Comments on: America’s reading problem: Scores were dropping even before the pandemic

By: Larry Hallock

Larry Hallock — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 14:42:41 +0000

What about home-schooled students? Presumably they had little or no interruption of classes during the pandemic. How do their reading scores compare with their peers in public school before, during and after the pandemic?

By: Greg Stab

Greg Stab — Thu, 26 May 2022 15:45:14 +0000

You have a so called reading specialist from Boston University who actually cites a curriculum that ” only focuses on learning to read” as a cause of poor reading skills. Anyone remember the 80s and 90s when something called HOOKED ON PHONICS became enormously popular? That happened because the public schools had stopped the proven and correct way of teaching reading, which was Phonics, and all of the sudden American children were not learning to read.
The sudden demand for Phonics instruction was created by the absolute failure of public education to teach reading and phonics instruction could only be obtained through a private company which parents had to use toh home school their kids.
The problem is clear and so is the solution. All these incompetent, self proclaimed ‘experts’ have removed academics and replaced it with hack psychology. Public schools do not teach academic proficiency, rather they teach behavioral outcomes and that right there is the problem. Period.
It is absolutely sickening that people who are so monumentally stupid are even involved in education much less running it.
The only thing worse are the parents all over this country who are obvious too stupid to figure it out and put a stop to it.

By: Ari

Ari — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 21:02:14 +0000

It seems to me that the educational leadership goes out of its way to ensure that the remedial kids remain remedial kids. It think that the comment below sort of sums it all up. If you’re serious, recognize that equality comes first – equal opportunity to engage in a challenging content rich grade level curriculum that is effectively taught. Upon the foundation of equality there will be a greater showing of equitable outcomes. The other way, the easy way, which today’s educators seem bent on doing is, lower the standards until everyone is equally unable – that goes for academics and for student conduct. The following quote was taken from the article above:

“We tend to take those kids and throw lower-level instruction at them,” Forzani said. “They get these rote phonics programs. It’s all focused on learning to read. They’re not having complex discussions about a text. At the same time, we’re also taking away science and history instruction where kids can develop knowledge and where they can put comprehension strategies into practice. We’re teaching kids to read in a content and motivational vacuum.”