So, what’s the plan to actually improve education? Dead silence. Firing the half who fail would be one idea. Firing most of the people who don’t teach but get paid to pompously control teaching is another.
I'm confused. I looked up the assessment mentioned and it doesn't show a severe decrease in the 4th-grade reading level at all over the pandemic. In fact, the current score shows an increase in reading comprehension for fourth graders today compared to the 1990s (when the NAEP started collecting reading proficiency levels). I also don't see the 65% number anywhere in the NAEP reporting. I could be missing something, but I'm not sure this statistic is accurate.
I am 65 and I don't ever remember reading being hard for me. I did go to a catholic grade school and we learned phonics. One thing we didn't touch on is the break down of the American family. Many households have both parents working and little time is available to read to children, help with homework etc. My parents read to us nightly and were there to help with homework. My mother died when I was 10 but my Dad totally took up the reins to work hard with our education. We were not wealthy by any means so to say that we were more privileged is only true to some extent. The cost of life was very different in the 60's. We have TOTALLY lost our focus in schools and I think that is a HUGE problem.
Great, Great podcast and reporting. This is such an important issue. Thank you, Katey. In our k-6 school district the most Southwesterly in the Continental US only 29% can read at grade level. Pre covid it was at 30% and during covid 22%. Math stats is worse. Four of our South County municipalities have the lowest adult literacy rates out of 18 in the county. 30% of adults in one of our municipalities with 61k residents can only read at a grade 4 level. While I believe it was the right choice to keep politics out of the podcast it should not be ruled out of the larger conversation. It does matter.
The curriculum’s authors tried to duplicate how successful readers read without teaching and requiring the rigorous work. Equal outcomes. This reminded me of the ZIP Code projects. Just move poor people to successful ZIP Codes and it’ll make their lives wonderful. No efforts to earn the success required.
This is probably musings of Captain Obvious. Reading is a core function that must be taught and mastered early in order to learn all the other disciplines. How can one learn math, science and history since these and all other subjects depend on reading the textbooks.
As someone who spent over 30 years in public education (not as a classroom teacher), 20 years of that trying to debunk "Whole Language" and bring the science of reading into classrooms, I thank you (Emily) SO much for that. And I thank The Free Press for pushing this forward and trying to get the word out. Balanced Literacy, Reading Recovery, Guided Reading etc ... need to stop. But the movement is like a cult. It was unbelievable to watch administrator after administrator buy what was being sold by cult members (in the face of solid science about the teaching of reading - that they had no interest in reading!). It was also heartbreaking, frustrating, and demoralizing. I had to retire early as I couldn't watch it any longer!
The person who first introduced me to the solution to the country's reading problem was John McWhorter, linguist, professor, and author, in his 2021 book, Woke Racism. In Chapter 5, "Dismantling Structures"; Saving Black America for Real," McWhorter proposes a three-point plan of "real-world efforts that combine political feasibility with effectiveness" to address societal inequity and level the economic playing field for Black Americans. First is to end the war on drugs. Third is to get past the Idea that everybody must go to college. And Second is Teach reading properly. By which he means phonics.
First, the whole "Sold a Story" podcasts are well worth a listen to.
That being said, I'm shocked that so many upper class families aren't teaching their kids to read. I taught both my kids to read. You can do it in 20 to 30 minutes a day. I did it with this book which is amazing.
My daughter was reading very well at 5, my son before he was 6. I had my daughter take the 3rd grade exam at 7, and she tested at grade level 4 in reading, and grade level 4.5 in math.
Turn off the TV, and spend time with your kids. It's your job.
WHY?!? I listened to the whole podcast waiting for the why... why did this happen? How did we get here? Other than just the cult of personalities of those two women, I still have NO IDEA why this happened. What happened to phonics? Where did the stuff that used to work go? So FRUSTRATING. Bari- we’ve listened to a few poscasts now that spend a whole bunch of time talking around the problem and never actually saying anything. Please... please... do a better job explaining the why.
As someone who spent almost 30 years in public education (not as a classroom teacher) and almost 20 of those trying to move the science of reading into the classroom, I will tell you why. Whole Language, Reading Recovery etc is a cult. In "Sold a Story", Emily interviews Seidenberg. His book has an excellent chapter where he attempts to explain why. Even he suggests that the movement is cultish. That was certainly my experience as well. Also, as one of the commenters here has suggested - administrators charged with making these decisions often know nothing about teaching reading. They believe their cult members as that was the path of least resistance.
I suggest listening to the whole "Sold a Story" podcast.
I think the why is for several reasons.
1. A lot of teachers didn't like the regimentation of phonics.
2. Slick marketing campaigns that based on how teachers want to teach instead of what's effective was wildly successful.
3. Because President Bush was pushing phonics it must be bad
4. The reading recovery approach did show some success when tested in the short term. Lack of follow up testing was a problem.
I would add that teaching to read is best done one on one. For example, it helps me catch my son when he guesses the word instead of sounding it out. Also, I note that sometimes he looks at the end of the word first. So I can reinforce he needs to start on the left hand side.
I'm sure he might have got some dyslexia from me. The good news is you can get past it with a LOT of reading. I'm a fantastic reader now.
many parents were not equipped to teach there children and needed the help of trained professionals. I dont think its fair to blame all parents from trusting teachers to do this task properly.
This arena also shows the strange ways in which our moral intuition fails us. If someone hits a child on the head and the child becomes intellectually disabled, that's recognized as a crime, with harm. If the water company has lead pipes and the kids that drink it end up intellectually disabled, that's recognized as wrong and harmful, perhaps to a lesser extent given the glacial response to the Flint, Michigan situation.
But if a child is miseducated so he or she can't read, who is getting prosecuted for the harm done to that child?
It is often fascinating when people arrive at the same answer through different paths and backgrounds. The “why” is understood (you need to know how to read to get ahead in life) but the “how” is often so different based on any number of things…social, economic, political and so on.
I grew up with two caring parents that were not well off, nor highly educated but gave me every chance to succeed. Being “different” (Jewish in a mostly Italian neighborhood) forced me to discover other worlds through frequent reading. I agree with Emily Hanford in many ways except for the heavy focus on poverty having such a strong impact on reading. Strong, close-knit two parent (any gender) families will prioritize their children’s education, even if they work multiple jobs and have economic challenges.
Another example of a lack of consistent training - when my daughter started school, she was thought to have a learning disability because it took her longer to learn English words and sentences than other students. A quick bit of research (which I had to do since it was a mystery to the school) made it very obvious that a child who learns another language first (in her case, French) will take longer to become proficient in the 2nd language. As expected, she quickly caught up and rendered concerns a non-issue.
You could say that the education “gurus” (to borrow the last Honestly podcast’s topic) are simply out to make a buck regardless of the impact on students. You could also say that teachers unions prioritize their members over the students that they are responsible for. That one was made pretty obvious during the COVID pandemic. You can also say that four year university playgrounds are not designed to generate knowledgeable teachers at a reasonable cost, especially given how little we pay teachers. And we can also say that the administrative state drags down educational effectiveness while bowing to the Diversity-Inclusion-Equity gods.
What’s the problem? To start, the public school system, from the Department of Education to the local elementary school is a monumental failure backed by a mountain of statistics. The private and public university systems are also massive failures due to huge costs (even in public universities if you come from out of state), focus on DIE over preparing young men and women for the workplace, as well as being another huge administrative state that dwarfs budgets of many countries.
So what to do? Charter schools, vouchers, private schools and homeschooling are like putting a band-aid on the patient dying of a heart attack. The public school system (including public universities) simply needs to be blown up. Unions eliminated and replaced with a system that supports and protects great teachers and eliminates poor ones. Elimination of DIE and the minimization of the administrative state. Open dialogue, not fear of speaking your mind. Design a federal system in concert with business experts who know what they ultimately need and provide financial resources to state and local governments with conditions. Pay great teachers (a lot) to work in more challenging school districts instead of reintroducing busing and segregation like they are trying to do my county in Maryland. Let kids explore and think and learn subjects that expand their minds, not close them to people that are not like them.
There’s so much that can be done if people get out of their tribes and talk to each other with reason and grace. Rant over :)
The problem is that any system will suffer degradation long term without competition.
Thus while I support a lot of the reforms you mention, they won't work long term without real school choice. School choice will provide the competition that makes government schools good.
I couldn’t disagree with you more, but I appreciate your perspective. I pulled my child from public schools, at 4th grade, after intense bullying. Homeschooling allowed him to grow at his own pace. He graduated with a 4.02 and has a promising future.
As beneficial as it seems to simply prepare children to be a competent workforce, I’m not willing to make my child a “teachable moment” in the public arena. My son is not just a worker. I value his initiative and creativity above his ability to conform. Forcing millions of children to adapt to one style of learning is limiting their ability to reach their potentials.
All options, including home schooling, have to remain available. We just need a better solution for the majority of students that can’t afford other options.
I probably wasn’t as clear as I could have been. A great school system needs to turn out engineers AND artists, not just business workers.
So, what’s the plan to actually improve education? Dead silence. Firing the half who fail would be one idea. Firing most of the people who don’t teach but get paid to pompously control teaching is another.
I'm confused. I looked up the assessment mentioned and it doesn't show a severe decrease in the 4th-grade reading level at all over the pandemic. In fact, the current score shows an increase in reading comprehension for fourth graders today compared to the 1990s (when the NAEP started collecting reading proficiency levels). I also don't see the 65% number anywhere in the NAEP reporting. I could be missing something, but I'm not sure this statistic is accurate.
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/scores/?grade=4
I am 65 and I don't ever remember reading being hard for me. I did go to a catholic grade school and we learned phonics. One thing we didn't touch on is the break down of the American family. Many households have both parents working and little time is available to read to children, help with homework etc. My parents read to us nightly and were there to help with homework. My mother died when I was 10 but my Dad totally took up the reins to work hard with our education. We were not wealthy by any means so to say that we were more privileged is only true to some extent. The cost of life was very different in the 60's. We have TOTALLY lost our focus in schools and I think that is a HUGE problem.
Great, Great podcast and reporting. This is such an important issue. Thank you, Katey. In our k-6 school district the most Southwesterly in the Continental US only 29% can read at grade level. Pre covid it was at 30% and during covid 22%. Math stats is worse. Four of our South County municipalities have the lowest adult literacy rates out of 18 in the county. 30% of adults in one of our municipalities with 61k residents can only read at a grade 4 level. While I believe it was the right choice to keep politics out of the podcast it should not be ruled out of the larger conversation. It does matter.
The curriculum’s authors tried to duplicate how successful readers read without teaching and requiring the rigorous work. Equal outcomes. This reminded me of the ZIP Code projects. Just move poor people to successful ZIP Codes and it’ll make their lives wonderful. No efforts to earn the success required.
This is probably musings of Captain Obvious. Reading is a core function that must be taught and mastered early in order to learn all the other disciplines. How can one learn math, science and history since these and all other subjects depend on reading the textbooks.
Anyone else catch when Katie tried to blame those awful Republicans but was corrected by the guest who defended W. Bush?
As someone who spent over 30 years in public education (not as a classroom teacher), 20 years of that trying to debunk "Whole Language" and bring the science of reading into classrooms, I thank you (Emily) SO much for that. And I thank The Free Press for pushing this forward and trying to get the word out. Balanced Literacy, Reading Recovery, Guided Reading etc ... need to stop. But the movement is like a cult. It was unbelievable to watch administrator after administrator buy what was being sold by cult members (in the face of solid science about the teaching of reading - that they had no interest in reading!). It was also heartbreaking, frustrating, and demoralizing. I had to retire early as I couldn't watch it any longer!
We cant give up. The results would be catastrophic to our children.
The person who first introduced me to the solution to the country's reading problem was John McWhorter, linguist, professor, and author, in his 2021 book, Woke Racism. In Chapter 5, "Dismantling Structures"; Saving Black America for Real," McWhorter proposes a three-point plan of "real-world efforts that combine political feasibility with effectiveness" to address societal inequity and level the economic playing field for Black Americans. First is to end the war on drugs. Third is to get past the Idea that everybody must go to college. And Second is Teach reading properly. By which he means phonics.
First, the whole "Sold a Story" podcasts are well worth a listen to.
That being said, I'm shocked that so many upper class families aren't teaching their kids to read. I taught both my kids to read. You can do it in 20 to 30 minutes a day. I did it with this book which is amazing.
https://smile.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=teach+your+child+to+read+in+100+easy+lessons&qid=1676325768&sprefix=teach+yo%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-1
My daughter was reading very well at 5, my son before he was 6. I had my daughter take the 3rd grade exam at 7, and she tested at grade level 4 in reading, and grade level 4.5 in math.
Turn off the TV, and spend time with your kids. It's your job.
WHY?!? I listened to the whole podcast waiting for the why... why did this happen? How did we get here? Other than just the cult of personalities of those two women, I still have NO IDEA why this happened. What happened to phonics? Where did the stuff that used to work go? So FRUSTRATING. Bari- we’ve listened to a few poscasts now that spend a whole bunch of time talking around the problem and never actually saying anything. Please... please... do a better job explaining the why.
I FEEL THIS WAY TOO. We need a lot more of the why is/did this happen.
As someone who spent almost 30 years in public education (not as a classroom teacher) and almost 20 of those trying to move the science of reading into the classroom, I will tell you why. Whole Language, Reading Recovery etc is a cult. In "Sold a Story", Emily interviews Seidenberg. His book has an excellent chapter where he attempts to explain why. Even he suggests that the movement is cultish. That was certainly my experience as well. Also, as one of the commenters here has suggested - administrators charged with making these decisions often know nothing about teaching reading. They believe their cult members as that was the path of least resistance.
I suggest listening to the whole "Sold a Story" podcast.
I think the why is for several reasons.
1. A lot of teachers didn't like the regimentation of phonics.
2. Slick marketing campaigns that based on how teachers want to teach instead of what's effective was wildly successful.
3. Because President Bush was pushing phonics it must be bad
4. The reading recovery approach did show some success when tested in the short term. Lack of follow up testing was a problem.
I would add that teaching to read is best done one on one. For example, it helps me catch my son when he guesses the word instead of sounding it out. Also, I note that sometimes he looks at the end of the word first. So I can reinforce he needs to start on the left hand side.
I'm sure he might have got some dyslexia from me. The good news is you can get past it with a LOT of reading. I'm a fantastic reader now.
My parents said “here are my kids, please educate them “. I still don’t forgive them for doing that.
many parents were not equipped to teach there children and needed the help of trained professionals. I dont think its fair to blame all parents from trusting teachers to do this task properly.
Do no overlook the work of Drs. Sally and Bennett Shaywitz concerning dyslexia.
This arena also shows the strange ways in which our moral intuition fails us. If someone hits a child on the head and the child becomes intellectually disabled, that's recognized as a crime, with harm. If the water company has lead pipes and the kids that drink it end up intellectually disabled, that's recognized as wrong and harmful, perhaps to a lesser extent given the glacial response to the Flint, Michigan situation.
But if a child is miseducated so he or she can't read, who is getting prosecuted for the harm done to that child?
Brilliant idea!
It is often fascinating when people arrive at the same answer through different paths and backgrounds. The “why” is understood (you need to know how to read to get ahead in life) but the “how” is often so different based on any number of things…social, economic, political and so on.
I grew up with two caring parents that were not well off, nor highly educated but gave me every chance to succeed. Being “different” (Jewish in a mostly Italian neighborhood) forced me to discover other worlds through frequent reading. I agree with Emily Hanford in many ways except for the heavy focus on poverty having such a strong impact on reading. Strong, close-knit two parent (any gender) families will prioritize their children’s education, even if they work multiple jobs and have economic challenges.
Another example of a lack of consistent training - when my daughter started school, she was thought to have a learning disability because it took her longer to learn English words and sentences than other students. A quick bit of research (which I had to do since it was a mystery to the school) made it very obvious that a child who learns another language first (in her case, French) will take longer to become proficient in the 2nd language. As expected, she quickly caught up and rendered concerns a non-issue.
You could say that the education “gurus” (to borrow the last Honestly podcast’s topic) are simply out to make a buck regardless of the impact on students. You could also say that teachers unions prioritize their members over the students that they are responsible for. That one was made pretty obvious during the COVID pandemic. You can also say that four year university playgrounds are not designed to generate knowledgeable teachers at a reasonable cost, especially given how little we pay teachers. And we can also say that the administrative state drags down educational effectiveness while bowing to the Diversity-Inclusion-Equity gods.
What’s the problem? To start, the public school system, from the Department of Education to the local elementary school is a monumental failure backed by a mountain of statistics. The private and public university systems are also massive failures due to huge costs (even in public universities if you come from out of state), focus on DIE over preparing young men and women for the workplace, as well as being another huge administrative state that dwarfs budgets of many countries.
So what to do? Charter schools, vouchers, private schools and homeschooling are like putting a band-aid on the patient dying of a heart attack. The public school system (including public universities) simply needs to be blown up. Unions eliminated and replaced with a system that supports and protects great teachers and eliminates poor ones. Elimination of DIE and the minimization of the administrative state. Open dialogue, not fear of speaking your mind. Design a federal system in concert with business experts who know what they ultimately need and provide financial resources to state and local governments with conditions. Pay great teachers (a lot) to work in more challenging school districts instead of reintroducing busing and segregation like they are trying to do my county in Maryland. Let kids explore and think and learn subjects that expand their minds, not close them to people that are not like them.
There’s so much that can be done if people get out of their tribes and talk to each other with reason and grace. Rant over :)
The problem is that any system will suffer degradation long term without competition.
Thus while I support a lot of the reforms you mention, they won't work long term without real school choice. School choice will provide the competition that makes government schools good.
I couldn’t disagree with you more, but I appreciate your perspective. I pulled my child from public schools, at 4th grade, after intense bullying. Homeschooling allowed him to grow at his own pace. He graduated with a 4.02 and has a promising future.
As beneficial as it seems to simply prepare children to be a competent workforce, I’m not willing to make my child a “teachable moment” in the public arena. My son is not just a worker. I value his initiative and creativity above his ability to conform. Forcing millions of children to adapt to one style of learning is limiting their ability to reach their potentials.
All options, including home schooling, have to remain available. We just need a better solution for the majority of students that can’t afford other options.
I probably wasn’t as clear as I could have been. A great school system needs to turn out engineers AND artists, not just business workers.
Welcome to education in the LONGHOUSE