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To me basic mastery of language arts, for example, means being able to read on that grade level, comprehend on that grade level, and master the various grammar concepts for that level. It may be different for someone else.

I am generalizing. And I understand that means I am off the mark at times. But a generalization is not intended to be accurate all of the time.

I agree with your definition of basic mastery. However, the standard for a particular grade level is often not much of a standard. And, I have seen some pretty good examples of smoke and mirrors where the schools show students doing up to snuff work, when in reality they are barely literate.

An example. Every kid that is so called college bound in Florida graduates with calculus and trig successfully completed. Yet 30% of these same kids must take remedial math in order to be accepted into the state university system. So, my question then becomes, how in the world can someone get passing grades in these subjects and need basic remedial math? The answer is that they are not learning what the schools claim they are learning.

I dealt with girls in my daughter's GS troop (my wife the leader) who were getting As and Bs in reading in the 5th grade who had minimal reading skills & had no clue how to sound out a new word thanks to whole word teaching.

I could go on and on. But I dealt with so many teachers and administrators in the school system that lied and cheated like hell to show that they had students meeting grade standards that I am very skeptical of official claims as to any kind of student competence.

I am generalizing. And I understand that means I am off the mark at times. But a generalization is not intended to be accurate all of the time. I agree with your definition of basic mastery. However, the standard for a particular grade level is often not much of a standard. And, I have seen some pretty good examples of smoke and mirrors where the schools show students doing up to snuff work, when in reality they are barely literate.

I have seen it both ways or actually any which way you can to put it mildly. Actually, you can see it a lot from any political entity wanting to make a political point or push an agenda.

I see somewhat the opposite here, but you are right in stating that it is a problem. I have to wonder if it might include some colleges not understanding the kids AS WELL as the schools FOR SURE. Of course, I throw in personal effort and responsibility into the mix too, not to mention other things.

I agree that whole language is a poor approach to teaching reading. YOU HAVE to have phonics, as they are the building blocks of words. There are a decent amount of generalized phonics rules that a student can learn in order to learn how to "blend" a word. Along with this, there are a few words like could or those with -ough in them that don't fit general words and do have to be dealt with as sight words. I haven't seen the whole language stuff around here in over 10 years. I imagine it may be used elsewhere though, though I do think in many locations some degree of phonics are indeed used. We did have a teacher trainer here say NOT to use phonics rules because there are too many esceptions to some rules. That I thought was bunk.

I could go on and on two as I have seen a LOT of different things from different angles. It's why I decided to DO something about it and get in there and get my feet wet so to speak. It's why I see miracles happen every day and have been witness to countless numbers of them over the years.