Manitowoc Public School District Superintendent Jim Feil has been very vocal about the literacy issues in the district.
He has noted many times the statistic that only 25% of Manitowoc students are reading at grade level.
While he was on WOMT’s Be My Guest program recently, a caller asked Feil why a literacy review has been put on hold.
Feil said there are a couple of factors, “One is, we’ve got time, because we are talking about reviewing something that we are going to implement next year.”
That program, which he has talked about before, is a program known as Success for All, which will be piloted in a couple of schools.
He explained, “We need to slow down to speed up here a little bit to make sure we are making an informed decision.”
The caller noted that there is very little research indicating that Success for All is actually successful.
Feil said that statement is inaccurate, “But it takes a lot to really understand and to pull the research that’s behind certain things. So again, a little bit more time is not going to hurt anything here because we have plenty of time before the start of the new school year.”
Feil also revealed that the District has been in contact with other schools that use the program, which he said is evidence-based.
He said that a lot of questions have been answered, but others still need to be addressed.
He put it simply, “We are not trying to reinvent the wheel.”
