On the last day of school, the Troy School District (TSD) made an incredible—in the literal sense—claim: 87% of its students are reading at or above grade level. It is a number that suggests resounding success, promising parents that nearly nine out of ten children are on track for literacy. But is this number a true reflection of reading ability, or is it an illusion created by a flawed measuring stick? When we dig into the tools the district uses, particularly the controversial Fountas & Pinnell system, there is strong reason to believe this impressive statistic may be dangerously misleading.
The validity of any proficiency claim rests entirely on the assessment used. TSD takes the statewide M-STEP exam as a summative assessment each spring as required by state law; however, this 87% figure originates from an internal district benchmark. Specifically, they use the Fountas & Pinnell (F&P) Benchmark Assessment System (BAS). And that is where the problem begins. For years, reading scientists and literacy experts have raised serious alarms about the F&P methodology, arguing it creates a skewed picture of reading ability. These arguments have been carefully evaluated by literacy experts and have been integrated into consensus framework known as the “Science of Reading.”
F&P’s Misalignment with the Science of Reading
The core of the issue lies in F&P’s foundation in the “three-cueing system.” This method teaches children to figure out unknown words by looking at pictures, using context from the sentence, or checking the first letter. In short, it encourages a form of strategic guessing. This is in direct conflict with the overwhelming scientific consensus on how children learn to read (aka, the Science of Reading). Decades of research show that skilled reading is not about guessing; rather, it is about accurately and automatically decoding words by connecting letters to sounds. By championing a guessing strategy, F&P’s assessments can reward children who are good memorizers or clever guessers, not necessarily proficient decoders.
This brings us to F&P’s famous A-Z leveling system. The criteria for what makes a book a “Level G” versus a “Level H” are proprietary and have been criticized for their subjectivity. The assessment involves a “running record,” where a teacher listens to a child read one of these leveled books and marks errors. However, because the system downplays the importance of precise decoding, it often will inflate a student’s perceived ability. For a deeper dive into F&P, please see this American Public Media report.
Beyond its scientific invalidity, the F&P assessment is also a colossal drain on resources. Administering a single running record takes a teacher 20-30 minutes per student. Conducted three times a year, this means a single elementary teacher can spend over 40 hours—an entire work week—doing nothing but administering these one-on-one tests. That is dozens of hours of valuable instructional time stolen from the entire class, spent on an assessment that provides questionable data. The high cost of the F&P kits themselves adds a significant financial burden to this time-consuming process.
A further critical flaw in the Fountas & Pinnell system is its profound lack of inter-rater reliability. In plain terms, a student’s reading level can change depending on who is holding the clipboard. Two different teachers, observing the same child read the same passage, can easily arrive at different conclusions and assign different levels. This inconsistency is rooted in the subjective nature of the “running record” and its complex “miscue analysis.” The person administering the test must make real-time, interpretive judgments about the reason for a child’s error, coding it based on the aforementioned controversial and widely discredited three-cueing system. The final score, therefore, hinges directly on the skill, experience, and even the biases of the individual assessor. A veteran teacher deeply trained in the F&P method may interpret a student’s miscues far differently than a less experienced colleague, making the final reading level as much a reflection of the teacher’s proficiency with the assessment as it is the student’s actual reading ability. This lack of a consistent, objective standard completely undermines the assessment’s validity for making crucial decisions about a child’s educational path.
The Truth About Literacy Proficiency Rates
So, how does the 87% claim stack up against more objective data? On the 2023-2024 M-STEP, TSD’s Grade 3-7 English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency was 66%. While this is still a high score compared to state averages, it is a full 21 points lower than the 87% claimed by the F&P benchmark. This discrepancy is telling. The M-STEP is a standardized test that requires students to read and comprehend unfamiliar passages. It is a far better, though not perfect, indicator of whether a student can apply reading skills independently. The gap between the internal F&P-based score and the state test score strongly suggests that the F&P assessment is providing an inflated and inaccurate measure of proficiency.
An inflated sense of achievement is harmful. It creates a community-wide false sense of security and, worse, it means students who need systematic, evidence-based intervention are missed. But the debate over this methodology is not just academic; it is now a matter of Michigan law. Public Act 146, part of a bipartisan package of literacy laws, will soon require districts to use screeners and assessments that are aligned with the Science of Reading. Fountas & Pinnell, with its foundation in three-cueing, plainly does not meet that standard. Continuing to invest time and money into this discredited and outdated system puts the district on a collision course with state requirements designed to ensure all children are taught to read effectively.
For the Troy community, we must look past the headline number. It is past time to ask critical questions: Why are we spending dozens of hours of instructional time on an assessment that conflicts with both scientific research and state law? When will we align our classroom practices with the evidence?
Achieving true literacy for every child is a non-negotiable goal. Relying on assessments like Fountas & Pinnell to declare an 87% victory is like celebrating a mirage in the desert. But beyond misleading the public, children struggling to read will suffer real harm if their teachers fail to identify them because they are using bad assessment. The opposite of “good data” is not “no data,” but rather “bad data.” Achieving the district’s stated goal of 100% reading proficiency requires embracing science, demanding accurate measures, and ensuring that every student is taught to decode the words on the page, not just guess at them.