Commentary: Why Johnny can’t read — 100 years of teaching without phonics Minnesota reading scores will remain dismal, and the gap between African Americans and Latinos and whites will persist, until our schools adopt systematic pure phonics to teach our children to read. The Minnesota Department of Education just released test scores for 2022. More than 50% of Minnesota third-graders didn’t pass the state reading test. Over 70% of African-American third-graders didn’t pass. Eighty-five percent of African-American third-graders in Minneapolis Public Schools didn’t pass. How did this happen? Because a majority of our schools still do not truly embrace systematic...
