It’s a perennial topic for New York Times scribes: reading crisis in do-nothing public school. When the article wouldn’t allow me a “gift” url, I phoned and complained. Alas when I try to type in the link, the picture pops up again. If you want the link, email me or look at my Twitter spot.
In the “catch them by the heartstrings” mode, this piece begins poignantly with a family struggling to help a child with reading difficulties. We learn that when the desperate parents finally found assistance, it came from “outside help” (a private school), most definitely not from public school personnel who are presented as denying the problem for years. Citing background to show that this problem is universal, Closson offers a hotlink to an earlier New York Times article titled Kids Can’t Read
These days, no New York Times story on reading is complete without a link to the infamous American Public Media hatchet job “Sold a Story:
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story
With four hot links in three sentences, this current Closson piece offers the sop that after a decade of stagnation on reading tests and in the wake of pandemic learning disruptions, states and school districts have begun to acknowledge that they have long failed to properly teach pupils to read. Nearly every state in the nation has passed laws on reading and literacy, a recent analysis found. New York City, the nation’s largest school system, began a sweeping curriculum overhaul this spring.
Next, what New York Times article on school malfeasance could be complete without a link to the infamous “Sold a Story”:
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Back to the Closson piece: The analyzers of the New York Times “recent analysis” identifying the problem aren’t identified but readers who go to the hotlink will discover it’s the Shanker Institute:
file:///C:/Users/Susan/Downloads/ReadingReform%20ShankerInstitute%20FullReport(6).pdf
The unnamed “influential policy group” cited by Closson is Education Trust, longtime foe of public schools and the teachers in them. The Good Grey Lady provides a hotlink to some of their research which bows at the throne of “evidence-based literacy instruction aligned with the science of reading.”
file:///C:/Users/Susan/Downloads/ETNY-Literacy-Report(1).pdf
Then, Troy Closson, author of this article, provides a hotlink to an article on this theme that he wrote in May, which begins, “Hundreds of public schools have been teaching reading the wrong way for the last two decades…”
That line made me wonder where metro reporter Closson got his expertise on how to teach reading. According to his NY Times profile, after Northwestern University he interned at the Texas Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times and served as Emerging Reporter at ProPublica. His favorite food is chocolate chip pancakes.
Back to this article. Next, Closson sends readers to the Office of the New York State Comptroller to read a report prepared by the Office of Budget Policy and Analysis:
https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/nations-report-card-underscores-new-yorks-need-academic-recovery
Then the reader gets a hotlink to an Education Week piece titled “New Curriculum Review Gives Failing Marks to Two Popular Reading Programs.” (You won’t need three guesses to which two programs are featured here.)
This Education Week piece, billed as “curriculum review,” summarizes the report from EdReports, an outfit funded by: Broadcom Corporation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Overdeck Family Foundation, the Samueli Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Oak Foundation. All of them have long histories of trying to show how they know more about education than public schools and the teachers in them.
There’s a hotlink to Gotham Gazette and to a Shanker Institute report
file:///C:/Users/Susan/Downloads/ReadingReform%20ShankerInstitute%20FullReport.pdf.
Readers are told, “one influential education policy group recently declared that state officials were failing to use “their power and influence to prioritize literacy.”
The unnamed “influential policy group” is Education Trust, longtime foe of public schools and the teachers in them. Go to that hotlink and you’ll be at the throne of “evidence-based literacy instruction aligned with the science of reading.”
Then we get a summary quote from Ed Trust’s executive direction: “New York is doing nothing,”
Moving right along, there’s a hotlink to another Shanker Institute report on what’s happening across the country [Reader won’t know who this is from until pressing the hotlink] :
file:///C:/Users/Susan/Downloads/ReadingReform%20ShankerInstitute%20FullReport(12).pdf
The one paragraph devoted to “elsewhere in the country” closes with “Some sought to ban “three-cueing,” a flawed strategy that guides children to use picture clues to guess words.” This takes you to Louisiana advice for the three-cueing system:
file:///C:/Users/Susan/Downloads/act-517-three-cueing-system-ban-guidance.pdf
Then it’s back to criticism of New York State, with a link to state standards:
And another hotlink to NY State Standards https://www.nysed.gov/curriculum-instruction/guide-aligning-local-curricula-next-generation-english-language-arts-learning
If you’re up to more negative reports, the article provides hotlinks to In Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, some of the state’s largest districts, where, we’re told, more than 8 in 10 children fail state reading tests (emphasis added).
NOTE: When I taught 3rd grade and kids were taking the math test issued by NY State, individual children kept coming up to me and whispering, “There’s no right answer.” They were right. I whispered back, “Just skip that one and do good work on the rest.” When the test was over, we discussed this error, and I pointed out that everybody makes mistakes. Children wrote a class letter to The New York State Commissioner of Education. I sent a cover letter along with copies to appropriate departments.We did not receive a single reply.
In my activist days, an activism that required court appearances, teachers sent me copies of state tests [which was, of course, illegal] and Georgia sued me, accusing me of distributing a test there . Every teacher union, PTA, and Rotary Club who claims to care about kids should examine–and discuss–these tests.
Meanwhile, back at the New York Times, a hotlink to what California is trying to do regarding reading proficiency:
Disappointing results from reading assessments over the past few years are helping to fuel a new focus on reading instruction. While some research shows recent year-over-year reading proficiency increasing, a recent Amplify analysis of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) performance outcomes finds 32% of kindergartners this school year are behind in reading and are in need of intensive interventions.
Horrors: Kindergartners failing their reading test. I want to know if kids are:
*Enjoying stories
*Sharing
*Playing together
NOTE 2: When Vermont State Ed was pushing DIBELS, I wore a T-shirt I’d commissioned that had a DIBELS test on it. With a huge poster and a table with handout polemics, I sat and marched in downtown Burlington. A teacher from upstate New York heard about my campaign and came to help. My question to teachers is not whether they’re using phonics or three-cuing or libraries filled with enticing books. My question is: WHY ARE YOU SO SILENT? I say this as the only teacher in my district who refused to use a basal. . . and had such parental support that district authorities pretended not to notice.
The New York Times says some major cities, along with smaller urban districts like New Rochelle and Newburgh and wealthier suburban counties, still use teaching materials that experts say are low-quality choices, according to a survey from The Education Trust.
This paragraph’s assertion is putting a whole lot of faith in Ed Trust. You can take a look at who keeps the lights on there and the judgments spewing:
https://edtrust.org/who-we-are/supporters/
There’s a hotlink to EdWeek article on grade retention, with usual suspects aligned:
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/third-grade-reading-retention-is-back-should-it-be/2022/10
The74 is Campbell Brown’s outfit
For info on what’s going on in California, there’s hotlink to K-12 Dive, publication of Industry Dive, outfit for busy businessmen to read on their phones
Hotlink to Massachusetts offers $$$ to school districts coming up with innovative ideas. Supplicants are advised to go to EdReports for good ideas. See above for their corporate funders.
Finally the New York Times offers info on proposed legislation requiring insurers to cover dyslexia diagnoses and more legislation requiring teacher ed programs to teach science [sic] of reading.
Frankly, my dears, I’ve run out of steam.
Susan Ohanian 