Free Republic

Students are suing the state of Michigan and their Detroit-area school district for violating their "right to read." The class-action lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind, and potentially signals a new wave of civil rights litigation in the United States to enforce laws intended to boost academic achievement, education law experts say. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed what it has dubbed the "right to read" lawsuit on behalf of the nearly 1,000 students in the impoverished district.

Edward Yacuta felt rushed and nervous when he took a test to determine whether he was ready for college-level English classes at Long Beach City College. The 18-year-old did poorly on the exam, even though he was getting good grades in an Advanced Placement English class at Long Beach's Robert A. Millikan High School. Most community colleges would assign students like Yacuta to a remedial class, but he will avoid that fate at Long Beach. The two-year school is trying out a new system this fall that will place students who graduated from the city's high schools in courses based...

They've been called “Courtiers of the Marble Palace” and “Sorcerers' Apprentices.” But to the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, their law clerks are much more: sparring partners, workhorses and, often, extended family. Each of the court's nine justices hires several law clerks for yearlong stints, newly minted lawyers from top law schools who have impeccable credentials. The role of a clerk includes assisting the justices in determining what cases to take, preparing them for the oral arguments and helping write opinions. Now a new collection of essays, “In Chambers: Stories of Supreme Court Law Clerks and Their Justices” (University...

For more than 40 years, Mona McNee has been fighting the good fight on behalf of intelligent reading instruction. She is the author of "Step By Step" (a phonics program) and "The Great Reading Disaster" (with Alice Coleman, 2007, 335 pages), which chronicles the incompetence of the UK's Education Establishment. I always think of Mona McNee as the Patron Saint of Reading.Mona has recently prepared a booklet called "Why Billy can't read," which sums up her message in 30 pages. You can find a pdf of this booklet, and as well her free phonics program, on phonics4free.org (link below). Mona...

Willa Cather wrote an American literary masterpeice - so did Fitzgerald, Bellow, and Mailer - but Clancy's Red Storm Rising is just commercial junk. Take a university English course offered under a summary like "The American Novel" or "A Survey of American Literature" and you find that before the 1930s the great American novel was written by people like Mark Twain, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Henry James - but literary greatness after that period devolved to people like Philip Roth, John Barth, and Paul Auster. So why is the Life of Pi great literature and Cardinal of the Kremlin just paplum?...

[More about Sight-Words...] Your average criminal has a few aliases. It’s de rigueur in the underworld. But only real swashbucklers pass the half-dozen mark. Think about the confusion keeping your identities straight. Down South you’re Jackson Jones, but in New York you answer to Maxie Smith, however, guys in Atlantic City call you Lefty,” as in, “Yo, Lefty, still doing hits?” Which has to remind us of Whole Word, one of the greatest swashbucklers since Charles Ponzi’s business plan. This wise guy--I mean Whole Word-- came into the world as Look-say, with a few early aliases such as Word Method...

Sunday Mass Readings of Fourth Sunday of Lent: http://new.usccb.org/bible/readings/031812-fourth-sunday-of-lent.cfm Dearest Lord: Your royal instrument said, “Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up (to rebuild Jerusalem) , and may his God be with him!" Oh, we were born in iniquities, our nature, which was once pristine, is now defiled with infidelity upon infidelity. It is perpetually true that the loss of charity and sanctifying beauty of our soul always come from infidelity, the refusal to worship the Lord our God. You have given so much grace and strong foundation, the Church, to guide...

Marie Antoinette, on hearing that French peasants had no bread to eat, suggested, “Let them eat cake.” This quip perfectly captured the haughty indifference which many people attributed to the French monarchy. A few years later, she was punished for her hauteur: execution by guillotine. The famous quote was probably never uttered. Real or not, it’s a handy symbol for an arrogant elite, indifferent to the suffering of the people. When you read in the newspaper that the US has 50 million functional illiterates, the disdainful queen should flash into your mind.During the 1920’s, the American population was moving toward...

[MORE ABOUT READING, SPECIFICALLY, THAT SO-CALLED BALANCED LITERACY IS ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE LONG-RUNNING HOAX:] So here’s the deal. The same people who lied to us about reading for 70 years now want us to believe they are finally telling the truth. They said that English isn’t phonetic, that children don’t need the alphabet and the sounds, that children need only to look at words and memorize the shapes. All this was utter nonsense. They further said that if children didn’t recognize a word (which they typically didn’t as it’s hard work to memorize a word by its shape), they...

Gov. Scott Walker and the state schools superintendent unveiled a task force's recommendations Wednesday for how Wisconsin might ensure that every child can read by the end of the third grade, including testing incoming kindergarteners' reading proficiency, providing teachers with more training opportunities and holding teachers to higher standards. Walker formed the Read to Lead task force in March after reading tests showed Wisconsin students were falling behind students in other states. He and state Superintendent Tony Evers unveiled the recommendations at a public school in the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale. They called the recommendations an "aggressive plan to improve...

GOOD INSIGHTS ON WHY MILLIONS OF KIDS CAN'T READ. (A FOLLOW-UP FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN EARLIER POST TITLED "FAKE READING THEORY IS THE SLAVE TRADE OF OUR ERA.") The country continues to be plagued by illiteracy. The reason is simple. The country continues to be under the heel of some of the most reckless and reprehensible “experts” imaginable. They make little children memorize the SHAPES of words, which most little children simply can’t do. Ergo, these children experience major reading and cognitive problems.  Don Potter, the phonics guru and as well a teacher in Texas, recently sent me this illuminating...

May we never forget GOD! His wisdom, love, grace, mercy, peace, forgiveness, honesty, and humility. As well as HIS rebuking, reproofing, and correction through HIS WORD! LOVE TO ALL!

Fake reading theory is the slave trade of our era. Conscience demands that it be opposed. A hundred books, perhaps two hundred, have been written on the reading wars. Finally those millions of words come down to a few dozen. English is a phonetic language and must be learned phonetically. Whole Word, the opposing theory, is a mirage, without merit. The great sophistry of the 20th century was to create the illusion that Whole Word could actually work or, one step lower, that there was a legitimate choice between the two approaches to reading, as there is between fahrenheit and...

>>>THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED FOUR YEARS AGO. STILL A HOT TOPIC.>>>> The Vatican recently announced a return to the Latin Mass for congregations that wish to use it. Much of the world was bewildered or bemused. Oh great, old-fashioned religionists will be listening to sonorous noise that nobody understands. Ah, but what if they did! I believe the Pope’s decision is a great opportunity, both for spiritual enlightenment and educational advances. Perhaps I should mention that I’m not a Catholic or someone who goes to religious ceremonies of any kind. I write as an education activist; in that context, let’s...

A Los Angeles area elementary school is facing some major criticism from parents after the district invited porn star Sasha Grey to read to a group of first graders, according to a report from TMZ. TMZ obtained photos of Grey reading to the children at Emerson Elementary School in Compton on November 2 as part of the Read Across America program. Grey also tweeted about the experience, gushing that the students were the “sweetest.”

OUTSTANDING (& FUNNY) POST FROM BLOG YOU MIGHT NOT RUN INTO:: ---------- Curse you, "Sing, Spell, Read, & Write!" I've had a revelation. It dawned on me exactly when I lost control around here. It was when I taught my kids to read. See, it doesn't take long, once a kid can read, that he gets twice as smart as his parents. One day he's working his way through The Cat In The Hat, and a week later, he's making subversive messages with those plastic letter refrigerator magnets: "DOWN WITH OPPRESSIVE BEDTIMES! STOP THE TYRANNY!" And then they learn to...

A special education teacher wrote to me about the abuse of Ritalin. The teacher said: “My students are on Ritalin. This is a brain shrinking, top tier heavily psychotropic drug, as you know. The authorities KNOW this is their weapon for the most intelligent boys... ” The teacher believes this is a high-level NWO plot, which is not a road I like to go down. But the teacher got me thinking... Here are the two parts I’m personally sure of: 1) The Education Establishment in this country, for 75 years, has used bogus methods (i.e., Whole Word) to teach reading....

I am preparing a list for my children and grandchildren of the _____ (to be filled in) non-fiction books everyone should read. To date, I have only four, all of which I have read. In alphabetical order by author: Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species by Natuarla Selectin." Noccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince." Sun-Tzu, "The Art of War." H. G. Wells, "The Outline of History (1939 edition). For the record, I am a 70+ year old retired attorney, who has always been a voarcious reader. Criticism and suggestions are welcome.

Archaeologists believe they have found the first pre-Roman planned town discovered in Britain.It has been unearthed beneath the Roman town of Silchester or Calleva Atrebatum near modern Reading. The Romans are often credited with bringing civilisation to Britain - including town planning. But excavations have shown evidence of an Iron Age town built on a grid and signs inhabitants had access to imported wine and olive oil. Prof Mike Fulford, an archaeologist at the University of Reading, said the people of Iron Age Silchester appear to have adopted an urbanised 'Roman' way of living, long before the Romans arrived. "It...

Obama summer reading list leans toward fictionBy Alister Bull and Laura MacInnis Reuters – 8 mins ago VINEYARD HAVEN, Massachusetts (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, perhaps seeking a break from harsh reality after a tough summer battling the economy and Republicans in Congress, has picked a summer reading list that is long on fiction. The White House says four of the five books that Democrat Obama has to choose from during a nine-day family vacation here are novels. Obama's reading list -- like the criticism from Republicans for vacationing while the economy is stumbling -- is a rite of the...