Category Archives: Science of Reading

Education, Educational Research, Media, NYT, Poverty, Science of Reading

Public Education Deserves Better Journalism in 2024: Reading Edition

There is an incredibly powerful and frustrating dynamic about mainstream media in the US: While common knowledge claims mainstream media is liberal media, actual mainstream journalism in the US perpetuates as fact conservative ideology.

And the topic that suffers the most from that contradiction is education.

We are but 8 days into 2024, and the self-proclaimed Queen of US journalism, the New York Times, has offered up what may prove to be one of the classic examples of that liberal/conservative contradiction (see, for example, the NYT covering poverty at the level of The Onion).

Currently, media has renewed interest in college admissions, specifically using standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT for admissions. Progressive/liberal advocates call for not using SAT/ACT for admissions ; conservatives support maintaining standardized tests in admissions.

And right on cue, the NYT: The Misguided War on the SAT.

The article is a lazy argument, but also careless in its cherry picking of evidence:

The Leonhardt article uses the California faculty senate article as a proof point (the one that mentions College Board over 50 times) but fails to cite the rebuttal by the person who has researched the topic more than anyone, and who found serious problems with the research study.

Aw Jeez, not this shit again

This college admissions/SAT example parallels the NYT piece on grocery shopping by people in poverty; the claims of the articles are driven by normative conservative ideology (poor people buy junk food and standardized tests measure merit) not empirical evidence.

Mainstream media misrepresenting education and educational research, then, is normal in the US. In fact, far more coverage of education is misleading or outright false than is credible.

One of the best examples of this problem is coverage of reading proficiency and the current reading crisis, specifically the “science of reading” movement.

Along with many others, I have documented that media coverage of reading is both “holy text” and significantly misleading.

Key elements of that misguided coverage include the following:

  • Misrepresenting “reading proficiency” based on misunderstanding NAEP achievement levels. Media makes the claim 1/3 of students are not proficient readers when, in fact, NAEP shows 2/3 of students read at grade level or above.
  • Misrepresenting balanced literacy, three cueing, guessing, and popular reading programs. Essentially, no evidence exists showing balanced literacy has created a reading crisis or that any sort of uniform approach to reading exists across the US since many programs and interpretations of reading co-exist now and throughout the history of the US.
  • Misrepresenting teacher knowledge and practice related to reading as well as broadly discrediting teacher education, primarily based on a think-tank (NCTQ) agenda and not empirical evidence.
  • Misrepresenting reading science by distorting conclusions from NRP and ignoring or cherry-picking from the two decades of research since NRP.
  • Claiming reading science is settled and asserting that brain research is also settled. Both reading and brain science are evolving, each ripe with debate and room for greater understanding.
  • Simultaneously narrowing the reading science to only experimental/quasi-experimental research while using as evidence anecdotes and endorsing practices (grade retention, systematic phonics instruction for all students) and programs (LETRS, Orton-Gillingham) lacking scientific support.
  • Aligning SOR with social justice agendas although a growing body of research shows SOR contradicts equity goals.

In short, reading proficiency and reading instruction deserve better than mainstream media is providing.

Education journalists need in 2024 to step back from the “holy text” template, re-engage with the full story and body of evidence, and then provide the sort of critical coverage students, teachers, and our democracy deserve.

To that end, consider the following:

Critiques of Media Story about SOR

Recent Research Challenging SOR Policy/Legislation

See Also

Education, education reform, Educational Research, reading, Science of Reading

Research Roundup Winter 2024 [Updated]

In the wake of the “science of reading” tsunami, most states have passed new or revised reading legislation over the past decade. Research on the outcomes of those flawed decisions are now being published and exposing a common theme—”unintended consequences.”

While I think for some these consequences are intended, the research is showing that once again, following a similar pattern of accountability reform since the 1980s, the SOR legislative reform movement is simply not fulfilling promised outcomes and is often causing more or different harm.

Here are some current examples of that research:

I.

The Unintended Consequences of Test-Based Remediation, David N. Figlio and Umut Özek

NBER Working Paper No. 30831

January 2023

Abstract

School systems around the world use achievement tests to assign students to schools, classes, and instructional resources, including remediation. Using a regression discontinuity design, we study a Florida policy that places middle school students who score below a proficiency cutoff into remedial classes. Students scoring below the cutoff receive more educational resources, but they are also placed in classes that are more segregated by race, socio-economic status, and prior achievement. Increased tracking occurs not only in the remedial subject, but also in other core subjects. These tracking effects are significantly larger and more likely to persist beyond the year of remediation for Black students.

II.

Elena Aydarova; “Whatever You Want to Call It”: Science of Reading Mythologies in the Education Reform Movement. Harvard Educational Review 1 December 2023; 93 (4): 556–581. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-93.4.556

Abstract

In recent years, a wave of science of reading (SOR) reforms have swept across the nation. Although advocates argue that these are based on science-based research, SOR remains a contested and ambiguous notion. In this essay, Elena Aydarova uses an anthropology of policy approach to analyze advocacy efforts that promoted SOR reforms and legislative deliberations in Tennessee. Drawing on Barthes’s theory of mythology, this analysis sheds light on the semiotic chains that link SOR with tradition, knowledge-build ingcurricula, and the scaling down of social safety nets. This deciphering of SOR mythologies under scores how the focus on “science” distorts the intentions of these myths to naturalize socioeconomic inequality and depoliticize social conditions of precarity. This study problematizes the claims made by SOR advocates and sheds light on the ways these reforms are likely to reproduce, rather than disrupt, inequities and injustices.

III. (Math research relevant to reading)

Clements, Douglas H., Renee Lizcano, and Julie Sarama. 2023. “Research and Pedagogies for Early Math” Education Sciences 13, no. 8: 839. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13080839

Abstract

The increasing interest in early childhood mathematics education for decades has increased the need for empirically supported pedagogical strategies. However, there is little agreement on how early math might best be taught. We draw from the empirical literature to paint a picture of research-based and research-validated pedagogical approaches and strategies for teaching early math. Most approaches share core characteristics, including concern for children’s interests and engagement and for working on content matched to children’s level of thinking. Learning trajectories are an especially useful organizing structure because they combine and integrate educational goals, development of children’s thinking, and empirically supported pedagogical strategies. Therefore, they help teachers interpret what the child is doing, thinking, and constructing, and offer instructional activities that extend children’s mathematical thinking. Simultaneously, teachers can see instructional strategies from the child’s perspective, offering meaningful and joyful opportunities to engage in learning.

IV.

Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics? David Reinking, George G. Hruby, and Victoria J. Risko

Abstract

In this commentary, we identify a phonics-first ideology and its polemical distortions of research and science to promote legislation that constrains and diminishes the teaching of reading. We affirm our own, and a majority of reading professionals’, commitment to teaching phonics. However, we argue that phonics instruction is more effective when embedded in a more comprehensive program of literacy instruction that accommodates students’ individual needs and multiple approaches to teaching phonics—a view supported by substantial research. After summarizing the politicization of phonics in the United States, we critique a legislated training course for teachers in Tennessee as representative of how a phonics-first ideology is expressed polemically for political purposes. We contrast it with a more collaboratively developed, balanced, nonlegislative approach in the previous governor’s administration. Specifically, the training course (a) makes an unfounded claim that there is a national reading crisis that can be traced to insufficient or inappropriate phonics instruction; (b) distorts, misrepresents, or omits relevant research findings and recommendations, most prominently from the report of the National Reading Panel; (c) inaccurately suggests that “balanced literacy instruction” is “whole language” instruction in disguise; and (d) wrongly claims that its views of phonics are based on a settled science of reading.

V.

Compton-Lilly, C., Spence, L.K., Thomas, P.L. and Decker, S.L. (2023), Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What We Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading. Read Teach, 77: 392-400. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2258

Abstract

The recent dissemination of selective research findings related to reading privileges a narrow body of reading scholarship and a singular, unproven solution—teaching phonics. We offer a research-based correction by presenting two compelling bodies of research to argue that reading instruction must be responsive to individual children. While this confluence of complexity does not deny the importance of phonics, it highlights the significant findings related to: (1) the brain and reading, and (2) the systematic observation of young readers. We argue that reductive and singular models of reading fail to honor the cultures, experiences, and diversity of children. This confluence of research findings reveals an unequivocal need for caution as states, universities, schools, and teachers adopt assumedly universal and narrow approaches to teaching reading.

VI. (Relevant from 2002)

What I’ve Learned about Effective Reading Instruction: From a Decade of Studying Exemplary Elementary Classroom Teachers, Richard L. Allington, Volume 83, Issue 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170208301007

VII. (TBP 2024)

The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing, Dominic Wyse, Charlotte Hacking

VIII.

Megan Chaffin, Holly Sheppard Riesco, Kathryn Hackett-Hill, Vicki Collet, Megan Yates Grizzle & Jacob Warren (25 Oct 2023): “Phonics Monkeys” and “Real Life Reading”: Heteroglossic Views of a State Reading Initiative, Literacy Research and Instruction, DOI: 10.1080/19388071.2023.2271085

Abstract

Framed by Bakhtinian theories of authoritative discourse and heteroglossia, this study examines perceptions of a Science-of-Reading- based state reading initiative five years into implementation. Using interview transcripts, researchers engaged in polyphonic analysis to bring the voices of teachers, reading interventionists, parents, administrators, and state department of education officials into created dialogue. Findings from this qualitative study suggest there were contrasting perspectives about reading and the SRI, that many participants felt the initiative narrowed reading instruction and constrained teachers’ agency, and that, overall, there have been limited opportunities for dialogue about the initiative. Findings demonstrate that a narrow view of reading research may silence and delegitimize some stakeholder voices. This state’s goal of sharpening the focus of reading instruction led to instruction that was perceived by some stakeholders as narrow, boring, and meaningless, unlikely to create the statewide culture of reading that was targeted. Implications for this and future state reading initiatives point to the value of dialogue among varied stakeholders, which might allow for the idiosyncrasies of the teaching and learning of reading and writing to be addressed.

IX.

“It’s Just Something That You Have to Do as a Teacher”: Investigating the Intersection of Educational Infrastructure Redesign, Teacher Discretion, and Educational Equity in the Elementary ELA Classroom, Naomi L. Blaushild, The Elementary School Journal 2023 124:2, 219-244

Abstract

School systems have taken on greater roles in guiding and supporting classroom instruction by redesigning their educational infrastructure—the coordinated resources, structures, and norms that support teachers’ work and drive instructional improvement. However, teachers often adapt or resist common instructional approaches, citing students’ unique needs. Drawing on data from a qualitative, comparative study, I examine how different types of public school systems (charter, suburban, and urban) redesigned their educational infrastructures and how teachers used system-provided educational infrastructure when constructing their practice. I found that teachers experienced their educational infrastructure as providing both affordances and constraints around their instructional decisions, particularly how they responded to their perceptions of students’ needs. Despite differences in each system’s educational infrastructure arrangements, teachers faced a common challenge related to differentiating instruction in diverse classrooms. Findings suggest the need for educational infrastructure redesign efforts to include professional learning around asset-based differentiation strategies and culturally responsive pedagogy.

X.

Overwhelming whiteness: a critical analysis of race in a scripted reading curriculum, Amanda Rigell, Arianna Banack, Amy Maples, Judson Laughter, Amy Broemmel, Nora Vines & Jennifer Jordan (2022) Overwhelming whiteness: a critical analysis of race in a scripted reading curriculum, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 54:6, 852-870, DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2022.2030803

Abstract

Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to studies finding that culturally relevant pedagogy and curricula benefit students across racial and ethnic groups. This paper describes a qualitative analysis of the scripted Wit and Wisdom English Language Arts curriculum for grades K-8 guided by the research question: How might the curriculum reproduce a white supremacist master script? Following a quantitative analysis of racial representation across all core and supplementary texts in the curriculum, the research team used guiding questions grounded in a critical discourse and anti-racist teaching framework to qualitatively analyse teacher-facing materials at each grade level. The findings of this study indicate that whiteness is centred at every level of the curriculum in text selection and thematic grouping of texts, as well as through discursive moves in teacher-facing materials (e.g. essential questions for learning modules). Based on the findings, the research team suggests mechanisms for individual and collective efforts to resist whiteness-centred curricula at the system, school, and classroom level.

XI.

Maroun, Jamil, and Christopher H. Tienken. 2024. “The Pernicious Predictability of State-Mandated Tests of Academic Achievement in the United States” Education Sciences 14, no. 2: 129. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14020129

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the predictiveness of community and family demographic variables related to the development of student academic background knowledge on the percentage of students who pass a state-mandated, commercially prepared, standardized Algebra 1 test in the state of New Jersey, USA. This explanatory, cross-sectional study utilized quantitative methods through hierarchical regression analysis. The results suggest that family demographic variables found in the United States Census data related to the development of student academic background knowledge predicted 75 percent of schools in which students achieved a passing score on a state standardized high school assessment of Algebra 1. We can conclude that construct-irrelevant variance, influenced in part by student background knowledge, can be used to predict standardized test results. The results call into question the use of standardized tests as tools for policy makers and educational leaders to accurately judge student learning or school quality.

XII.

Social in/justice and the deficit foundations of oracy, Ian Cushing

XIII.

Rios, A., Matthews, S. D., Zentell, S. & Kogut, A. (2024). More being, different doing: Illuminating examples of culturally relevant literacy teaching. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 67, 283–293. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1329

XIV.

Reading research – beyond the media hype by  Noella Mackenzie and Martina Tassone 

Education, education reform, Educational Research, reading, Science of Reading

SC Should Avoid “Science of Reading” Fad to Address Historical Negligence in Reading

Update [1]

SC must not get caught in the revolving door of reading reforms | Opinion (The State, Columbia, SC)

SC must not get caught in the revolving door of reading reforms | Opinion (The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, SC)

SC must not get caught in the revolving door of reading reforms | Opinion (The Island Packet, Hilton Head, SC)

Legislators are again poised to address reading in South Carolina with “Read to Succeed” scheduled for a subcommittee hearing January 10.

I have been a literacy educator in SC for 40 years, 18 years as a high school English teacher and now in my 22nd year in higher education. My doctoral work at the University of South Carolina afforded me the opportunity to explore the long history of debate about reading in the US reaching back into the 1940s when literacy teacher and scholar Lou LaBrant raised a familiar concern: “A brief consideration will indicate reasons for the considerable gap between the research currently available and the utilization of that research in school programs and methods.”

LaBrant wrote just after a reading crisis was declared in the 1940s due to low literacy rates in WWII recruits, noting: “[W]e hear many persons saying that the present group of near-illiterates are results of ‘new methods,’ ‘progressive schools,’ or any deviation from the old mechanical procedures. They say we must return to drill and formal reciting from a text book.”

Eighty years later, journalists, pundits, and political leaders are announcing another reading crisis, the “science of reading” movement, and pointing at the exact same causes while offering the same solutions grounded almost entirely in phonics and going back to basics.

SC has been targeting reading for a decade through Read to Succeed, and yet, we find ourselves still mired in a reading crisis.

Let’s instead look at the evidence around us to close the gap LaBrant acknowledged.

In Connecticut, legislation has targeted reading mandating the “science of reading,” but now the unintended consequences are coming home to roost: “[T]he new mandate will cost districts collectively more than $100 million in the school year 2024-25.”

Even more concerning is this legislation bans adopted materials while mandating new materials, even for schools with strong reading proficiency: “CSDE ordered the remaining 68 applicants to either augment their existing programs or replace them entirely. These districts include New Canaan Public Schools, where 83.2 percent of their students read proficiently. Darien, Westport Eastford, Wilton, Colebrook, Cheshire, Ridgefield, Bethany were also denied in part or all together, even though their third graders scored near or above the 80 percent level.”

A recent analysis in the Harvard Educational Review reveals a similar pattern in reading legislation in Tennessee: “Since the early 2010s, Tennessee has had ‘a revolving door of reading reforms’—from the Ready to Read initiative in 2016 to the revisions of English language arts standards that in 2017 introduced ‘foundational literacy’ skills.”

Like CT, TN is facing a $100 million price tag, yet most of that funds purchasing commercial reading products not supported by science: “[A]lthough the new legislation overtly addressed changes in literacy instruction, it ultimately served to secure a market share for certain private providers of curriculum, assessment, and teacher professional development.­­”

This “science of reading” fad repeats the Common Core era of new standards and new teaching and learning materials—a cycle of reform that never achieves what is promised.

Often in SC, we pride ourselves on not simply following the fad, but in education, we have failed to do something different since the 1980s. Yes, we should serve better the individual needs of students as readers, but jumping on the “science of reading” bandwagon is taking the same path we have been traveling and expecting a different destination.

Regretfully, we persist in the historical negligence LaBrant confronted in 1942: “An easy way to evade the question of improved living and better schools for our underprivileged is to say the whole trouble is lack of drill. Lack of drill! Let’s be honest. Lack of good food; lack of well-lighted homes with books and papers; lack of attractive, well equipped schools, where reading is interesting and meaningful; lack of economic security permitting the use of free schools—lack of a good chance, the kind of chance these unlettered boys are now fighting to give to others.”

Legislators should resist the “science of reading” fad and make a different commitment to students and reading.

See Also

Cautionary Tales of State Reading Legislation: Tennessee

[1] Printed and edited version:

Legislators are again poised to address reading in South Carolina with “Read to Succeed” scheduled for a subcommittee hearing on Jan. 10.

I have been a literacy educator in South Carolina for 40 years, including 18 years as a high school English teacher. As an Education professor at Furman University, I’m now in my 22nd year in higher education.

My doctoral work at the University of South Carolina afforded me the opportunity to explore the long history of debate about reading in the U.S. reaching back into the 1940s when literacy teacher and scholar Lou LaBrant raised a familiar concern about “the considerable gap between the research currently available and the utilization of that research in school programs and methods.”

Just after a reading crisis was declared in the 1940s due to low literacy rates among WWII recruits, LaBrant wrote: “(W)e hear many persons saying that the present group of near-illiterates are results of ‘new methods,’ ‘progressive schools,’ or any deviation from the old mechanical procedures. They say we must return to drill and formal reciting from a text book.”

Eighty years later, journalists, pundits and political leaders are announcing another reading crisis — the “science of reading” movement — and pointing at the exact same causes while offering the same solutions grounded almost entirely in phonics and a return to basics.

South Carolina has been targeting reading for a decade through Read to Succeed, and yet, we find ourselves still mired in a reading crisis. Let’s instead look at the evidence around us to close the gap LaBrant acknowledged.

In Connecticut, legislation has targeted reading mandating the “science of reading,” but now the unintended consequences are coming home to roost: “(T)he new mandate will cost districts collectively more than $100 million in the school year 2024-25.”

Even more concerning is this legislation bans adopted materials while mandating new materials, even for schools with strong reading proficiency: “CSDE ordered the remaining 68 applicants to either augment their existing programs or replace them entirely. These districts include New Canaan Public Schools, where 83.2% of their students read proficiently. Darien, Westport Eastford, Wilton, Colebrook, Cheshire, Ridgefield, Bethany were also denied in part or all together, even though their third graders scored near or above the 80% level.”

A recent analysis in the Harvard Educational Review reveals a similar pattern in reading legislation in Tennessee: “Since the early 2010s, Tennessee has had ‘a revolving door of reading reforms’ — from the Ready to Read initiative in 2016 to the revisions of English language arts standards that in 2017 introduced ‘foundational literacy’ skills.” Like CT, TN is facing a $100 million price tag, yet most of that funds purchasing commercial reading products not supported by science.

This “science of reading” fad is a repeat of the Common Core era of new standards and new teaching and learning materials — a cycle of reform that never achieves what is promised.

Often in South Carolina, we pride ourselves on not simply following the fad, but in education, we have failed to do something different since the 1980s. Yes, we should better serve the individual needs of students as readers, but jumping on the “science of reading” bandwagon is taking the same path we have been traveling and expecting a different destination.

Regretfully, we persist in the historical negligence LaBrant confronted in 1942: “An easy way to evade the question of improved living and better schools for our underprivileged is to say the whole trouble is lack of drill. Lack of drill! Let’s be honest. Lack of good food; lack of well-lighted homes with books and papers; lack of attractive, well equipped schools, where reading is interesting and meaningful; lack of economic security permitting the use of free schools — lack of a good chance, the kind of chance these unlettered boys are now fighting to give to others.”

Legislators should resist the “science of reading” fad and make a different commitment to students and reading.

Education, education reform, Educational Research, reading, Science of Reading

Cautionary Tales of State Reading Legislation: Tennessee

[Header Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash]

Legislation in Connecticut[1] targeting reading that mandates the “science of reading” comes with unintended and expensive consequences: “[T]he new mandate will cost districts collectively more than $100 million in the school year 2024-25.”

Published in the Harvard Educational Review[2], research by professor Elena Aydarova (University of Wisconsin-Madison) offers an analysis of more than a decade of reading legislation in Tennessee[3], which serves as a cautionary tale[4] for reading legislation in all states, including the following key takeaways:

  • Approximately 3 out of 5 states have passed new or revised reading legislation since 2018, prompted by misleading media coverage of reading. For example, based on NAEP reading scores about 2/3 of students read at grade level or above; however, media misrepresents that figure as 1/3 (due to misunderstanding NAEP achievement levels[5]).
  • Claiming US has a reading crisis and blaming a lack of phonics instruction have a long and unsuccessful history in US and England[6]. Back-to-basics movements such as the “science of reading” have never worked.
  • “Since the early 2010s, Tennessee has had ‘a revolving door of reading reforms’—from the Ready to Read initiative in 2016 to the revisions of English language arts standards that in 2017 introduced ‘foundational literacy’ skills.”
  • Media and political discussions of the “science of reading” have no consistent definition for the term, often misrepresenting the current research, or “science,” about teaching reading. Advocates for the “science of reading” rarely offer sources for claims.
  • Like CT, TN legislation primarily funds replacing existing materials and programs with new (but untested) materials and programs: “In the first year of implementation, $100 million was allocated for the reform, with $60 million coming from CO VID-19 relief funds. Most of these resources, however, went toward covering the products and services provided by nonprofit and private-sector organizations.”
  • Key conclusion: “Although misappropriations of ‘science’ for political and private sector gains are not new in reading policies (Pearson, 2004, Schoenfeld & Pearson, 2012), this analysis of ‘science of reading’ mythologies sheds light on why the actual science becomes irrelevant in policy contexts.”
  • “Together, these symbolic substitutions revealed the parasitic nature of ‘science of reading’ mythologies: although the new legislation overtly addressed changes in literacy instruction, it ultimately served to secure a market share for certain private providers of curriculum, assessment, and teacher professional development.”

[1] Cost of Reading Mandate Could Top $100 Million in 2024-5 https://ctexaminer.com/2023/12/18/cost-of-reading-mandate-could-top-100-million-in-2024-5/

[2] “Whatever You Want to Call It”: Science of Reading Mythologies in the Education Reform Movement, Elena Aydarova, Harvard Educational Review (2023) 93 (4): 556–581. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-93.4.556

[3] See also: Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics? David Reinking, George G. Hruby, and Victoria J. Risko

[4] See also: The Science of Reading and the Perils of State Literacy Policies: Virginia’s Cautionary Tale https://ncte.org/blog/2022/12/science-reading-state-policies/

[5] See: Loveless, T. (2016, June 13). The NAEP proficiency myth. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/06/13/the-naep-proficiency-myth/ and Loveless, T. (2023, June 11). Literacy and NAEP proficient (Web log). https://tomloveless.com/posts/literacy-and-naep-proficient/

[6] Wyse, D., & Bradbury, A. (2022). Reading wars or reading reconciliation? A critical examination of robust research evidence, curriculum policy and teachers’ practices for teaching phonics and reading. Review of Education, 10(1), e3314. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3314

See Also

Bigger classes, program cuts: Making sense of the Minneapolis Schools budget deficit

2023, Education, education reform, Educational Research, existentialism, reading, Science of Reading, Writing

A Decade of Blogging: 2023 Overview

Spring 1980.

I am sitting in my dorm room of a local junior college looking out the window from the third floor of an ornate but old rock building. On that day, I wrote my first real poem, inspired by e.e. cummings’s “[In just-]” that I had recently read in my speech course with Steve Brannon.

I began playing with letter and word placement while watching students throwing a Frisbee on the dorm lawn, weaving the word “Frisbee” to reveal “free,” “is,” and “be”:

Winter 2023.

This has been my journey across five decades to be a writer. I could have never envisioned as a college student that I would in fact become a writer and that my writer life would primarily be grounded in a WordPress blog.

I start blogging reluctantly at my own blog in 2013, a decade ago. Oddly, 2014 was a peak year until nearly being matched in 2023, which saw almost 219,000 views and about 138,000 visitors.

Over my 22 years in higher education, I have gradually decreased my traditional scholarly work after authoring, co-authoring, editing, or co-editing almost 30 books and dozens of journal articles. Traditional work feels perfomative and hollow, to be honest.

Instead, I prefer public work, activism that has an open-access audience and may better impact how the world of education works.

My social media audience is over 10,000 and my social media traffic is consistent with hundreds of views per day resulting in 10,000-20,000 views per month.

In 2023, for example, my open-access work on grade retention contributed to removing grade retention in Ohio. My primary work on the “science of reading” has maintained an audience with much less satisfying outcomes.

It means a great deal to me to have this space to be a writer, and I appreciate even more my audience of smart, kind, and dedicated folk who often share with me the need to speak up as one avenue of activism.

The top 10 posts of 2023 include the following with links below:

  1. Podcast: What You Can Do: How ‘Sold a Story’ sold us a story ft Dr. Paul Thomas
  2. Which Is Valid, SOR Story or Scholarly Criticism?: Checking for the “Science” in the “Science of Reading”
  3. Open Letter: To Curriculum Coordinators in South Carolina School Districts, Diane Stephens
  4. Does the “Science of Reading” Fulfill Social Justice, Equity Goals in Education? (pt. 1)
  5. The Myth of the Bad Teacher: 2023
  6. Reading Programs Always Fail Students and Teachers
  7. Simplistic View of Reading Fails Children, Reading, and Science
  8. Open Letter to the Biden Administration, USDOE, and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
  9. Fact Checking SCDOE Science of Reading Infographic
  10. How Media Misinformation Became “Holy Text”: The Anatomy of the SOR Movement

While I remain primarily committed to my public work here on this blog, 2023 (and 2022) was a fruitful time for producing traditional scholarship that is open-access; let me share those again here:

Writing is a solitary venture with an urge to speak to a community beyond the Self. Often it is a lonely act, and too often, it feels pointless (we writers are also an anxious bunch prone to depression and such).

And it is now cool to relentless trash all social media.

However, the virtual community I have built over the past decade through the blog and social media is incredible and important.

My existential leanings allow me not just to survive, but thrive.

Remember, the struggle itself to the heights is enough to fill a person’s heart. In this struggle, yes, I am happy.

The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

Education, education reform, Educational Research, No Excuses Reform, reading, Science of Reading, Social Context Reform

What I Believe: Education Reform (and SOR) Edition

Many educational philosophers have set forth relatively brief “What I Believe” statements, such as John Dewey. Also common is asking perspective teachers to express their beliefs about teaching, learning, students, assessment, etc.

Teachers are disproportionately practical and often balk at discussions of educational philosophy. But I argue that if we fail to express and examine our beliefs in the context of our practices, we are apt to behave in ways that contradict those beliefs.

As well, many of the important people in educational thought are consistently misunderstood and misrepresented (Dewey becomes the caricature of “learning by doing,” for example, the simplistic project method confronted by Lou LaBrant); therefore, the need to state in direct and somewhat accessible ways exactly what someone believes can be important, especially in the context of public discourse and debate.

As a critical educator and scholar, I find myself often an alien in almost all discussions and debates on education, not finding a home with any mainstream ideologies. Folk on many sides accuse me of being on the other side, and much of the debate is mired in false assumptions and accusations.

Many years ago when I was speaking in Arkansas about my then current book on poverty and education, some nasty “no excuses” advocates significantly misrepresented me in Education Next. Despite the author admitting the characterization wasn’t fair, the false attack remains in the article to this day.

That pattern of false assumptions has repeated itself in the “science of reading” (SOR) debate in part because SOR as reading reform is a subset of the larger 40-year accountability reform movement that I have long opposed: Fix the students by fixing the teachers, and fix the teachers by fixing the programs they are required to teach (with fidelity or as a script); all policed by standardized tests (that we know are biased by race, class, and gender).

The problem for me is that I oppose both the status quo and that standard reform paradigm, and my position garners me false attacks. The position, however, is expressed well in a work I co-edited almost a decade ago: Social context reform: A pedagogy of equity and opportunity.

The description of that work, I think, has an excellent and brief explanation:

Currently, both the status quo of public education and the “No Excuses” Reform policies are identical. The reform offers a popular and compelling narrative based on the meritocracy and rugged individualism myths that are supposed to define American idealism. This volume will refute this ideology by proposing Social Context Reform, a term coined by Paul Thomas which argues for educational change within a larger plan to reform social inequity—such as access to health care, food, higher employment, better wages and job security.

Also in our Introduction (which you can read here), we included a couple foundational paragraphs from my blogging in 2011:

“No Excuses” Reformers insist that the source of success and failure lies in each child and each teacher, requiring only the adequate level of effort to rise out of the circumstances not of her/his making. As well, “No Excuses” Reformers remain committed to addressing poverty solely or primarily through education, viewed as an opportunity offered each child and within which … effort will result in success.

Social Context Reformers have concluded that the source of success and failure lies primarily in the social and political forces that govern our lives. By acknowledging social privilege and inequity, Social Context Reformers are calling for education reform within a larger plan to reform social inequity—such as access to health care, food security, higher employment along with better wages and job security. (Thomas, 2011b, emphasis in the original)

Mainstream education reform is in-school only, and it makes demands on individual students and teachers, seeks the “right” instruction, the “right” program, and the “right” tests. It feeds what I consider to be racist and classist ideologies such as “grit” and growth mindset because everything depends on individual choices, standards, and behaviors (poverty, they say, is an excuse).

Simply stated, until social and school inequities are addressed, in-school only reform will always fail and continue to feed the crisis/reform cycle we have been mired in like Groundhog Day since A Nation at Risk.

When I show that SOR is a deeply misleading and doomed-to-fail reform movement, I am not endorsing the status quo; in fact, I have been fighting the literacy and school status quo since August 1984 when I entered the classroom.

I don’t really believe, I know that US society is criminally inequitable for children, amplified by social class, race, and gender.

I also know that formal schooling tends to amplify, not ameliorate, that inequity—and one of the greatest forces perpetuating inequity is the education reform movement grounded in accountability based on standardized testing.

I also know that petty adult fights about the “right” instruction or the “right” programs is always at the expense of a much more important question: How can we serve the needs of each and every student both in their lives and in their learning?

The false choice being presented between the status quo and education reform is a distraction from the work we should be doing (a distraction like the manufactured religion in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle).

Both the status quo of formal education and the education reform movement are the work of authority, not the sort of radical change children and democracy deserve.

In the immortal words of John Mellencamp: “I fight authority, authority always wins.”

Recommended

When Exceptional Publicly Funded Schools Are Not a Miracle, and Why

Education, Educational Research, Equity, race, racism, reading, Science of Reading

“Their Remedies Are Part of the Disease”: SOR Erodes Equity in Education [Updated]

But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it.
Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism”

The current Reading War, the “science of reading” (SOR) movement, fits into the accountability era of education reform spurred by A Nation at Risk.

The reform paradigm includes rhetoric of “crisis” and “miracle,” and the reform itself tends to be legislation-based and in-school only with the focus of reform centered on students, teachers, curriculum/standards, tests, and instruction.

The SOR reform movement is essentially conservative (a subset of the accountability era best represented by education reform under George W. Bush [Texas, NCLB] and Jeb Bush [Florida]) and another “bad teacher” narrative.

Since the SOR movement has successfully prompted state-level reading legislation across the US, the consequences of highly prescriptive mandates and bans are being witnessed, notably the increase of structured literacy programs that are scripted curriculum.

The most troubling irony of the SOR movement and the resulting legislation is that despite claims among SOR advocates that the reading crisis disproportionately impacts minoritized and marginalized students (a historical fact of all aspects of education in the US for over a century), evidence is showing SOR-based mandates and programs are even worse for that very population, or as Oscar Wilde eloquently puts it, “their remedies are part of the disease.”

Consider the following posts and also recent research and analyses addressing how SOR is failing social justice and equity goals for the students who need that most:

My Posts and Scholarship

Thomas, P.L. (2023). The “Science of Reading,” Education Faddism, and the Failure to Honor the Intellectual Lives of All Children: On Deficit Lenses and Ignoring Class and Race Stereotyping. Voices in the Middle, 30(3), 17-21. https://library.ncte.org/journals/vm/issues/v30-3/32439

Orange: Teaching Reading not Simply Black-and-White

Does the “Science of Reading” Fulfill Social Justice, Equity Goals in Education? (pt. 1) 

America Dishonors MLK By Refusing to Act on Call for Direct Action (pt. 2)

Scripted Curriculum Fails Diversity, Students, and Teachers: SOR Corrupts Social Justice Goals (pt. 3) 

Research

Teaching Phonemic and Phonological Awareness to Children Who Speak African American English

Lessons in (In)Equity: An Evaluation of Cultural Responsiveness in Elementary ELA Curriculum

Amanda Rigell, Arianna Banack, Amy Maples, Judson Laughter, Amy Broemmel, Nora Vines & Jennifer Jordan (2022) Overwhelming whiteness: a critical analysis of race in a scripted reading curriculum, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 54:6, 852-870. 10.1080/00220272.2022.2030803

“Whatever You Want to Call It”: Science of Reading Mythologies in the Education Reform Movement, Elena Aydarova, Harvard Educational Review (2023) 93 (4): 556–581. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-93.4.556

education reform, Educational Research, Frankenstein, reading, Science of Reading

“Not enough science in the ‘science of reading”’?: Missing the Warnings in Frankenstein, Again

[Header Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash]

Science as a field or method is neither a neutral good nor a neutral bad.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein powerfully unpacks the moral complications of science in what many believe is the first work of science fiction (which perceptively and critically interrogated science in its early evolution).

Victor Frankenstein embodies the frailties and very human limitations of science as a human behavior. And The Monster animates the horrifying potential dangers of science conducted by morally weak or bankrupt humans.

Consider first the responsibility inherent in The Creator for The Creature (The Monster):

A rich theme running through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is responsibility. In a straightforward—even didactic—way, the novel chronicles the devastating consequences for an inventor and those he loves of his utter failure to anticipate the harm that can result from raw, unchecked scientific curiosity. The novel not only explores the responsibility that Victor Frankenstein has for the destruction caused by his creation but also examines the responsibility he owes to him….

Victor experiences the two basic meanings of the word responsibility. He creates the creature (he causes it to exist), and therefore he has at least some responsibility for what the creature goes on to do. As the creature’s maker, Victor also has both a duty to others to keep them safe from his creation and, Mary seems to be saying, a duty to his creation to ensure that his existence is worthwhile. We will turn to these two ideas now—responsibility for and responsibility to.

Traumatic Responsibility, Josephine Johnston

Next, think about the role of science as simply a tool of the scientist, too easily distracted by their own missionary zeal and hubris, and thus, apt to fail to ground their work in moral and ethical boundaries:

Victor’s crime is not pursuing science but in failing to consider the well-being of others and the consequences of his actions. I contend also that Mary’s great work is a tale not about the dangers of a man’s quest for knowledge but about the ethics of his failure to attempt to anticipate and take responsibility for the results of that quest. There is a strong link between Victor’s failure of empathy for his creature and the particular kind of hubris that allows for the discarding of other people’s lives in service to an ambition. This failure of empathy is closely connected to the moral cowardice of refusing to take responsibility for one’s actions or for the outcomes derived from one’s research….

He undertakes his research in a spirit of self-aggrandizement: it’s not knowledge he seeks but power and renown, and this ambition leads him to become far more of a monster than the creature he creates….

As soon as he achieves his obsession, he rejects the accomplishment, and catastrophe results.

Frankenstein Reframed; or, The Trouble with Prometheus, Elizabeth Bear

Science has a long history of being a veneer for human flaws (sexism and racism masked by IQ as a scientific measure, for example) and being literally weaponized for military conquest (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example).

The US has a baffling and often contradictory relationship with science since in one context many will reject solid science (Covid vaccinations) and then embrace another “science” in the unchallenged rhetoric of media and political storytelling (the “science of reading” [SOR] movement).

One scientist at the center of the SOR movement, Mark Seidenberg, not only wrote a book on the cognitive science of reading but also has testified and advocated for state reading legislation grounded in SOR.

Seidenberg now seems poised to retreat from The Monster he helped create like Dr. Frankenstein himself.

Back in 2020, writing with co-authors in Reading Research Quarterly, Seidenberg offered an odd confession considering his advocacy for SOR policy: “Our concern is that although reading science is highly relevant to learning in the classroom setting, it does not yet speak to what to teach, when, how, and for whom at a level that is useful for teachers [emphasis added].” [1]

And now in late 2023 after nearly every state has adopted some form of new or revised SOR-based reading legislation, Seidenberg seems to be in full and eager retreat (even as he continues to cling to misinformation about a reading crisis and garbled blame launched at whole language and balanced literacy); he admits there is “[n]ot enough science in the ‘science of reading,'” in fact.

This talk notes that the SOR movement isn’t the same as reading science and even states that the SOR story is overly simplistic and grounded in outdated research (some may notice that many of us in literacy made these same claims in the very beginning of the SOR movement, but we have been repeatedly attacked and discredited).

Now that SOR has “won” and the accountability shoe is on their foot, SOR advocates are laying the groundwork like Seidenberg to avoid any responsibility (sound familiar?); see this from Emily Hanford for EWA, who announced the role of journalists as “watchdogs” who must police the incompetent field of reading teachers:

Hanford encouraged reporters not to write stories two years from now with a simple narrative of whether science of reading failed [2], if test scores don’t suddenly skyrocket. Changing systems is hard, she said. 

Journalists, she said, have control over the narrative. 

“Keep your eyes on this one, and don’t let this one go,” Hanford said. “Reporters did, I think, largely turn away from how kids learn to read. And I think that’s part of how we ended up in the situation we’re in now. We get to be the watchdogs. We get to be the ones who can contribute to what happens.”

SOR is essentially the law of the land and drives what schools are adopting and implementing; therefore, all this backpedaling and caution are likely because the preliminary results are not very promising.

England passed sweeping phonics-centric legislation in 2006, but early research and recent PISA outcomes suggest the promises of systematic phonics for all students are misleading stories at best.

Here in the US, a working paper examining SOR policy in California also shows that claims SOR will result in 90% of students achieving reading proficiency is a story we are being sold (that study reveals about 1/3 of students reached proficiency, the same percentage called a crisis by SOR advocates).

SOR advocates have created a monster in the form of misguided and overly prescriptive reading legislation, a monster stitched together from a series of false stories about a reading crisis, reading programs and theories failing children, and reading teachers not knowing reading science. That monster also includes unrealistic promises that will never be met, and thus, SOR will lead to another reading crisis in five or ten years (just as the NCLB/NRP years led to the SOR reading crisis).

SOR advocates are already running, but they can’t hide.

SOR has many Dr. Frankensteins and many Dr. Frankenstein wanna-be-s who have all created monsters in the form of state legislation based on false stories but with “[n]ot enough science in the ‘science of reading.'”

This is their monster—and their responsibility.

[1] Seidenberg, M.S., Cooper Borkenhagen, M., & Kearns, D.M. (2020). Lost in translation? Challenges in connecting reading science and educational practice. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S119–S130. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.341

[2] Please note that Hanford has made a career doing exactly what she warns other journalists not to do—perpetuate a “simple narrative” about reading failure and the blame for that failure.

Education, education reform, Educational Research, literacy, PISA, reading, Science of Reading

UK PISA 2022 Results Offer Cautionary Tale for US Reading Reform

From the SAT and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the US to Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), student test scores tend to prompt over-reactions in the media and among political leaders.

Even Finland, recently the Golden Country for educational outcomes, now finds itself with the release of PISA 2022 facing headlines like this: PISA 2022: Performance in Finland collapses, but remains above average.

However, the best lesson from PISA 2022 for the US is England (UK), especially in the context of the “science of reading” (SOR) movement driving state-level reading legislation across the country:

First, for context, England implemented phonics-centered reading policy in 2006 that rejected balanced literacy and parallels in most ways the elements of SOR-based reading legislation in the US. Research on those policies shows that students have received systematic phonics for almost two decades now, but that outcomes have not produced the promises of that reform.

UK PISA scores in reading, none the less, rank below the US along with Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Ireland; as well, the UK suffered a large score decrease in the wake of Covid:

While how reading is taught, what reading theory is embraced, and what reading programs are being implemented vary significantly across these countries, they all have one thing in common—perpetual reading crisis.

In fact, since A Nation at Risk, the US has endured several cycles of education crisis and reform that often hyper-focuses on reading (notably the impact of the National Reading Panel in No Child Left Behind).

Yet, none of these reforms have fulfilled promised outcomes, just as we are witnessing in the UK.

PISA 2022 and England’s reading results, then, offer some lessons we have refused to acknowledge about reading and education reform:

  • Education reform that exclusively implements in-school-only reform is guaranteed to fail. The value-added methods (VAM) era under Obama revealed that teacher impact on measurable student achievement is only 1-14%, and NAEP data show that the most successful schools in the country are Department of Defense (DoDEA) schools where the inequity of children’s lives are mitigated by access to healthcare, stable housing, food security, etc.
  • Media coverage and political rhetoric proclaiming “crisis” have repeatedly misidentified the barriers to reading proficiency and teaching reading, and thus, have resulted in policy that doesn’t address those roots causes. As the UK shows, making promises that are not fulfilled only further fuels cycles of crisis and reform. Currently in the US, SOR advocates are promising 90% of students will be at grade level proficiency; however, a recent working paper on reading reform in California show only about 1/3 of students as proficient after SOR implementation, the same percentage that media has used to claim a reading crisis and a far cry from 90%.
  • PISA is a measure of 15-years-old students (see also NAEP LTT data), which offers a way to evaluate misleading short-term score gains that are more mirage than miracle. In the US, states such as Florida and Mississippi demonstrate that while grade 4 scores in reading can be inflated, that learning isn’t real, and by middle and high school, the improvements have vanished. Thus, there are no miracles and no silver bullets in education reform.

Whether NAEP or PISA, standardized test scores are less about learning and teaching but more about the incredible inequity in the lives and schooling of children.

That inequity is no crisis; that inequity is a historical fact, especially in the US where we do not have the political will to confront both the out-of-school and in-school influences on teaching and learning.

If we are concerned about the disproportional vulnerable populations of students who routinely test well below the many different criteria for reading proficiency—and we should—reading and education reform must start with addressing inequity in the lives and education of all children.

Reading theories and reading programs are neither the problems nor the solutions to increasing student reading proficiency.

The real reading crisis in the US and internationally is the refusal by those with power to read what test scores actually show us—and the failure to act in ways that can and will make attainable gains in the best interest of children, teachers, and each nation.

Education, education reform, Educational Research, Media, reading, Science of Reading

Media Misreads Reading Science (Again)

For more than five years, mainstream media has been obsessed with two false but compelling stories: (1) there is a national reading crisis caused by balanced literacy programs that rely on three cueing, and (2) the solution is the “science of reading” (SOR).

So it is no surprise that a working paper on the outcomes from a right-to-read lawsuit in California has prompting immediate high-profile coverage in The Hechinger Report and The New York Times.

Before I examine the paper itself, let’s remind ourselves of two foundational aspects of the SOR movement that is primarily media- and politically based.

First, The Reading League has established what counts as “scientific”:

Second, advocates for SOR instruction such as NCTQ promise that SOR policy and practices will result in 90% of students reading at grade level proficiency:

Reading Foundations: Technical Report

If we maintain the essential foundations established by the SOR movement itself, we must conclude that the working paper itself should garner no media coverage because it fails to meet the standard of “scientific” and that even if we consider the findings of the paper credible, SOR policy has significantly failed in CA:

Now I want to unpack why the paper should never be covered at this level and with such a positive spin by journalists (including within the paper itself).

The most important issue is that a working paper is not peer-reviewed or published, thus not “scientific” per expectations identified above:

About EdWorking Papers

And as noted by Barshay: “The working paper, ‘The Achievement Effects of Scaling Early Literacy Reforms,’ was posted to the website of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University on Dec. 4, 2023. It has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and may still be revised.”

Next, since there is a great deal of misinformation in the paper about NAEP and literacy, we should be concerned that the authors have backgrounds in social studies and economics, not literacy:

For scholars and journalists, not knowing enough to know what you don’t know can erode the credibility of research and journalism. This paper represents misrepresentations far too common in both research and media—misunderstanding NAEP reading proficiency:

Since “Basic” and not “Proficient” approximates grade level reading proficiency, NAEP data show that about 2 out of 3 students are at or above proficiency—not 1 out of 3.

Whether or not the US has a reading crisis and how scientific research can address reading proficiency in the US is negatively impacted by this simple fact: There is no standard metric for “proficiency” in reading, and NAEP along with each state sets the cut scores for proficiency differently.

Another misrepresentation or oversimplification in the paper is the failure to define clearly what counts as SOR as well as recycling oversimplified characterizations of whole language and balanced literacy:

At the center of misrepresenting reading theory and practices, this paper again significantly skews both what three cueing is and how it has or hasn’t impacted reading proficiency. [1]

The paper acknowledges two important points often misrepresented in the media: the Mississippi “miracle” is more story than science, and the last twenty years include research showing little to no positive impact from SOR policies grounded in NCLB, Reading First, and NRP:

Yet despite the high standard SOR has set for reading proficiency and the minimal gains shown in this paper, the authors slip into advocacy for SOR:

The paper lacks a clear definition of what counts as SOR (except it appears anything not including three cueing counts) [2] or reading proficiency, and skirts over that the policy implemented in CA includes far more than SOR literacy practices (suggesting any gains could be more from extra funding and other practices):

Media’s outsized coverage of this paper also raises questions about outliers and selective coverage.

The paper again notes a history of SOR practices not resulting in promised gains:

However, neither the paper nor mainstream media choose to focus on substantial evidence from England about failed SOR policies over almost two decades, and one must wonder why there isn’t the same media coverage for research on high-volume reading that has been peer-reviewed and published: The Effects of Bookworms Literacy Curriculum on Student Achievement in Grades 2-5.

The paper’s caveats also deserve far more emphasis than the findings:

Again, decades of research and contemporary examples from MS and FL have shown repeatedly that raising reading scores in the short term and early grades almost never continues into middle school, and thus are mirages, not miracles.

Finally, the paper represents two significant problems with so-called high-quality research in education: (1) using metrics such as “X [time] of learning” and (2) judging policy and practice in terms of “cost effective” (one researcher, again, has an economics background):

Finally, then, if we circle back to the standards and promises within the SOR movement, this working paper should not be covered at all by media (a working paper is more press release than science), but if anything, the results signal a significant failure of SOR practices to meet the 9 of 10 students reaching reading proficiency.

The media coverage of this working paper could be considered much ado about nothing except it will serve to continue the manufactured crisis campaign about reading that is ultimately, and again, mis-serving children, teachers, and the promises of public education.

[1] See the following:

[2] Since no standard exists for what counts as SOR practices, many states and schools seem to cherry pick what to ban and what to implement. For example, three cueing is often banned, but state and schools implement practices and programs also not supported by science such as LETRS training for teachers, grade retention, decodable texts, and multi-sensory (O-G) programs; see Teacher Prep Review: Strengthening Elementary Reading Instruction (NCTQ) and The Science of Reading: A Literature Review: