NC elementary schools should focus on reading, math during pandemic, longtime judge says

The judge who for nearly two decades presided over a lawsuit about the quality of education in poorer North Carolina school districts says the coronavirus pandemic and remote instruction only add to students' difficulties.

Posted 11:43 p.m. Aug 25, 2020 — Updated 5:00 p.m. Aug 26, 2020

David Crabtree

, WRAL anchor/reporter, & Matthew Burns, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor

RALEIGH, N.C. — The judge who for nearly two decades presided over a lawsuit about the quality of education in poorer North Carolina school districts says the coronavirus pandemic and remote instruction only add to students' difficulties.

Howard Manning said elementary schools should give up on trying to deliver a full day of online classes to younger students and focus solely on teaching reading comprehension and basic arithmetic. Students are already behind in critical learning because the final two-plus months of the last school year were lost to the pandemic, he said, and this year is off to a slow start.

"Don't push them forward," he said of young students. "Just don't set a goal for them to get to the second grade or third grade, but just get the basic reading and math."

Manning oversaw the 1995 lawsuit against the state that has become known over time simply as "the Leandro case" until he retired as a Superior Court judge five years ago. After the state Supreme Court ruled in the case that North Carolina wasn't meeting its constitutional obligation to provide a sound, basic education to students in many school districts, Manning was put in charge of making sure districts met that standard.

He has drawn fire for some of his actions, such as accusing Halifax County schools of "academic genocide" in 2009 after years of poor performance or ordering Republican lawmakers to restore money cut from state pre-kindergarten programs.

But he said he was always guided by trying to uphold the rights of young children, and he argues that remote learning cannot do that.

"You're putting a 5-year-old in front of a TV screen, and you expect them ... to learn how to read and do basic math," he said. "You're not giving them the opportunity to learn the way they ought to be able to be taught."

Manning said he doesn't blame teachers, who he said are trying their best with an inadequate system, but the priorities need to change until the pandemic is over.

"If we lose these little people this year," he said, "if we don't get them reading and we don't get them doing basic math by the time they're 8 years old, then the public school system, they can't simply catch up."

He cites research that shows students who cannot read by the time they finish the third grade "are basically down the tubes academically" because they're too far behind as they move into higher grades.

"If you're not reading by the third grade, you're screwed," he said.

Elementary schools need to take a timeout until students are back in class with their teachers, Manning said, noting that meeting the sound, basic education standard requires principals who are great leaders, teachers willing to teach every student and sufficient resources.

With remote learning, "we don't have a teacher in that classroom because they're not there," he said.

For now, he suggested using the UNC-TV public broadcasting system to have the best teachers teach students statewide every morning and then have classroom teachers work through problems with their own students online later in the day.

The Leandro case is still going on after 25 years, with a hearing on a proposed consent order set for next week.

A consent order signed in January requires sweeping changes throughout the education system, from preschool to college. Student performance has to improve, and disparities between districts have to be accounted for.

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