Spot and Puff too.
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.
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.
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state of New York passed a law requiring prospective school teachers to take a literacy test to get their license, but repealed it the following year because 36 percent of whites, 54 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of blacks failed on the first try.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!!!!
All the methods uneducated teachers use need to be evaluated for effectiveness. Even the structure and setup of government schools need to be evaluated. They are based on the notion to create semi-literate factory workers. If the US is ever to be a manufacturing giant again then a factory workers need to be fully literate and highly skilled. A completely different approach is need for students going into trades, and yet another approach is needed for those destined for colleges and universities. This notion that everyone should go to college has wrecked higher education. The same wrong notion exists for the “leftovers” to go into trades. They are not leftovers. Cognitive ability, determination and desire all play a role. Quite accurately, a majority of any population lacks the cognitive ability to perform at the college level or in trades, regardless of determination and desire. Only borderline intelligence can be compensated by determination and a very deep desire to succeed. The majority not capable of success in trades and professions need a productive place in society, but that requires a different education than what most of had growing up. Lastly, approximately 10% of the population lack the intelligence required to do even the most basic of jobs. That’s the cut off the military uses in recruitment because extensive studies have shown those with IQs below 82 are not capable of doing the most basics of tasks without severely impacting the productivity of those around them. That’s where the 10% figure comes from. Schools haven’t found a way to educate them. Business hasn’t found a place for them.
I bought my kids lots of educational games, including games that taught reading.
My daughter entered kindergarden reading at a 3rd grade 3rd trimester level. They gave her a 1st grade IQ test because they didn’t have a kindergarden IQ test.
We avoided console games for several years.
We also recorded “Read between the Lions”. Great phonetic and entertaining program. I believe they are on Youtube now free of charge.
Other programs we liked were Steve Green’s “Hide ‘em in your heart” videos. Not phonetics, but entertaining bible based songs.
Spot and Puff too.
Seems like there is no end to the institutionalization of child abuse by the government. This is so sad.
Government schools are sort of like the EffBeeEye: they are mostly unaccountable for what they do. And it is almost impossible to get rid of the incompetent and malevolent performers.
We used a phonetic system (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons).
Used it for all of our children.
All of them learned to read and earned college degrees. In fact, one of them has multiple advanced degrees in ….. Education.
The oldest read "Ricky Ticky Tavi" to his first grade class, and even vocalized with a different voice for each character. The class was spellbound.
Teach you child to read. It is easy.
The next paragraph changes things significantly, I wish you had posted at least the first sentence:
Now Weaver is heading up a campaign to get his old school district to reinstate many of the methods that teachers resisted so strongly: specifically, systematic and consistent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. “In Oakland, when you have 19% of Black kids reading—that can’t be maintained in the society,” says Weaver, who received an early and vivid lesson in the value of literacy in 1984 after his cousin got out of prison and told him the other inmates stopped harassing him when they realized he could read their mail to them. “It has been an unmitigated disaster.” 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.