Making sure schools are performing is the name of the game in education. John T. White Elementary struggled with that, failing their state assessments.
Now, it's part of five schools now jointly run by Fort Worth ISD and Texas Wesleyan University. They call it the Leadership Academy Network and what they've done with reading is pretty impressive.
"I don't want to read a lot because when I read a lot, I get headaches," one student told us.
Teachers say getting students to want to read was such a struggle.
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"You say read for 15 minutes and you see kids with a timer and they said I read for 15 minutes. I'm done," said teacher Zaida Johnson. "Do you really understand what you were reading about? Do you enjoy what you're reading about? And that changes with book clubs."
John T. White got some help from the folks at Texas Wesleyan, to re-imagine all aspects of how they're teaching and get kids who struggle to thrive.
They tackled reading with book clubs, and friends out of desks, however, they want as long as they're working together to not just read, but comprehend.
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"You can stop and talk to your friends, 'What do you think about this? What connection do you have about this part of the book? What do you like about this part of the book?'" pointed out one of the students.
The boys we sat with are reading on different levels, some struggling to get through sentences, and 4th-graders on a high school level.
They're all getting deeply into the story and helping each other not just keep up, but develop skills to get better when they read alone.
They discuss storylines, and plots, and talk themselves through test questions.
Test scores have shot up. John T. White went from an F to a B campus.
Teachers say the change was apparent long before that state test.
"I said, 'OK, time to stop, book club is over," recalled Johnson.
"'No, we don't want it to be over! We want to keep reading'. So when they want to keep reading, they're actually enjoying that reading."
