Opinion
Many parents like myself were shocked by a recent change to the English curriculum at Alice Deal Middle School.
Dec 4, 2025
I’m the parent of an Alice Deal Middle School student who loves to read. We have books scattered on every surface in the house and we regularly have to do late-night patrols to check that the reading lights stay out after bedtime.
Our child isn’t the only middle schooler in D.C. with this love of books. And DC Public Schools is making concentrated efforts to improve kids’ reading levels. That’s why many parents like myself were shocked by a recent change to the English Language Arts curriculum at Deal Middle School.
The new curriculum removes all full-length novels from the 8th grade curriculum. Previously, Deal 8th graders read challenging and thoughtful novels like To Kill a Mockingbird and A Raisin in the Sun. The rationale for this change is that the old curriculum was cobbled together through trial and error by Deal’s English teachers and the new curriculum, which focuses on short passages, will better prepare the students for high school.
That may be so, but reading full novels has real and important benefits for middle school-age children and in life. Reading longer narratives helps students track character growth, story development, and complex structures. Reading fiction can train students to inhabit characters’ perspectives, fostering empathy. And perhaps most important for children growing up right now, with so much talk of technology shortening attention spans, reading full-length books can build concentration and mental stamina.
As a parent, it can feel like the whole world is conspiring against our children’s ability to read and write in substantive ways – from texting to social media to AI. DCPS recognized this when it banned cellphones in schools starting this school year. Having an 8th grader read several novels as part of their English curriculum seems like another easy and effective way of pushing back on this.
The city framed 2024 student test scores as a “model for urban education” in a recent report. But the English Language Arts proficiency rate for DCPS students across the whole district is just 37.6% (math proficiency rates are even lower than that). A notable exception to this is Deal Middle School, where the English Language Arts proficiency rate is over 80%. A number of factors are likely driving those high scores at Deal, not the least of which is the relative affluence of Ward 3, where the school is located. Another important component is absolutely the hard work of Deal’s English teachers.
There is undoubtedly much about the new curriculum that is an improvement, like focusing on teaching a varied mix of texts and emphasizing basic skills. However, in adopting new teaching approaches, DCPS should also prioritize strengthening and promoting what has already worked at schools like Deal, including reading full length novels. We all support efforts to raise the bar – as long as it builds on rather than replaces the strong foundation that is already in place.
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