Posted on 08/17/2022 10:25:00 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a very structured, phonics-based reading curriculum called Open Court. It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers. “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.”
The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
It is time, indeed past time, for separation of school and state.
"Why do I have to teach them spelling and math...and stuff like that?"
Oakland Public School and Oakland Public School Teachers prove Oakland truly Hates Children.
the problem is that the school board didn’t fire these commies and tell the community why they were fired.
Points to one of the problems in education today.
My parents taught me to read at 5 years old using my Mom’s old Dick and Jane books. By 3rd Grade, I tested at the 10th Grade reading level. Because the test wasn’t calibrated to test higher than 10th Grade. I fail to see the point in this, unless it’s more Marxist indoctrination masquerading as “education”.
It is the kids. And parents of course.
Maybe the administrators if they are partly honest with themselves.
Teachers are just the hapless victims of this world. Good, hard working people doing their best.... to throw out what actually works because their goal is not to teach children at all.
Once you realize that, you understand why public schools should be shut down.
“It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers.”
Well, we seem to have swerved into the problem right there at the beginning.
Mao’s Little Red Book taught millions to read and indoctrinated them at the same time. The teachers have learned this example. Teach them to read and hate at the same time.
It’s really quite amazing. The schools in the 1870s knew how to teach reading. The schools in the 1920s knew how teach reading, the schools of the 1950s also knew how to teach reading.
So here we are in the 21st century and we no longer know how to do it. Very revealing that what appeared to be working for the kids in Oakland was hated by the teachers who thought the successful program was ‘colonizing’ and had it replaced by a program that is ‘fighting for social justice’.
Pick up books that were intended for children 100 years ago—Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson etc. and see if a 10 year-old has the skills to read it now. Or find a copy of McGuffey Eclectic Reader—they are online—and see today’s kids can read it.
“and see today’s kids can read it.”
If not, mission accomplished.
In 2017, the state of New York passed a law requiring prospective school teachers to take a literacy test to get their license, but repealed it the following year because 36 percent of whites, 54 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of blacks failed on the first try.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/nyregion/ny-regents-teacher-exams-alst.html
Regents Drop Teacher Literacy Test Seen as Discriminatory
By Kate Taylor
New York Times, March 13, 2017
The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.
The Regents also moved forward with a proposal that would allow some students who failed another test, aimed at evaluating practical skills like lesson planning and assessment, to be certified as teachers based on their grades and professors’ recommendations.
Together, the steps signal how much the Regents’ approach has changed under the current chancellor, Betty A. Rosa, after several years of efforts to raise the bar for entering the profession.
Under the previous chancellor, Merryl H. Tisch, the state created a set of more rigorous licensing exams. Among them was the Academic Literacy Skills Test, or ALST, which was intended to assess reading and analytical writing skills, and the edTPA, which requires candidates to submit a portfolio of work, including unedited videos of them interacting with students.
The literacy test proved challenging to many prospective teachers, but particularly for black and Hispanic candidates. An analysis done in 2014, the year the test was first administered, found that 64 percent of white candidates passed the test on the first try, while only 46 percent of Hispanic candidates and 41 percent of black candidates did.
Nonetheless, a federal judge who had found two older certification tests to be discriminatory ruled in 2015 that the ALST was not biased, because it measured skills that were necessary for teaching.
However, deans of education schools, especially those with large numbers of black and Hispanic students, disagreed, and argued that the exam was exacerbating a shortage of teachers of color. More than 80 percent of public-school teachers in the country are white, according to the federal Education Department, while a majority of public school students are not.
Others said that the exam was redundant, given the other requirements to become a teacher.
Michael Middleton, dean of the Hunter College School of Education, said in an interview on Monday that the battery of exams currently required of teacher candidates — four, in most cases — was onerous and expensive, and that eliminating the ALST was appropriate.
“We already know that our licensure candidates have a bachelor’s degree, which in my mind means they have basic literacy and communication skills,” Dr. Middleton said.
The state Education Department has said it will review another required licensing test, the Educating All Students exam, which measures teachers’ skills at reaching students with disabilities and those learning English, to see if it should be adjusted to also assess literacy skills.
The edTPA has not proved as difficult as the ALST: The overall pass rate is 77 percent, according to the state Education Department. But black candidates pass the test at rates lower than candidates of other races or ethnicities. A task force convened by the Regents, made up of deans and professors of education schools, as well as teachers and district superintendents, recommended recalibrating the passing score on the exam and allowing certain students who fall short of a passing score on the edTPA to become certified based on the recommendations of their teachers. The Regents agreed on Monday to move forward with that proposal.
Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said that eliminating the literacy exam because of minority candidates’ performance on it was the wrong response.
“What we are effectively doing is perpetuating a cycle of underperformance,” she said.
“People are showing a tremendous amount of weakness by just backpedaling because they feel like it’s the politically sensible thing to do,” she added.
Even before Monday’s actions, the Regents had backed off the tougher requirements, instituting safety nets that allowed candidates who failed the edTPA to try to pass an older test to qualify, and allowed those who failed the ALST to show through their coursework and grades that they had the skills that the test measures.
From the article.
“In January 2021, the local branch of the NAACP filed an administrative petition with the Oakland unified school district (OUSD) to ask it to include “explicit instruction for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension” in its curriculum.”
I wonder how that will play out.
In other words, it’s better for the kids to remain semi-literates with heads full of propaganda so these wanker teachers can get off on the idea they are promoting social justice. Yeah, it would be a shame for the kids to have the skills to read on their own and think on their own.
Just teach young students to read, write, and do arithmetic! The heck with all the “progressive” garbage!!!!
“One of the primary problems is that the teacher can barely read.”
And that generation of students become the next generation of teachers, and on and on. It’s like a Russian doll.
I agree about reading before I hit 5th grade. Bty then, I was delivering and reading the newspaper in 5th grade. Making bi-weekly collections and paying my paper bill.. With the exception of mom taking me to the credit union every 2 weeks to deposit my earnings and get a cashier’s check for the papers. I had a job at 9 y.o.
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