and all the work that I've done here. The path forward actually grew out of the work we did with the two studies and the Emily Hanford highlighting of that work. And I began to get calls from all over the country about, oh, my gosh, what are you doing in teacher preparation?
[00:41:10.810] - Speaker 3
And oh, my gosh, you're in Mississippi. What could you possibly be doing, if it's any good? But the first call I got was from Johanna Anderson at the Belk Foundation in North Carolina, and she and I are now joined at the hip as I continue to get these calls. And I would call her and say, now, I've heard from another state, and I called her one day and said, all right, I've heard from about 20 States, and I'm really feeling like I have an obligation to do something with it, that there is some synergy around this. And it is apparently a common theme for many States. And I remember calling you were on one of those early calls when we were trying to figure out where this might go. And from there, we have created this path forward. And since then, we have brought in the Hunt Institute, who was an important and really has been a very strong partner in this work. They've done a lot of the logistics of helping us put together these teams and support the teams. But the path forward, and we chose that name. I generated a whole bunch of ideas about what we should name this thing.
[00:42:30.710] - Speaker 3
And I said and they said, well, maybe we should call it a path forward. And I said, we should call it the path forward, because it needs to be the last path on this journey to bring the science of reading into teacher preparation. And if we are not clear about what needs to happen in bringing the science of reading to teacher preparation and in particular, faculty knowledge that we're going to find ourselves on a roundabout instead of the path forward. So we are really earnest in this work. We've put together selected five States who have assembled teams, and the teams each are specifically designed to break down these silos. So we require that they have someone from the Epps on these teams, somebody from the governor's office, somebody from the state Department, preferably senior officer. And in some cases, the state superintendents are sitting on these teams, somebody from the legislature, somebody from the state school board. And so the teams are now creating action plans. And the States that are involved are Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. We are hoping to have a cohort, too. The cohort one is about to meet in November virtually.
[00:43:54.970] - Speaker 3
We've had to push that off twice now to present their action plans. But we're hoping, pending some funding, that we will have a new core in the spring. And there are twelve States in the queue who I think are ready to put together state teams. We won't have twelve in the cohort, but we're starting with a group of twelve to see who's readiest and who can still do this in this virtual world in which we're operating.
[00:44:22.550] - Speaker 2
Oh, that's fantastic, Kelly. And it's very heartening to know that there are other States in the queue that want to do this work. There are other cohorts in this. Yeah, that's wonderful. So at Barksdale, you've got Teacher Prep, you've got Reading Universe, Teacher Professional Development, Leadership Preparation, Path Forward. What other things are you working on? As if that isn't enough, but are there other things that you're working on right now?
[00:44:51.670] - Speaker 3
We have a whole team that's doing a whole bunch of development of putting much of our Reading Universe content into an Asynchronous platform. So we're continuing to build that out and to also develop a Plc facilitation guide so that when we get back into in person, we can continue to provide that support at the building level. So we have a lot of work going on there. We're finishing up two other studies around the residual gap, which I call What Happens after third Grade. And we have kids who still continue to struggle. We just completed two studies around that are now beginning to develop a project that we call Moves the Middle, and that is to create a really clear literacy pathway benchmarks between fourth and 8th grade, so that kids get to high school and are really ready for high school so that when kids graduate, they're really ready for College. 42% of our high school graduates end up in developmental education in Mississippi, and that's not uncommon across the country. And so we've decided the way to pinpoint that is to fix it in middle school. So stay tuned on that. We're just in the development phase of that.
[00:46:18.730] - Speaker 3
We're trying to establish a reach out and read affiliate here in Mississippi. It's been on the ground for a while, but we've never achieved affiliate status. And so we are partnering with the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Health Initiative. They're doing Reach Out and Read, as you may know, is a pediatric clinic based project that is designed to help develop oral language early. Related to that project is something we call Talk from the Start, Growing Mississippi readers. And that's our Early Language campaign, where we're trying to teach all adults, caregivers and others about the importance of talking to and with children from the womb on up, that if we don't have enough language when we get to kindergarten, it's going to be harder to teach us to read. And so that's related to that work. We are doing a lot of work and have been since the pandemic hit with the State Department around the digital divide. Barksdale brought in a consultant early on to help the State Department design how to address the digital divide. And we committed early on to a onetoone device for every kid. We are now still in the process of getting that last mile of connectivity in place.
[00:47:46.410] - Speaker 3
We still have about 20% of the state that's not connected, and so you can have a device, but if you can't get connected, it doesn't do you much good. So Barcelona has been partnering with the state on that. We are hoping to get our reading universe onto a very robust platform. We're partnering with WTA, the Reading Rockets folks, and First Book, who were intrigued by our taxonomy and really want to help us build that out. We are hoping for a really robust, interactive, adaptive website that can provide resources to teachers anywhere and give them reliable resources and also educate them in the process. We've just been given some substantial siege funding to build a prototype, so stay tuned on that. I was hoping to show you some examples of how that's going to work. And then finally, last but not least, is our Lunch and lit initiative, which has been so fun. This is our group that meets on Friday virtually, and we're so happy that you've been a part of that, trying to figure out where it's going. And there's clearly a hunger for it. The goal of it that started really just as a way to keep my staff together with eight of us at the very beginning of the pandemic.
[00:49:16.360] - Speaker 3
We are now 80 strong in our weekly email to folks. The purpose of it is to bridge research to practice and researchers to practitioners. It's a nice mix of folks that is really delving into the research and trying to stay focused on what implications does it have for practice. I'm hoping this pandemic is going to end sometime soon. And I know that folks availability and interest in zooming in with us every Friday may shift, but there's clearly a need for this conversation, and so I'm not right now kind of exploring how to replicate it or expand it and not have it diminished. I mean, if it gets too big, then it has some diminishing effect. But there may be some ways to replicate it. That's about it. That's on my list right now. And the Big Dippers we didn't talk.
[00:50:20.520] - Speaker 2
About I want to say something about lunch, and then we'll talk about big difference. I just want to say the lunch and let group for me professionally, it's just been really terrific. As someone who is part of this whole group of people that are just passionate like you in serving in this way. It's just a way to really connect professionally and also keep us grounded in what's happening out there with practitioners in classrooms. That's one thing I really have appreciated about that. Kelly. So thank you for all of us in that group and thanking you for bringing us together. It's a very fruitful time. And I think, as I told you before, it's kind of the highlight of my week. So thank you for that. And I just want to say I'm jotting down all the things that you're involved in. I want people to know you're a very small but mighty group. You don't have a gigantic staff there at Barksdale. And to think that all of these things that you're engaged in, it's really admirable. And we thank you for that work, Kelly.
[00:51:32.350] - Speaker 3
Well, I have a great staff. We're strong, but we are small. And we have managed to really stay connected through this pandemic. In some ways, it strengthened us because we all worked virtually anyway and remotely because we're in different parts of the state. And so we've learned a lot about each other and how work has shifted through the pandemic. But I also want to recognize these partners. None of these projects that I'm doing is without substantial partners both inside and outside the state that's I think part of our success is our recognition that we can't do this by ourselves. And so the big difference is a really good example of that. When Teach for America came knocking and said we want the Barsale Reading Institute to develop this course, I said, oh, my gosh, I can't do this by myself. And I reached across the country and tap those four mighty organizations that really came to back in short order. We did a bang up job, thanks to your role there, too, in creating that short course, which has now gone on to have a new life of its own. But it was that kind of partnership.
[00:52:51.580] - Speaker 2
It was just tell our listeners who the partners are and why we're called the Big Dippers, because you have to acknowledge your creative genius in that, Kelly. So tell who the partners are in our name.
[00:53:04.570] - Speaker 3
Well, the name was somewhat serendipitous. The reaching out to partners was pretty strategic. So it's coast to coast on the West Coast in Oakland, California, is right to read with Margaret Goldberg. She's the tip of the handle. If you go to the middle of the handle, you'll find Boise, Idaho, where Deb Blazer resides in Top ten Tools. And then you come down into the bowl. You represent, actually two stars on the Dipper because you're based in Chicago, but you're also in New York. So you're both the top of either side of the bowl. And then the bottom of the bowl is Beth Anderson at the Hill Center in Durham, North Carolina. And then the very end of the bottom of the bowl is Mississippi. So we're in Jackson. So when you draw those out on the map, it looks like the big difference trying to come up with a way to describe what this group was because it represented such great organizations. And it just occurred to me that we were shaped like the Big Dipper.
[00:54:11.030] - Speaker 2
I love that.
[00:54:12.090] - Speaker 3
And yeah.
[00:54:12.570] - Speaker 2
So just to expand upon that a little bit, yes, teach for America, the course was developed for them. And then it's like, okay, how do we make this course scalable for other people? What else can you say about the course? And then again, I will make sure to include the link in our show notes. But what else can you say about the course, Kelly?
[00:54:35.090] - Speaker 3
Well, it was really designed and for Teach for American in particular, it was started as a course for folks who had no experience with teaching, had never stepped into a classroom. And so we were mindful of that in developing that course. When that was done, we recognized we really had a good framework that could be expanded for teachers who were already in the field and had been in classrooms but still knew nothing about science of reading and paralleling your work with the defining movement when you kind of put a stake in the ground and said, we're going to talk about what the science of reading is, there's so much conversation about it. And yet I think there's so many teachers who've heard about the science of reading but have no idea what it is, may be afraid to ask about it, need to know some basics. And so we really designed it with those teachers in mind and school leaders who are being called to lead these literacy efforts but need to know more. So it's really very basic. It's five modules. The Teacher for America was four, and we expanded it into five to give a little more oxygen in there.
[00:55:45.170] - Speaker 3
It's designed to be able to be completed in about 10 hours, self paced checks for understanding. There are loads of resources, downloadable links, but it's based on the conceptual frameworks that we are all familiar with. Simple View, Scarborough, Aries. Faces and the four part processor. So it's all in there. And it's a great introduction. And what we're finding is people are really eager to do it. Districts are calling us. They're wanting to do it with groups of teachers. We now have three state departments of education who are wanting to put it on their website and get folks across their state to get involved. So I think we've hit on something.
[00:56:35.970] - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think we have two, Kelly, and I'm really proud to be involved in that. When you look at some of these signs of reading Facebook groups, the number one question I know that they get is where do I start? And so I think the Big Dipper short course is a really nice entry for us to start. Well, Kelly, I just think about this body of work. You are the recipient of this year's Benita Blackman Award for Advancing Evidence to Practice. And I really as you talk about your body of work, Kelly, you're so deserving. You're not just working in theory. You're enacting the evidence in all these different arenas, teacher prep and teacher professional development leadership. So I just want to acknowledge that. And I want to thank you for your service to the profession and to children and teachers everywhere.
[00:57:33.870] - Speaker 3
Thank you. Thank you, Laura. That's very generous. I'm just trying to face the day and bridge the gap.
[00:57:43.410] - Speaker 2
And you're always acting in good faith.
[00:57:45.070] - Speaker 3
Kelly, that's so true about you.
[00:57:49.990] - Speaker 2
So I know we've come a long way since you and I began our careers as teachers, but what do you think is getting in our way and what is left to do? What's the work that's left to do?
[00:58:08.990] - Speaker 3
Well, I certainly think that the system that we've designed that does not include teacher preparation as part of the accountability for literacy is a nut. We've yet to crack that we rely on these institutions year after year to produce the next crop of teachers. And yet the wall of academic freedom tends to be used as a way to not allow us to change or to mandate what actually should be taught. And we know how to teach reading and we know how to do it. And so it's like having a vaccine and not taking it. I think to me, the work still to do is to figure out how to do that and how to do it. I know folks, I think feel that this is a common theme with me is this notion of bringing teacher prep into the accountability. And while I think the requiring their candidates to take an assessment is one step, it still doesn't really guarantee that faculty know what they're teaching and are informed by the science. So I'd like to see a shift in teacher preparation programs to really embrace the profession as a profession of science and not one of philosophy.
[00:59:45.410] - Speaker 3
And I think that's work still to do. And I think that there is now so much cognitive and neuroscience informing our field that never existed before that it's really time to revisit that. So that's one thing. The other thing is we've never integrated our schools. And what we're dealing with are systems of schools that are fractured. We have a big monolithic, bureaucratic public school system, and then we have a lot of efforts to bail from that system, be it charters or private schools or segregation academies or any variety vouchers. And I think it's time to step back. And this is a big vision I have, and it's not gaining much traction. But I'd like to. And I think actually Mississippi is a good laboratory to do this because we're not very big and we're not terribly populated. And I mean, there's a lot we could do here. I'd like to think about redesigning a system of schools that serves a public good which might embrace all of those things that have emerged over time, be it charter or homeschooling or virtual schooling. I think this pandemic has taught us some things about that, but I think we keep trying to prop up a system that is now just becoming layered and monolithic, and I'd like for somebody to step forward and bring some oxygen into that.
[01:01:24.850] - Speaker 3
I think the hope about charters was that what charters would do, but I think charters has just become one more system.
[01:01:34.450] - Speaker 2
So, Kelly, so what you're talking about is not tweaking. You're talking about a complete overhaul and redesign.
[01:01:45.790] - Speaker 3
So my thoughts about that are if you took two people from each of those systems, now I'm talking in Mississippi again, okay. And the two people would be somebody old like me and the generation that's messed all this up and we're handing it off to the next generation. But then there are next generation people who are stepping in. There are some young people here who are choosing to send their kids to public school. There are some people here who have no choice about wherever they can send their kids. And so they are in the public schools. We have two generations of charters. We have two generations of segregated academies. We have two generations of home schooling. I'd like to lock all those people in a room and say you can't come out until you have redesigned a system, a school that serves the public good. And it doesn't mean you have to abandon what part of the system or part of your system you're clinging to that serves your kids. But you can't do it at the expense of the rest of the community. And that's what we're doing now is that all these systems are competing for the same talent, the same resources, and there's just not enough to go around, at least in Mississippi there.
[01:03:01.450] - Speaker 2
Kelly, thank you for naming that. I really appreciate that.
[01:03:05.380] - Speaker 1
Thank you.
[01:03:07.690] - Speaker 2
So, Kelly, what's a lesson that you've learned, kind of an overall lesson you've learned in all your different roles, and maybe it goes back to your credos, I don't know. But what's a lesson you've learned as you've navigated this broad and deep career.
[01:03:26.990] - Speaker 3
I've learned a lot of lessons, mostly the hard way. One is try not to burn bridges. Sometimes they get torched anyway, but try not to burn bridges. You never know when you're going to need that partner. And you may not agree on things and you have to walk away from time to time, but try not to burn that bridge. And that's different from dusting off your sandals. It simply means don't throw any daggers when you're walking out the door. That's one important lesson. Another is the importance of being what Steven Covenant calls. And my mother used to preach this, too. He calls it being loyal to the absence. And my mother always said, don't say unkind things about people that you wouldn't say to their faces. And so it's trying to live into that integrity to be kind. I think another lesson is that everybody has a story and their stories matter, and their stories inform who they are and often what they do. And in seeking to understand before being understood, it's important to know somebody's story. I have not found being a CEO and being the manager a terribly comfortable role. And my inclination is to try to connect with people where they are so that I can support them in the work that they feel called to do.
[01:05:40.410] - Speaker 3
There are a couple of quotes on my desk, and one is Arthur Ashes, which is something like, Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. And being in Mississippi, being back in Mississippi, I've tried to Bloom, where I'm now planning, but I've learned a lot of lessons along the way. I think another lesson is that I think teachers are beleaguered a lot, and I think it's time for us to really examine this is sort of talking about referring to this redesign that I have in mind. I think it's really time to help the teaching profession reinvent itself or it's not going to survive in a way that we need it to. Teachers are under compensated, and they're often underappreciated. But I also think there's more teachers could do to lift up the profession so that it's more respected than it seems to be in too many places. I have enormous respect for teachers who get up and do this every day. I think it is a calling, but I've learned a lot about that. Yeah.
[01:07:04.490] - Speaker 2
I feel the same way. I always say to teachers, you're my heroes, you are out there doing the work that really needs to be done, and how do we elevate that and lift that up? And how do we entice young people who are inclined toward teaching to come into the profession, follow that path, follow that joy, and enjoy a fruitful career like you and I have enjoyed in education? How do we continue to support young men and women into the profession? Well, Kelly, all I can say is there's work to be done.
[01:07:41.490] - Speaker 3
There is, but we have partners like you. Thanks.
[01:07:46.530] - Speaker 2
Well, good. Well, I know we need to I just so appreciate this time and all your words of wisdom. I love that. Try not to burn bridges, be loyal to the absent, and remember that everyone has a story. Those are such great words of wisdom, and I think you've filled us with so much great information today. Kelly, what gives you great joy? What propels you to jump out of bed every day in your eager way that you face the day?
[01:08:14.670] - Speaker 3
Well, I love my work. I've been really privileged to be with the Barksdale Reading Institute for so long and to know and have a relationship with Jim Barksdale, who is just a gem of a guy. And he's been very supportive of our work and enabled us to be quite nimble, not just in terms of providing resources, but in terms of supporting experimentation. Try it. See if it works. If it doesn't, let's go on and do something new. And I think that's been a real benefit to our work. So I guess the joy that I face every day is really the privilege of being in this seat and having this opportunity to be a steward of these tremendous resources that he shared with Mississippi and to carry out the vision that he had, which was to significantly improve early literacy for Mississippi children. And I think we've done a lot of that. Our recent Nate Scores was a real pinnacle for us, and it in some ways sort of was a nice exclamation point to this work that we've been doing.
[01:09:32.890] - Speaker 2
Can you share those for us, Kelly? Share for us where you started and where you are now on the nape.
[01:09:39.750] - Speaker 3
We were at the bottom of the barrel, and we are now at the national average, which I think places is about twelve. But if you look also at our demographics, we've gone from since 1998 or something like that, from 39th to second. We are the fourth fastest growing state in terms of gap closure for poor kids and seven for kids of color. And that was a concerted effort by the Institute and the State Department in closing this gap of focusing on our most vulnerable children. So I'm really proud of that. Bravo.
[01:10:22.640] - Speaker 2
Bravo. Well done. And I just have to say thank you to Jim Barksdale for giving you a great canvas on which to paint your work.
[01:10:30.910] - Speaker 3
Well, I do need to share with your listeners, really, what he did here. And for those who don't know, he made $100 million commitment to the University of Mississippi to establish the Institute. And we hit the ground running the same year that the National Reading Panel was formed. And so in many ways, that beginning shaped all of our work. And he has been a steadfast champion through these two decades. I've told this story many times, but I think it's worth repeating here. So folks really have an appreciation for Jim Barcel. He was also at FedEx for a time and was really instrumental in taking that company global. And he said to me the day I met him, he told me this story. He said, I feel like if FedEx can get a package from the middle of Manhattan to the middle of Tokyo in 48 hours, track it along the way, guarantee it's safe to arrival and on time. We ought to be able to teach every child in Mississippi to read. So when you ask me what joy I wake up with, it's the voice in my head of Jim Barksdale saying, we can do this.
[01:11:45.550] - Speaker 2
What a vision. What a vision. Well, thank you so much for this, Kelly. And I can't let you go, though, without asking you some of our rapid fire questions here at the end that I ask all of our guests. Kelly, who was your favorite teacher growing.
[01:12:00.850] - Speaker 1
Up and why Mrs. Goter?
[01:12:04.700] - Speaker 3
She was my 6th grade teacher, and she taught me the appreciation of subject verb agreement. She was a great teacher of the structure of language, and I have appreciated her more and more over the years as I've studied the structure of language. But it also makes me somewhat of a grammar nerd. So I edit the newspaper.
[01:12:32.870] - Speaker 2
I totally get that, Kelly. I 100% get that. Did Mrs. Got her get a chance to know how much you appreciated her?
[01:12:41.150] - Speaker 3
No, I don't. I don't know what happened to her. I'm sure she's no longer with us, but yeah, I also remember because she was the teacher I had the year that everybody remembers where they were when Kennedy was shot, at least those of us who are old enough to remember that. And I was in Mrs. Goddard's class.
[01:12:59.990] - Speaker 2
Well, thank you. Mrs. Goddard, what is your favorite book or one of your favorite books, either as a child or as an adult?
[01:13:08.150] - Speaker 3
That's hard. My favorite childhood book is The Velveteen Rabbit. I liked the copy that we had growing up. I loved the illustrations. I'm really fond of children's book illustrations, and I liked it because of this message. Everybody has a story, and it's important to be authentic. Live into your story and be who you are.
[01:13:42.170] - Speaker 2
Act in good faith. Right, Kelly?
[01:13:45.050] - Speaker 3
There you go. One of my favorite adult books is Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck, which I reread recently. It's a story of Stein Deck traveling the country, spent several months with his dog Charlie, and it's just a lovely story of America and his companionship with this animal and his look on life. I'm a fan of Wallace Stegner's writings. Crossing to Safety is one of my favorite old times standbys, and I'm just starting a book by a new author that I didn't know. She's also a poet called The Love Songs of W-E-B. Dubois. And I'm curious. It's an 800 page book. I may not make it all the way through, but it looks really interesting. She's done a lot of history. It's a historical novel.
[01:14:44.810] - Speaker 2
I think that's an Oprah Book Club book right now.
[01:14:47.890] - Speaker 3
I think I don't know how it came that may have came across my recognition, but I just ordered it and it just arrived and I started it. And I have by my bedside. I'm always reading several books at one time, but I have bought on bedside Middle March, which I'm recommitting to reading, but very slowly, you know, a couple of pages at a time. It will take me several years to get through it. But I have a good friend who is a George Elliott scholar and decided it was time for me to understand it to the depth that she does or almost you know, I'm quite sure.
[01:15:30.770] - Speaker 2
That when I talk to Mary Anne Wolf, she mentioned that as one of her favorite books.
[01:15:35.910] - Speaker 3
Oh, really?
[01:15:37.170] - Speaker 2
I'm pretty sure. Yeah.
[01:15:38.760] - Speaker 3
It's an amazingly well read person. I love her books because she's always talking about what she's read and she's so deep in her reading. Yeah.
[01:15:51.490] - Speaker 2
So last question, Kelly. What is your greatest hope for today's children or greatest hopes? What are your greatest hopes?
[01:16:01.330] - Speaker 3
That we leave them with a planet that has a future that is free of guns and more harmony. I really worry about our planet and I'm grateful for these young voices that are stepping up to the crisis. I think it really is a crisis. And if you live down here in the Hurricane Lane, it's ever evident, but it's just so obvious everywhere. And I do think we're running out of time.
[01:16:45.650] - Speaker 2
So again, there's lots of work to be done.
[01:16:50.390] - Speaker 1
Well, Kelly, thank you for this.
[01:16:53.330] - Speaker 3
Thank you, Laura. And thank you for all the Reading League is doing. You all are terrific organization. I'm really proud of how fast you've grown and all the things you've done in short time. And I'm grateful for you personally and the work we've been able to do together. So I look forward to more of it.
[01:17:10.320] - Speaker 2
I feel the same way. I truly feel the same way. So thank you for this. It's just been lovely to speak with you. So, yes, carry on and face the day. Bridge those gaps, act in good faith, avoid those extremes. And remember, this is not all there is. Did I get them all?
[01:17:30.260] - Speaker 3
That's good.
[01:17:32.090] - Speaker 2
What's your brother's name, by the way?
[01:17:34.610] - Speaker 3
My brother John.
[01:17:37.430] - Speaker 2
Thank you. Brother John.
[01:17:39.650] - Speaker 3
He's a great guy. He calls me his womb mate, of course. And he is. And ever since the word he's just a terrific guy. It's a nice note to end on. I'll tell him that we talked about him today.
[01:17:57.170] - Speaker 2
Tell him we thank him. All right. Thanks, Kelly.
[01:18:02.030] - Speaker 3
Thank you. Talk soon.
[01:18:04.040] - Speaker 2
Okay, bye bye.
[01:18:09.330] - Speaker 1
Thank you so much for joining me to learn more about Kelly and her amazing work. And a big thank you to all of our listeners for the work you do every day on behalf of children and teaching because you are our heroes. If you enjoy this podcast, please be sure to rate us and share with others because we want to continue to build our community and support one another in advancing this collective vision of teaching all students to read at the Reading League we offer so many ways to support you in your important work. So please join us to keep abreast of all the initiatives. And if you are new to the Reading League, roam around our website@theridingleague.org to learn more we're once again thank you and we'll see you again next time.