Science of Reading: The Podcast

S9 E1: Literacy as a catalyst for change, with Ray James

• Amplify Education

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In the Season 9 premiere of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert speaks with Ray James, Head of School at The Ansley School, about the transformative impact of literacy instruction. The Ansley School, which serves children experiencing homelessness, has made evidence-based literacy instruction a key piece of its efforts to foster profound educational and community change. Ray shares his journey and explores how a focus on literacy provides benefits that extend beyond the classroom to the broader community. This episode underscores the importance of foundational literacy skills and sets the stage for a new season dedicated to a literacy reboot.

Show notes:

Quotes:
"If you don't get reading right in an elementary school, every piece of the school suffers." —Ray James

"We’re not just doing school, but educating people. I think a lot of people do school, we’re trying to educate our community holistically."—Ray James

"Education isn't just about academics, it's about creating a safe place and providing holistic, evidence-based literacy instruction that catalyzes real change."—Ray James

Episode timestamps*
01:00 Season nine: Reading reboot
02:00 Introduction: Who is Ray James?
04:00 Ray James' journey from politics to education
06:00 The Boyce L. Ansley School community
10:00 Support structures for families
13:00 Transforming literacy at The Ansley School
20:00 Impact of literacy initiatives
29:00 Future goals and vision for The Ansley School
40:00 Season nine: Looking ahead
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute








Ray James:

Something that I know is that if you don't get reading right in an elementary school, every piece of the school suffers, every other content, every behavior data point, every familial data point. If reading is not done right, the effects are seen everywhere, and so I prioritize reading.

Susan Lambert:

This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Season Nine of Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. This season, get ready for a reading reboot. Recently, there has been an avalanche of great information and discussion about literacy instruction. We think now is the perfect time to step back, take a breath, and reexamine the principles of literacy research. That's why, all season long, we're building on the fundamentals of evidence-based literacy instruction. And, as we embark on this season-long journey, we're doing something that's so critical for literacy development. We're making sure we're connecting reading and writing. It's so important to think of both reading and writing together, so that's going to be key during this reading reboot. To kick off Season Nine, I'm joined by Ray James, head of school at the Ansley School in Atlanta, Georgia. The school serves children who have experienced or who are experiencing homelessness. This is a school that I actually had the honor of visiting in April. And part of what so amazed me about Ray and the Ansley School is, since taking over as head of school, Ray has been so focused on literacy. And on this episode, Ray details why that's been such a priority, how the school has doubled down on literacy, and what impact he's already seen. And at the end of this episode, you'll hear about something special we're doing this season, inviting you to submit your literacy questions. Stay tuned until the end for more information. But now, here's my conversation with Ray James, which we recorded in late July as he was getting ready to head back to school. I'm so excited to have Ray James joining us today on this podcast episode. Ray, welcome welcome!

Ray James:

Thank you so much for the welcome. Glad to be here.

Susan Lambert:

I would love if you could introduce yourself to our listeners and give us just a little bit about your background and maybe give them a sneak peek of why you're here on Science of Reading: The Podcast, 'cause you have some interest in literacy, maybe.

Ray James:

Cool. I am Ray James and I serve as the head of School of the Boyce L. Ansley School. We are Atlanta and the southeast's only tuition-free private school , for children who've experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness. I'm originally from Louisiana. That's where my story starts. Small town Louisiana, not big city New Orleans, but north Louisiana. And I grew up in public schools. Blessed to have a two-parent household, went to LSU for undergrad and for graduate school and thought I was gonna get into politics, and ended up making a shift and went into education and did my master's at LSU in education. And, initially my plan was to work in higher ed, and got the bug and found out about this thing called Teach for America. And joined that almost about 15 years ago. And I thought it was just gonna be a two-year stint, and here I am about 15 years later as a head of school. And all that time while I was a teacher, I was a classroom teacher for eight years and I was a middle school and upper elementary literacy teacher, so, and I'm married to a speech language pathologist. And so everything we do and talk about and live, and when we interact with our daughters, is mostly literacy focused .

Susan Lambert:

We'd be super curious about the dinnertime conversation at your house! So how, I'm really curious about this now, a switch from politics to education. Was there a moment in time that it's like, "Oh, I gotta make this switch"? How did that happen?

Ray James:

It was two moments and, well, it was one moment and then it was confirmed a few months later. So I studied political science in undergrad and minored in sociology. And this is summer or fall like 2008 or something like that. And I took a sociology of poverty class and it really, really opened up my eyes to what poverty was and really made me realize that the basis of poverty, from a sociological standpoint and from an economic standpoint, often the root cause you can find it in the upbringing and the education, 'cause ultimately kids are victims and products of their upbringing, sometimes victims, sometimes products. And once I took that class, literally that summer, I had an internship on the Hill working for Senator Mary Landrieu out of Louisiana, and I started to see and kind of learn the game of politics. And I realized that, while politics at a national level often is disconnected, I realized that in terms of affecting change on a local standpoint, you need to be in your community. And so I realized that the thing I could do to be most proximate to making and effecting change would be to work in a school to ultimately create the change and kind of plant the seeds for change.

Susan Lambert:

Wow, that's really interesting because that background directly links to what you're doing right now today.

Ray James:

Had no idea that the dots would connect you .

Susan Lambert:

You didn't plan it that way?

Ray James:

No, not at all!

Susan Lambert:

It's always so fun to look back, though. And when you're just stepping into your purpose and, you know, doing what you think you are here to do, that ultimately leads you to the place you're supposed to be. Can you talk a little bit about the community in which the school is in? Like who does your school serve? Tell us a little bit more about that.

Ray James:

So we are very much an Atlanta entity. We are not on the outskirts of Atlanta. We are very much downtown Atlanta. So we do , from a proximity standpoint, we are literally in a area of the city downtown , where there is a large conglomerate of unhoused folks and of every age, every range of life, and every walk of life. And in terms of our actual communities that we serve, from a kind of location standpoint, we do service Fulton County, which the seat , most folks would know Atlanta Public Schools. So a lot of our students, if our school didn't exist, would probably be inside of Atlanta Public Schools. And we also, because we are an independent school, we are not bound by enrollment zones. And so we also service students who live in Clayton County, which is just south of the city, but also we service students who are in DeKalb County, which is east of the city. A lot of folks know Decatur. And so we're blessed to be able to not be bound by enrollment zones because our population in particular are often folks who experience higher than need be transience because of enrollment zones. And once you move, you have to transfer or you have a certain amount of time that you can stay in a school. Whereas we're blessed to be an independent school. So we can enroll folks from wherever.

Susan Lambert:

Mm-hmm, that's great. And your school community is really a school community. You are not just teaching students, right?

Ray James:

That's correct .

Susan Lambert:

It's full service for the families. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Ray James:

Yep . So our school community is definitely a community. And one of the most beautiful things about our school, and I'm saying this as a person who's worked in public schools and charter schools and have also been a board member of a small charter school here in Atlanta, we are blessed to be able to create a community for folks who, otherwise in a general public school, they would often be ostracized and or othered by peers, by staff, and just by the nature of the system. And so our community is very much one that kind of, our kids are aware of what our school is, who it's for, and they almost, instead of having a sense of kind of lack and/or kind of being ostracized, they have a sense of pride coming here. And a little bit more about our community. Our community is for sure directly impacted by some things that are going on right now. Folks who live in Atlanta very much know that the Olympics made Atlanta a more international city, because the eyes of the world were on this city in 1996 Olympics. However, while it was great for the city from an economic standpoint, it wasn't so great for folks who were not in that upper economic stratosphere. And so most of, not most, of all of the projects that were in Atlanta got torn down. And it pretty much created a large conglomerate of individuals having to move south of the city into Clayton County. And so that became actually one of the most impoverished counties in the state. But a lot of that happened around the mid-nineties. And I'm very much thinking about the World Cup that's coming here in a couple of years and what that may do to the city in terms of affordable housing, which is very much not a thing right now anywhere in America, but also in a city like Atlanta where you see some of the largest economic divides , nationally. And so I'm very curious about what that might do to kids and communities and ultimately where folks live and where folks go to school, and then what communities be and what they become.

Susan Lambert:

Yeah. And you do a lot of direct support for families, don't you?

Ray James:

Mm-hmm, something that I'm very happy about right now is we're knee-deep in professional learning right now and just getting ready for the school year. And one of the, kind of the cherry on top of our school outside of being a school that is creating a community for folks who have experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness, is that we also have two own-staff social workers. We have a licensed therapist and we have a family counselor on our social service staff. These are not folks that are coming in randomly. These are people that are here seven to three every single day, but also very much working with families outside of that. And having worked in public schools, I've worked at a middle school here in Atlanta, we had 450 kids and we had one campus social worker and we actually had a student who passed away. And I just remember the chaos in the school and how that one social worker's job became so large and almost, not even almost, but stretched thin, versus our school, we have a , right at about a one-to-forty ratio of families to our social workers. And each family that comes in gets a specific case manager. And we work through a family success plan with them so that we can work on individualized metrics that will ultimately lead them to getting beyond their circumstance. Whether that is housing, transportation, medical, criminal justice , you name it, our social workers are working with that. And a little bit over half, this year our goal is to have 55 students in weekly therapy, and our therapy team is led by our lead therapist, and she has a team of about five to six therapy interns. And so right at about 55 to 60 of our kids are in weekly therapy, ranging from group therapy, individual one-on-one, as well as family therapy. And so really trying to provide truly wraparound services in a way that almost serves as a model for what schools can be.

Susan Lambert:

Yeah, amazing. And I remember when I was down there touring the school, you even go down to the level of detail of having food available, clothing available, toys and books available for these families to support them in their home.

Ray James:

You mentioned that we have a washer and dryer here. We do have a food pantry here, and we just got a new huge cooler. We have a humongous clothing closet that families have any-time access to, as well as a toy closet because when evictions happen, they often don't care about what is in the property or the home or the apartment, you name it. And so kids, things get thrown out and I'm so, probably , I think I told you, my favorite part of the school is probably that toy closet, because kids deserve toys.

Susan Lambert:

Wow. Just an amazing amount of work to do , and amazing support structures that you're putting there in place. And in the midst of all of this, you have doubled down on making literacy a focus.

Ray James:

Yes.

Susan Lambert:

So, before we sort of dig into that, did you just complete your first year? Is that right? You're going into your second year?

Ray James:

Yeah, I'm going into my second year at the school. So, a little bit about how it was when I kind of walked in. I started October of last year. And if any teacher, I'm pretty sure a lot of teachers are listening , most teachers and folks that work in schools will say October is Rock-tober. It is after the honeymoon phase, kids are now showing their true personalities, teachers are getting a little tired 'cause they haven't had a break since Labor Day and it's a hard time. And so I walked in October the second, and I realized that the school had not had any academic or school actual administration for about nine weeks when I started. The current administration had left right at the start of the year, some over the summer. And they had not been able to secure, you know, if someone leaves end of summer, it's really hard to find a school leader. And luckily I was consulting at the time and actually had a big itch to get back into school, so it was kind of perfect timing for me, perfect timing for the school, and some things that I realized that were going on initially. So, I think about school outside of like literal data points, there are three big things that I think about. It is time, resource, and people.

Susan Lambert:

Mm-hm.

Ray James:

People's probably the most important 'cause ultimately we live in a world of humans and humans advance our world in every single way, every day. But the first thing that I had to change was time. And so the current schedule that I adopted when I started had three 90-minute blocks that kind of ran the entire day. Yes, I said a 90-minute block, and our school this year is K–5. Last year we were K–4, so even younger kids, and we're K–5 this year. But there was a 90-minute literacy block straight through, no break. And then there was a 15-minute break and then another 90-minute block that was for math. And then the last 90-minute block was kind of optional connections or specials, whatever you call it, and science and social studies. And it was just, in my opinion, an ineffective use of time because it didn't give age-appropriate breaks and also didn't account for the actual needed time in any of the contents that I just mentioned.

Susan Lambert:

Hm.

Ray James:

So I changed the schedule and we went from having 90 minutes of literacy to having 120 minutes of in-time class as well as a one-hour intervention block focused on literacy, because something that I know is that if you don't get reading right in an elementary school, every piece of the school suffers. I'll say it one more time. If you don't get reading right in an elementary school, every piece of the school suffers, every other content, every behavior data point, every familial data point. If reading is not done right in a elementary school, the effects are seen everywhere, and so I prioritize reading. And so, first shift was time. Second shift was resource. I realized that , because they didn't have an administration, the admin team kind of left right at the end of the summer, they never got the needed curriculum ordered for the school year.

Susan Lambert:

Ohh.

Ray James:

So what I walked into was a school that did not have the needed materials in-house. And so we had to spend money to get those resources into the school and get teachers the needed tools so that they can actually do their job. And then we also had to get, and I'm so grateful for the partnership, we had to get our teachers trained up on how to use the curriculum. After that, it became knowledge building, 'cause I realized that a curriculum is only a tool and if you don't know how to use the tool, it can become ineffective or a waste of time and money. And so, I've got my teachers enrolled in a few different courses since then. And during my first year, they were taking courses, online courses, to really gain the needed knowledge and skill, everything from oral language to syntax to semantics, you name it, everything on the Reading Rope. And after that, it became people. During my first year, I only hired one extra teacher because I knew from a , like I said, if you don't get it right in an elementary school, it suffers. I hired a extra kindergarten teacher so that I could have two kindergarten teachers to set up for what the school is going into this school year, having two teachers in every single grade, because, given our population , a nd this is, transparently, I'll say this to anybody, the school, one, our school is young, the school was founded in 2018.

Susan Lambert:

Okay.

Ray James:

And the founders of the school, like a lot of schools that get founded or created, independent or charter, they often are not founded by educators. And so a big priority of the school, especially given the population, was around wellness, therapy, counseling, wraparound services to get these families at a, you know, hierarchy standpoint, get them their basic needs. However, things that I know, a lot of my background was spent, as I said, in upper elementary and middle school. And so things that I've seen and conditions I've worked in is, if you're not prioritizing academics from the start, then, later on, you're gonna run into some bigger social problems that now cause the school community to suffer from, you know, violence in schools to just learning and achievement. So I had to make sure that we focused on academics because, what I told staff was that if we're not prioritizing the educational journey of these kids and we're only making sure that they can name their feelings and say their feelings, if that's all they can do, that's not gonna be good enough. And something that I knew in my heart of hearts was that, given the nature of the school and the founding of the school and the population, a lot of folks kind of saw our school as like, "Cool, you guys are providing a safe place for these kids to go and, like, good job." And I'm like, "That's not good enough." Good simply cannot be good enough for populations who experience extreme trauma and ongoing traumas associated with everything related to homelessness. And so we had to shift that. And I made folks prioritize literacy because I know what it's done for my life personally. And I also know what it can do in terms of what it can unlock, the imagination, the creativity, and truly [the] transformation of society that it can lead to.

Susan Lambert:

So, literacy as sort of the hallmark of the academic focus to begin with. When you're thinking specifically about,, focus on literacy and making that shift, you talked a little bit about you got curriculum materials in the hands of your teachers, you got them trained in that. What was the next thing that you sort of did? 'Cause, you know, good program and good training is great! But there's gotta be more to it than that.

Ray James:

Yep . So the next thing is literally happening right now. People. So, when I started, I didn't hire any other administrators because I knew that, at a unsustainable way, I knew I could get us to the end of the school year, I knew I could, like, manage the system, enough to get us to the end. And since then, I've hired a director of education. I've hired a director of literacy education, and now I have two teachers in every single classroom.

Susan Lambert:

Wow.

Ray James:

To really individualize and meet the specific needs. And, for me personally, as a teacher, as well as as a leader, the most transformative thing for a teacher is consistent instructional coaching. And so now, all of my teachers are getting weekly coaching, folks are looking at their lesson plans , supporting them with planning, supporting them with tracking and doing ongoing assessments, as well as just looking at every aspect of their classroom culture. Everything from, like I said, planning, observations, data , you name it, and we're prioritizing that. And right now, literally last week , my teachers spent a week in some deep literacy training. This week, it's all about kind of trauma-informed, as well as a little curriculum training. And so the ongoing instructional coaching , I've seen it be said in a lot of schools, and I'm saying that having worked in charters and public schools, a lot of folks will say instructional coaching, but without the consistency of it, a lot of folks start out the year with like, "Cool, we're gonna have these meetings with teachers," and then by like, October, Rock-tober, folks are tired, folks are pulled thin, and so meetings get canceled, lesson plans don't get checked, data's not being looked at. And that's when a school can start to get hard and start to feel hard. And I've hired two, in my opinion, juggernauts who are coming in and are gonna support and hold our teachers accountable to ensuring that our kids are getting truly a world-class education that they would not get otherwise.

Susan Lambert:

So let's talk a little bit about literacy rates when you came into the school. So when you first came into the school and you were looking at your students' data, what did you see?

Ray James:

Our kids were right at the eighth percentile nationally. I said it, eighth percentile. The only reason I remember that is 'cause I remember the number eight. And by the end of the year, based on some of the shifts, and I look forward to this school year, by the end of the year, 40% of our kids were at or above grade level. Above grade levels a little bit less than 40 for sure, but we were able to get 40% of kiddos on grade level and 40%, in my head, I hear 60% are not there yet.

Susan Lambert:

Yeah.

Ray James:

So very much this year, the goal is we have shifted the schedule again, because time controls everything in a school.

Susan Lambert:

Yep.

Ray James:

And we now have even smarter blocks, even smarter breaks for kids that are age- and developmentally appropriate. And we have the needed tools for our intervention time, which was a big thing that, because I was kind of a singular person last year, I did not focus on as much. But this year, we're doing small-group pullouts. We're doing in-class, small groups and just prioritizing all of the smart things to get kids where they need to be.

Susan Lambert:

That's amazing. What did the staff, I mean, that must have been a celebration by the end of the year, because yeah. 40%, that's not where you wanna be yet, but it's a BIG jump from 8%.

Ray James:

Yep. Staff—so, we, and something that I'll go on the record as saying, I'm pretty good at school culture. And when I started the school, the school kind of operated in silos, but I'm very much a team player. I'm a transparent leader and I believe in authenticity. And by the end of the year, I think people, it kind of resonated with my team. And out of our 18 full-time people last year , 16 of them are back.

Susan Lambert:

Wow.

Ray James:

Now we've increased our staffing to 25 and folks are just ready and eager to see the change, because something that everybody is conscious of is that, because, as I said, because of the founding of our school, deep literacy training for teachers and deep literacy at a transformative level for kids was not prioritized, and I just had my lead social worker this morning, she kind of did her kind of story of self for staff this morning, and she mentioned , a nd it almost brought tears to staff eyes, she said that, because of her role, she's directly in charge of enrollment, and enrollment at our school looks like directly going to shelters, directly engaging with hotels, directly seeing families on the streets. And so, her and our social services team, they see families when they're in the highest crisis. Sometimes we get kids who haven't been in school in months. Sometimes, depending on the age of the kid, never. 'Cause in the state of Georgia right now, unfortunately, kids don't have to, literally don't have to go to school until first grade from a legal standpoint. And so they see families when they're almost most destitute. And she has been making promises. She's been at the school since 2020 and she's been making promises that the school has not fulfilled. And I told staff after she got done, if I was, I don't have any tattoos, but if I was to get one, it would probably say "Promises to kids are sacred." And I live by that. Because if we make a promise to a family that coming to this school is going to, one, get the family the needed support that they need to move beyond whatever circumstance they're in, but also we're gonna give your kids access to an education that's going to transform their lives, that was a promise that the school ha s m ade to our kids. And th e b eautiful thing about our sc hool i s t hat we keep our families. And so, out of my 13 rising fifth graders, 11 of them were founding students and founding families.

Susan Lambert:

Wow.

Ray James:

And so that means the blood is on our hands if they do not get the promise that was made to them when they enrolled their kids back in 2017, 2018. And so my goal is to make sure that those promises are kept and fulfilled, starting with kids' educational trajectories going in a different direction.

Susan Lambert:

How about any stories of kids? Any particular student or group of students that comes to mind in terms of this impact of literacy?

Ray James:

Yep . One thing that uh—[laughs] I have a kid , I won't say his name, but I have a really, really cute kid. And he has been at the school since the start, and he told me that, this is towards the end of the year, and he asked me a few things. One, he asked me if we were gonna get our library back, and then he asked me what we could do to, like, make reading more fun. And something that I showed him that is getting rolled out to all kids this year, and he's so fired up, he's like, his mom was texting me all summer about it. But we're leveraging a tool where kids can get access to books online. And we have a partner who's actually about to gift our kids a hundred percent of our kids laptops. And I'm hoping that they'll be able to give them hotspots, too. Hopefully they hear this podcast and wanna do that.

Susan Lambert:

[laughs].

Ray James:

So our kids will have access to reading at home, and we're gonna really start to build in a culture of kind of competition around reading and making it fun, and not just like a mandate, but like, this is incentivized. This is fun. This is like a part of our culture. We're having some writing competitions at the school this year. And in particular, I sent him a picture, he was most excited about having the library back, because of the space in our school, last year, we kind of sacrificed our library so that fourth grade can have a home, and all the kids missed the library. And he told me that he appreciates that he has somewhere to read, because, for a lot of our kids, home is not a quiet place or a place where they have solace to be able to just get lost in a book in the way that many of us and many listeners of this podcast sit down any given day and get lost in a book. And I'm grateful that our school has the needed space for kids to get lost in a book. And we have the needed time so the kids can actually spend time reading at school. And that was a big priority of mine , was also to prioritize reading at school. Not just a reading class, but, like, literally sit down and read at school. Which, a lot of schools often push the reading to home.

Susan Lambert:

Right.

Ray James:

And if you think about it, especially in families who, one, families are often victims of school systems themselves. And so telling a kid, "Hey, read 30 minutes at night," a lot of times that doesn't happen. And I worked in New Jersey and I saw it happen in terms of prioritizing reading at school, and it transformed the culture of that school. And so that's something that we're doing this year, is actually having time for kids to read at school instead of just telling them , "Hey, read for 30 minutes at home."

Susan Lambert:

Yeah, that's great. And so I'm sure some of our listeners are listening to this and they're thinking, "Man, I'd love to gift your school some books for your new library." Is there a way to do that?

Ray James:

So, one, if you go to theansleyschool.org, that's T-H-E-A-N-S-L-E-Y-S-C-H-O-O-L dot O-R-G.

Susan Lambert:

Mm - hmm.

Ray James:

Theansleyschool.org. If you click that donate button, one, if you want to donate anything, whether it's a dollar, $10, $10,000 , you can donate that. But also if you want direct access to our books, I don't mind it, I'm literally a email junkie, you can email me directly, r.james@theansleyschool.org. Once again, that's r.james@theansleyschool.org, and I'll connect you guys with the needed folks so that we can get the books here. Because that's another thing that a lot of schools do but don't do effectively, is , if we tell kids to read, we need to provide them books to read, and physical books, but we live in a world where technology is a big part of our kids' lives, and so they also need access to online books. And I'm grateful that we have a tool this year where kids can get access to books, but I don't think any school can ever say they have too many books.

Susan Lambert:

That's right. Oh, for sure. And we will make sure that we link the listeners in the show notes to your website, too, so they have that information.

Ray James:

Yep.

Susan Lambert:

So, you know, in thinking about what you're doing there, the culture that you're building, the academics that you're building, what do you hope your school is going to serve for a catalyst or beacon for other people in your community or maybe beyond your community?

Ray James:

Truly, and this is, like, I just caught chills, 'cause somebody asked me this question about three weeks ago. Like, what's the ultimate goal of the school? Is it more Ansley schools, more schools that serve children who are experiencing homelessness? And while I do think that that could be a way, and what this school could catalyze, truly, I want our school to serve as a model for educational equity. And I say that because that word gets thrown around a lot and I'm pretty well versed in equity and culturally relevant pedagogy, but a lot of folks get stuck there and they get stuck at, like, the race issue. They get stuck at like, the "Cool, like what's gonna be the content, what's gonna be the books that kids are reading?" And what I hope and pray that our school creates is a model for how to actually do wraparound services for families and, from a budgetary standpoint, how to prioritize the right things to get families the services that they need. And also from a timing, resource, and people standpoint, how to staff a school, how to resource a school and how to allocate the needed time in a school so that kids' individualized skills can be met. Because when I think about the way that education is going, ultimately we will need to shift how we assess kids, what we assess. And I want our school to be a model for that. That we're not just measuring, yes, a hundred percent literacy gains, but we're also measuring their social and emotional gains. We're measuring their resiliency gains. We're measuring family success plans, and we're measuring ultimately the outcomes that will change a community, which is what I think our school will be a model for. Give me about five more years. I promise you our school will be a model for how the city of Atlanta can better serve its community. Right now, I think in Atlanta, I think the rate is like, somewhere between , and this is based on a few different things , the rate of Atlanta, in terms of reading, I mentioned 8% of our kids were , they were performing at the eighth percentile, in Atlanta, it's right at, it's in between, some people say like, 5 to 15% of fourth graders in the city of Atlanta are on grade-level reading. So very much our kids, while their housing circumstance is a lot different from a lot of kids in the city, their achievement rates are very much on par with kids in every single school in this city. And I wanna be a model for how you can truly change the culture, but also change the outcomes for a kid in their family.

Susan Lambert:

And you said that your school is growing, right? And you're up to fifth grade this year, is that what you said?

Ray James:

Yep. So this year we are full primary school K–5. And the goal and the mission of the school, one, we want to eradicate generational poverty. And so to do that, you gotta keep kids for like, almost a generation if possible. But we'll keep 'em for nine years. Our goal is that once a family comes to us, they stay with us. And ultimately by the 27th, 28th school year, we will be K–8 and our kids will , if and when this plan and this idea comes true, our kiddos are able to not just matriculate and go to the neighborhood or local school that they have to go to, but that from an academic achievement standpoint, they're able to test into any of the top private schools. I say that a lot here that my competition honestly is not Atlanta Public Schools, no shade to them. My competition is not Fulton County. My competition is every independent school in this city and in this nation that is putting kids in the top colleges and creating access for communities who often come from affluence and access. And I wanna be a model for how you can, even working with folks who have some of the least, if you give them the most, they can be on par with every single more affluent and same age, same whatever, that they want to be on. And not just good enough, not just going to, you know, a local school, but they have the choice and the ability to go wherever they want to .

Susan Lambert:

That was just a beautiful definition of how you view equity. And I don't know, [laughs], if you recognize that, but that you want your students to be able to compete at the highest levels. That's what we want for all students, right?

Ray James:

Yes. Yep, yep. And I'll say this. So, from a philosophical standpoint, I do believe, and it's funny, there's like a video, if you Google "schools should be palaces." I'm gonna quote some of that right now.

Susan Lambert:

Okay.

Ray James:

But , I've never watched an episode of "The West Wing," but one of my buddies, like, tagged me in this thing on Facebook probably about six, seven years ago. And it was like a one-minute clip from "The West Wing." And in it, like I said, I'm gonna use some of what he said , j ust to give credit to it. But also I'll just say it. I believe schools should b e palaces. They should be incredibly expensive to the government. They should teach a full literacy and full history. They should be accessible and they should have the needed technology and just be world-class institutions. I believe teachers should make 100k or more depending on the city. And I believe all of that should be a hundred percent free to families and communities and incredibly expensive to the government, just like our national defense is. We s pend so much money on national defense. I 'm like, let's do something radical. Let's have a school that is independent that can work outside of the barriers and bounds of a public system and see if we can actually have a moonshot. And that's what I tell a lot of people, this is a moonshot. This is a n opportunity to do something that's never been done, but just like, this past Saturday was t he 55th anniversary of humans landing on the moon. We got there. And so I do believe that our school can get there.

Susan Lambert:

Hmm . So, in thinking about that, that's so inspiring, and knowing that you're so focused on your school culture—

Ray James:

Mm-hm.

Susan Lambert:

And the people in the school, from students to families, to teachers, what do you think some of those folks, whether it's students or families or teachers at the school, would want our listeners to know, knowing that this listener base is all over the world?

Ray James:

Mm-hm. I want them to know that—so, our slogan is "Beyond circumstance." And our theme for this year is "To infinity and beyond circumstance," and —

Susan Lambert:

I love that!

Ray James:

Despite—and you should have saw me Monday, I had on, like, I couldn't find like, a Buzz Lightyear outfit, so I had, like, a rocket that I was like on? It looked crazy, I'll have to send you a picture of it. But despite the circumstances that our kids experience, some things that most adults have not experienced, we have kids who , I had a baby who is a rising first grader and her first time getting any type of actual housing was January of this year. And so for the first five and a half years of her life, they were in the street , literally on the street sometimes in multiple shelters, out of shelters, and she—with mom , doing this—and those are things that no adult should have to go through. No kids should definitely ever have to go through. But despite that, when I looked at my data at the end of the year in kindergarten, the highest achieving student was this young lady that I'm speaking to. And that is not a made-up stat. If you were to come here and I was to show you her actual data, you would see that she's able to actually thrive beyond circumstance when she's given the needed, when her teachers are given the needed tools and resources, leaders are equipped and empowered to lead and do what they need to do. Ultimately, kids can thrive and grow in conditions that you may not ever have imagined. I wanna almost quote the poem "A Rose That Grew in Concrete." And, if you know that poem, it's a Tupac poem, but he says , "it proved nature's law is wrong." And that's what I want our school to be. I want our school to prove nature's law is wrong. Like, cool, look at the conditions, look at the context, but now look at the outputs and the outcomes. It should not have worked that way. But they did something different. They did school different. They actually were not just doing school, but they were educating people. And I think a lot of people do school, and we're trying to educate our community holistically, prioritizing literacy first and foremost.

Susan Lambert:

So inspiring. And we're using this conversation to kick off our ninth season.

Ray James:

Mm-hm.

Susan Lambert:

Where we're really going to be doubling down on reading, like, reading reboot, what is literacy?

Ray James:

Yes.

Susan Lambert:

Why is it important? We're gonna help build some fundamentals of evidence-based literacy instruction.

Ray James:

Mm-hm.

Susan Lambert:

So, before we let you go, I'm kind of wondering if you have a message to leave for listeners of this podcast throughout the episodes about why it's really important and worthwhile to double down on that literacy goal.

Ray James:

Schools that prioritize reading from the start and prioritize teacher development from the start , truly can transform society. I believe reading and writing are transformative acts of the mind. I believe that they can unite and uplift people in a way that nothing else can. And, for me personally, I know that reading transformed my life. There are many thoughts and many ideas that I literally would not have if I did not read. There's, I'm gonna literally read this right here, and if you don't mind, I'm gonna pick up this microphone, because it is that powerful, I have it in my office three times, I've had it in every classroom I've ever been in. But it's a little history, but I'll connect it to reading. It says, "Now I see why reading was illegal for black people during slavery. I discovered that I think in words, the more words I know, the more things I can think about. Reading was illegal because if you limit someone's vocabulary, you limit their thoughts. They can't even think of freedom because they don't have the language to." And when I think about the school that we're in and the time that we're in and the limitations and barriers that are being placed on classrooms every single day, our kids literally may not have the needed thoughts and the needed words to be able to liberate themselves and their families. But if you prioritize reading, just like, I said it gave folks who didn't have the idea or the word or the language of freedom—I wanna move beyond freedom. I wanna move to liberation. I wanna be able to liberate not just black and brown folks who are impoverished. I wanna be able to liberate the minds of everybody. And I do feel like it all starts with reading.

Susan Lambert:

Hm. I don't even know what to say. I'm kind of at a loss for words because I think you have just explained beautifully what, and why early literacy, why it's so important. And, Ray James, I wanna thank you so much for the work that you're doing—

Ray James:

Thank you.

Susan Lambert:

—there at the school, and for those students. So thank you again for joining us and thank you for the work that you do.

Ray James:

Thank you so much for having me. And y'all have a great school year, to everybody listening. Have a great school year. If there are any kids listening, like, go beyond whatever anybody ever said.

Susan Lambert:

That was Ray James, head of school at the Ansley School in Atlanta, Georgia. Again, their website is theansleyschool.org. We'll also have a link in our show notes. And that's just the start of our reading reboot! In just a minute, I'm going to share more about this season's listener mailbag, but I hope you also thought Ray provided a great reminder of why it's so critical to double down on literacy instruction and spend more time reexamining evidence-based practices. Next time on the podcast, we're going to take a step back and think about literacy standards and literacy curriculum. How are they connected? What are the key differences and what are some of the misconceptions? To unpack all that, I'll be joined by Sue Pimentel, co-founder of StandardsWork.

Sue Pimentel:

There needs to be the standards, and then there needs to be curriculum. If standards were enough, we wouldn't need curriculum.

Susan Lambert:

That's coming up next time. But, this season, we also want to hear from you! As we embark on this reading reboot, what's a literacy-related question you'd like us to explore? During the season, we'll tackle some of your questions. And get this—by submitting a question, you'll also be entered to win prizes, including a visit from me to your school. As you just heard, I loved visiting Ray and his students at the Ansley School, and I'd love to visit your community next. To find out more information and submit a question, please visit amplify.com/sormailbag. That's amplify.com/sormailbag. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. For more information on how Amplify leverages the Science of Reading, go to amplify.com/ckla. I'm Susan Lambert, and thank you so much for listening.