Posted on 06/23/2024 5:37:11 PM PDT by george76
In Minnesota, 50% of students cannot read at grade level. If we were to apply the traditional academic grading scale to that outcome, the public education system in the state would get a solid F..
That abysmal performance was the topic of much debate during this term of the Minnesota legislature, prompting the Democrat trifecta to pass “the READ Act,” an effort to replace the failed “whole language” method of literacy training with traditional phonics education.
“Whole language” is an absolute joke, recognized even by many on the Left as a toxic methodology that fails students. In essence, “whole language” is guessing words. Students are taught to look at “context” to determine what an unknown word is, rather than learn the sounds which match the word's constituent parts. The result is fumbling and bumbling, guessing wrong, and not actually learning to read. Elements of the Left like “whole language” because it deemphasizes standardized tests and enables them to pursue “equity” via “assessment through observation.” They regard phonics as racist because of disparate outcomes.
But the proof is in the pudding. When 50% of your students cannot read at grade level, something is obviously profoundly wrong. And so, an effort to reintroduce “the Science of Reading,” which is basically just good old-fashioned phonics, has caught fire.
In Minnesota, this was ostensibly the point of the READ Act, to provide resources and training to reorient teachers toward utilizing phonics. The bill was passed in 2023 but saw setbacks in the 2024 legislative session.
It turns out that much of the proven curriculum in the Science of Reading is written by old white men. And the Left can’t have that. Maligned as “culturally destructive,” such a curriculum has been targeted for replacement. That means reallocating resources from teaching kids how to read to reviewing the curriculum for its equity value. Indeed, the mission of “equity” is of greater importance to these activists masquerading as educators than the mission of literacy.
As you might imagine, this hasn’t gone over well with parents, residents, and taxpayers. It’s another log on the fire of education reform demands. Self-described parent-centric school board candidates have been prevailing in local races, much to the chagrin of the public education establishment.
On top of literacy concerns, the “parent-centric” movement has been a response to broader diversity, equity, and inclusion infusion into curriculum and policy. Public education is completely out of control, and that’s not just rhetoric. Quite literally, voters in Minnesota’s so-called independent school districts do not control what is happening in their schools. School board members are hobbled by model policies from the Minnesota School Board Association which grant all real power to district superintendents, obligate board members to publicly support whatever the district does, and prohibit board member engagement with both constituents and the legislature.
For example, two school board members in the Elk River ISD 728 School District were censured by their colleagues late last year for such “violations” as holding town hall meetings and visiting legislators in St. Paul.
...
All this, the failed outcomes, the ideological agenda, the denial of basic political representation, have kickstarted a fiery grassroots movement to force reform. But the beast won’t go down without a fight.
Recently, school administrators in Minnesota received an invite from the Equity Literacy Institute to attend a summer training entitled “Surviving the Attack on Equity.”
Are you an educator at any level who is struggling to respond to and manage increasing resistance to your equity efforts? Do you need strategies for pushing equity efforts forward despite the resistance?
Consider what this confesses. Public educators, who ostensibly serve at the pleasure of the People who established their institution, are actively organizing to share “strategies” on how to “push equity efforts” despite public “resistance.”
In what other context would this sort of dynamic be acceptable? As an employer, if you learned that your employees regarded your instruction and expectations as “resistance” to their preferred agenda, you would fire them. Unfortunately, public educators in Minnesota know all too well that the system has been rigged to insulate them from any expectation imposed by the People in their district.
The good news is that at least we know where we stand. This segment of public educators, backed by outside institutions, regard their role as one defined by conflict rather than service. They believe they know better than parents, residents, and taxpayers what kids ought to learn and how. And they have chosen a militant path toward “pushing” (their word) their agenda. With that clarity established, there should be no holds barred by the People in escalating our “resistance” to utterly defeat them.
Kids in public schools should read Free Republic every day. They would quickly obtain literacy. The phonics would come about while arguing with others about the content.
Somalis with sub 80 IQs aren’t helping the average much either
Retired public school teacher here (not union). The first thing you have to realize is that half of everyone is below average. That’s just math, no matter how much people try to deny it.
The second thing is that current students lost 2 years of education (good or bad) from the Wuhan disease.
The third thing is that standards and expectations of students and teachers has been dropping for at least the last century. Don’t believe me? Go to Gutenberg.org and download or just read McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader and see what was expected of 6th-graders back at the turn of the 20th century. Compare it to what 6th-graders are reading now.
Something went wrong after the Founders.📜📜
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged” 👨🎓👩🎓🏫🏛️
I don’t remember what reading-education method was used in the public schools when my siblings and I were young, because all six of us had learned to read before the start of first grade. My mother taught us, using phonics.
I taught mine, by reading to them, with no formal program at all. They were all reading well by age 4. Primary texts were the Dr. Seuss books.
Well, reading to us played a large part too, of course. The older kids would also read to the younger ones, some, if the younger ones pestered them enough.
You’re being generous. Average is 67.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country
Of course, we could be getting the brighter ones.
bttt
I’m trying to learn Russian.
Learning to read a language in a different alphabet is difficult.
English is sourced from many different languages. One begins with phonics and works up to whole language.
In Spanish, pronunciation is fixed by certain simple rules.
In Russian, the letter that looks like ‘o’ has various pronunciations depending on if the syllable it is in is accented and where it is in the word. The letter that looks like ‘e’ has lots of pronunciation rules.
The pronunciation guide in Romanov’s dictionary is over six pages long.
Much has been lost in recent times.
Here is a reading of a transcript by Wyatt Earp on gun fighting in the late 1800s
You can tell he probably spent a bit of time reading McGuffey in school
Wyatt Earp on gun fighting.
A man in New York City was recently declared a felon for using the two words “legal expenses” when he paid a lawyer.
l
e
g
a
l
e
x
p
e
n
s
e
s
There’s more to reading than sounding out letters.
Why do you folks complain? 100% school choice for starters-cold turkey. Problem solved. The phone company broke up gradually over the years starting 1984. Same with the airlines in ‘78.
A total breakup of public schools in June 2025 would be awesome. Have someone tell all the teachers “You’re fired!” Guess who?
I’m trying to learn Russian.
Once you learn the alphabet, Russian is reasonably phonetic. But the grammar is a killer. And every Russian name has three or four ‘nicknames’ which might or might not bear any resemblance to the actual name. That’s what makes Russian novels so difficult, even in translation.
Good luck.
Ditto. I remember being bored in Reading in 1st grade because I already knew how to read.
Can these <90 IQ third worlders ever learn to read? Even in their own language?
I remember finishing off the second-grade reader on the first day of school and thinking, “OK, now what?”
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