The 'Reading First' Controversy

 

            The last thing anybody wants is for the federal government to dictate curriculum to local schools. But it's obvious that most of the nation's schools aren't teaching reading as effectively as they used to. If federal money is to be used to try to correct that, everyone certainly wants the tax dollars to go toward methods that work.

 

            What has gone wrong? Observers point to the widespread acceptance by educators of the "Whole Language" methods of allowing children to guess at words and "construct" their own meaning of text with more creativity and flexibility, rather than being drilled in the basics of phonics so that they decode precisely and accurately. Over the past few decades, most federal education grants directed at remedying reading problems have unfortunately funded the same failed methods that landed the children in remedial reading class in the first place.

 

            In any event, Reading First, the Bush Administration's multibillion-dollar federal program of grants to assist in reading instruction as part of the federal education law, No Child Left Behind, was supposed to be solidly grounded in what the empirical, scientific evidence shows is the best method of teaching reading. For an overview, see http://www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/reading/readingfirst.html

 

            But in the fall of 2006, an audit suggested that the U.S. Department of Education violated ethical standards to steer money how it wanted and, effectively, to dictate curriculum. The audit was by the Office of the Inspector General, an independent arm of the federal education department.

 

            The alleged method: "stacking" review panels charged with approving grants with people who one-sidedly favored phonics-only instruction over Whole Language. That allegedly steered grants to schools that used phonics-only curriculum. That's controversial, since publishers of Whole Language reading curriculum found themselves left out in the cold. Schools dumped the Whole Language type of curriculum in favor of phonics-only curriculum so that they could get the grants.

 

            What's wrong with that? It must be pointed out that other reviews of the Reading First program have found that the grants are indeed helping schools raise achievement. So it could be that the publishers who aren't sharing in the billions in grants given out thus far to thousands of school districts around the country are just suffering from sour grapes.

 

            In defense of the phonics-only curriculum, its supporters say it is one of the most rigorously tested teaching methodologies in the history of education. Among other objective confirmations, phonics-only reigned supreme in Project Follow Through, a huge and longlasting federal comparison of what reading instruction methods work best.

 

            Also see http://www.aasa.org/issues_and_insights/district_organization/Reform/index.htm sponsored by several prominent national education groups, including the National Education Association.