Prelude to the Past
Emily Hanford is likely the primary journalist associated with the current “science of reading” (SOR) reading crisis, based on her articles—“Hard Words” and “There Is a Right Way to Teach Reading, and Mississippi Knows It”—and podcast, Sold a Story.
Posted by the Education Writer’s Association August 16, 2023, Hanford made some prescient and problematic comments:
Hanford encouraged reporters not to write stories two years from now with a simple narrative of whether science of reading failed, if test scores don’t suddenly skyrocket. Changing systems is hard, she said.
Journalists, she said, have control over the narrative.
“Keep your eyes on this one, and don’t let this one go,” Hanford said. “Reporters did, I think, largely turn away from how kids learn to read. And I think that’s part of how we ended up in the situation we’re in now. We get to be the watchdogs. We get to be the ones who can contribute to what happens.”
Setting aside the somewhat nasty imagery of journalists being “watchdogs” for an entire profession of teachers, composed of over 70% women, Hanford suggests reporters avoid using the same approach she did to start the SOR movement—over-reacting to test scores of reading to make outlandish claims of a reading crisis. [1]
A bit on cue, I posted a mostly satirical piece about 2024 NAEP scores: The “Science of Reading” Ushers in NAEP Reading Decline: Time for a New Story. I also included this graph, correlating the SOR movement with declining NAEP scores (a parody of Hanford posting NAEP data in “Hard Words” that showed a flat score line for years, see below, but she declared a crisis):
And just recently, this was reported about New York reading scores: New York reading scores plunge on state tests while math proficiency edges up. Here is a key paragraph:
The drop in reading scores comes as state officials have nudged school districts to embrace the science of reading, a longstanding body of evidence about how children learn to read. New York City, which enrolls nearly 40% of the state’s public school students, has mandated sweeping changes to elementary school literacy instruction to boost student achievement. (District-level results are not yet publicly available. Last year, the state and city reading scores both increased by roughly the same amount.)
Let’s, then, consider how we keep making the same mistakes about reading, the same overblown crisis/miracle cycles that feed an empty reform machine that fails to identify authentic problems before imposing the same reform approaches repeatedly expecting different results.
Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition
The reading crisis of the 1990s was built, like the SOR movement, on manufacturing a crisis, but the villain was whole language and ground zero was California, where reading scores had dropped concurrently with the state adopting whole language.
The problem with the crisis rhetoric was that, once again, the evidence was ignored. California’s reading scores were likely impacted by declining budgets and a significant influx of multi-lingual learners.
In fact, several scholars debunked the media and political attacks on whole language:
Literacy Crises: False Claims and Real Solutions by Jeff McQuillan
McQuillan, J., (1998) “Seven Myths about Literacy in the United States”, Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation 6(1): 1. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/em9c-0h59
Whole Language and the Great Plummet of 1987-92, Stephen Krashen
Literacy at the Crossroads: Crucial Talk About Reading, Writing, and Other Teaching Dilemmas, Regie Routman
None the less, similar to our current manufactured reading crisis, the experts were ignored.
Thus, the year is 1997 and the topic, of course, is improving a failing education system in the U.S. Linda Darling-Hammond explains in the Preface to Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching [2]:
This follow-up report, Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching, seeks to gauge the nation’s progress toward the goal of high-quality teaching in every classroom in every community. It draws on data about the conditions of teaching that have become available since the original Commission report was released, and it examines policy changes that have occurred.
This report has five recommendations that may sound familiar:
I. Standards for teachers linked to standards for students....
II. Reinvent teacher preparation and professional development....
III. Overhaul teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom....
IV. Encourage and reward knowledge and skill....
V. Create schools that are organized for student and teacher success.
The list sounds too familiar: we need better standards for teachers and students, better teacher education, better recruitment of teachers focusing on high quality, better reward systems for teacher expertise and outcomes, and better teaching and learning conditions.
Yet, the report also offers some sobering information, reaching back to the seminal reform moment, the hyperbolic and politically motivated A Nation at Risk:
Over the last decade, reforms have sought to increase the amount of academic coursework and the numbers of tests students take, in hopes of improving achievement. These initiatives have made a great difference in coursetaking: In 1983, only 14% of high school students took the number of academic courses recommended in A Nation at Risk—4 units in English and 3 each in mathematics, science, and social studies. By 1994, more than half (51%) had taken this set of recommended courses.
Despite these changes, achievement scores have improved little, and have actually declined slightly for high school students in reading and writing since 1988 (see figure 3). [emphasis added]
Let’s look at that figure 3:
Notice anything familiar above when we consider the NAEP data Hanford includes in “Hard Words”?
Data are relatively flat in both cases, yet reformers and entrepreneurs declare “crisis.”
While this report concedes what research has long shown—the largest influences on measurable student outcomes are out-of-school factors (parent income, level of education, etc.)—the focus remains on teacher practices, offering a rare set of correlations between NAEP scores and in-school factors:
Here is where I want to pause to note that while no one has conducted even a correlational graph such as the one above—and no one has conducted scientific research to identify causal relationships—to draw conclusions about 2017 and 2019 NAEP scores and balanced literacy, this chart raises some key questions about the current “science of reading” claims about teacher education and the need for systematic intensive phonics (and not whole language or balanced literacy).
Note above that whole literacy practices and training on the right correlate with higher scores.
Over twenty years after this report from Darling-Hammond the U.S. has experienced at least two significant additional rounds of educational reform, one driven by No Child Left Behind and another sputtering one connected to Common Core.
Just as educational leaders were in the 1990s, we are left with the same data problems, notably flat or declining reading scores, and reformers and entrepreneurs can reach only for the same lazy policies that have never worked before.
The five recommendations from 1997 are echoed today by political leaders and “science of reading” advocates and profiteers, all bashing teacher education and teacher expertise while focusing on standards, tests, and programs.
And little to nothing is done about food and work security, healthcare, or class size—even though these conditions combined would dwarf any measurable impact of teacher quality or program/standards quality.
Ultimately, the “science of reading” and NAEP-crisis rhetoric are doomed because the Christopher Columbus syndrome (thinking you have discovered something that experts you ignore or marginalize have known forever) insures that one truism will remain true—those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.
Today’s reading crisis is that, back to the future of reading, a 1990s edition recast [3].
Notes
[1] See my series examining Hanford’s claims in “Hard Words,” claim recycled in Sold a Story:
Thomas, P.L. (2024, November). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: For all ELA teachers, “the time is always now.” English Journal, 114(2), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114221
Thomas, P.L. (2024, September). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The media continue to misread teaching reading and literacy. English Journal, 114(1), 14-19. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114114
Thomas, P.L. (2024, May). Teaching English in the “science of reading” era: We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: Selling a story of reading. English Journal, 113(5), 16-22. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113516
Thomas, P.L. (2024, March). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The long (and tedious) history of reading crisis. English Journal, 113(4), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113421
[2] Credit and appreciation to Diane Stephens, literacy expert and former professor at the University of South Carolina, who brought this report to my attention.
[3] Don’t forget the 1940s also: “What Shall We Do About Reading Today?”
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