'The system has failed them:' Portland schools fail to catch, help struggling readers | OregonLive.com

'The system has failed them:' Portland schools fail to catch, help struggling readers | OregonLive.com

'The system has failed them:' Portland schools fail to catch, help struggling readers

Published: Friday, September 03, 2010, 10:36 AM Updated: Friday, September 03, 2010, 11:26 AM

Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian
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View full sizeBruce Ely/The OregonianRoosevelt High Principal Charlene Williams, greeting students, parents and faculty members at registration this week, is upbeat that her school's new system for tracking and improving reading skills, unique among Portland high schools, will pay off this year.

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This week's progress report on the class of 2012, tracking how close students are to passing the state's first high school graduation test, revealed that one-third of Portland high school students can't read well enough.

For Portland Public Schools, accustomed to matching or beating state averages, the report was a black eye: Portland high schools trail the state in reading by a wide margin.

Worse yet: Most of the metro-area high schools with the worst passing rates are in Portland, includingBenson, Madison and Jefferson. Roosevelt High was dead last in the state.

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The ugly results helped expose a problem that district officials say they were already trying to fix: Portland Public Schools has no systematic way to pinpoint students' reading problems, let alone a comprehensive approach to fix them.

"Right now, we aren't very good at detecting which kids need help and