Then and now

 

This morning,19.7.23, I read the following tweets

Secretary Miguel Cardona @SecCardona

 

Every student deserves the opportunity to have a career in what they’re passionate about.

That’s why we are raising the bar in education.

Education-Consumers @EduConsumersFdn

 

Every student deserves to learn to read proficiently by the end of 3rd gr after being in school for 4 years.

We don't need to raise the bar.  We just need to get the 67% of Students who don't read proficiently at the end of 3rd gr to meet that bar.

 

With regard to the above has anything changed in the last 100 years. 

A hundred years ago, a child was retained when found not proficient in any particular year, as follows:

1.        Maximum 3 years in year one

2.        Two years each in years two to four or five.

Otherwise, the child left school to the joy of both the teacher and the child.

In other words, no child is promoted unless qualified, while nowadays wherein a child is automatically promoted whether qualified or not.

Hence the art of learning to read is not checked until it is too late for anything to be done, therefore producing many more illiterates. And, not only that. Because of the shame of not knowing how to read, these children almost always become delinquents.

Instead of finding a solution to a serious problem there is bickering going on between the phonetics and the advocates of Balanced literature.

Why isn’t anyone interested in finding out what is exactly happening in schools teaching Phonics and one teaching Balanced literature?

The percentage of kids who leave school as illiterates under both systems is about the same for decades.

Why do we need to wait until grade 3 to determine the kids who don’t read proficiently?

100 years ago researchers said that every child can make progress when suitable instruction is provided.

More than 15 years ago the researchers involved in the children of the code said the same thing.  

Reid Lyon said that those who cannot read are instructional casualties. 

What exactly is wrongly instructed?

For how much longer are we going to say and do the same thing over and over expecting different results?