Letters to the Education Week Editor from Members of the National Council of Teachers of English (February 2004)

To the Editor:

In Kathleen Kennedy Manzo's excellent article, ""Reading Programs Bear
Similarities Across the States" (February 4, 2004), Christopher Doherty, director of Reading First for the Department of Education, concludes that "taking the nation as a whole," criticisms that this Bush legislation compels uniformity "are in the minority." He seems clearly unaware that many educators have been silenced because they fear that openly criticizing Reading First might jeopardize their job security or impede their school district's ability to obtain the federal funds, Similar fears have silenced administrators at the state level and staff in various educational and state organizations.

Over two years ago, when I began examining state applications for federal reading funds, I found that the Bush educational overseers had already constructed their procrustean bed for judging instructional proposals. Applicants did not need long to start figuring out its unyielding dimensions and thereby measure accordingly what to say and not say, what instructional materials to use and not use, what research and researchers to cite and not cite. Today, with school budgets ever-tighter, the enforced silence and conformity required of applicants who hope to obtain badly needed Reading First funds is ever-greater.

Perhaps this conformity could be justified if Reading First did, in fact, have the valid research-base that proponents claim for it. However, as detailed examinations of the data by myself and others have shown, "evidence" for the restrictive Reading First mandates is nonexistent. Furthermore, rather than a supposed expert "consensus"
for Reading First instruction, at the very least literacy leaders are divided over the prominence its key elements should have in reading education. For example, a recent International Reading Association survey found that literacy leaders identified decodable text, direct instruction, high-stakes assessment, phonemic awareness, and scientifically-based reading research and instruction as "hot" topics in reading research and practice, but over 50% of these literacy leaders agreed that they "should not be hot." Conversely, balanced reading instruction was "not hot" but the leaders thought it should be "hot."

Hopefully, the nation will begin to hear from courageous educators who openly expose the dire effects of Reading First and thereby help change the course of a growing catastrophe for many of today's generation of America's children.

Gerald Coles

(The writer's most recent book on literacy education is Reading the Naked Truth: Literacy, Legislation & Lies (Heinemann, 2003).)

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I write in response to Kathleen Manzo's excellent article, "Reading Programs Bear Similarities Across the States" (February 4, 2004). We literacy educators whose research and teaching focus on multilingual and multicultural populations are deeply concerned about the negative effects of federal reading education policy. The reality is that Reading First is an ideology of reading instruction rather than the product of a
"consensus" about how young children should be taught to read and write. A visit to the Reading First website illustrates the nature of the problem. The government's "Facts about Reading First" define "the challenge" of reading education and then offers "the solution." Aside from the simple arrogance of a government agency claiming to have found a monolithic solution the multilayered and complex sociological, linguistic, cultural and educational challenges in today's diverse society, we see the misuse of "science" to disguise the underlying objectives of federal reading education policy.

Ostensibly, federal policy provides a means for turning 35% of America's fourth-graders who, according to the 2000 NAEP data, read only at the "basic" level into "proficient" readers by grade three. This they propose to do by focusing on teaching the "basics" of reading, which supposedly these students have already mastered, without regard to the multiple reasons why readers are not reading at the "proficient" level in the first place. In our multilingual society, researchers in sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, second-language acquisition, biliteracy, and multicultural education have identified multiple factors that impinge on the literacy achievement of language minority students. However, researchers in these disciplines are not included on the Reading First review panel. In addition, the so-called scientifically-based research on which federal policy is based, such as the National Reading Panel Report, includes almost no research into multilingual literacy or the challenges faced by students who are learning to read in English as a second language. This is despite the fact that in California, as an example, 41% of the student population is comprised of children and youth who are or have been formerly classified as limited in English proficiency and are therefore bilingual learners.

Educational policies are schemes that govern access to society's fiscal, human and physical resources within a bureaucratic system. Policy initiatives and programs are not politically neutral, despite claims that they are based on "science." These policies are a means of achieving specific educational, cultural, social and economic goals toward attainment of certain outcomes. It appears that the federal government's goal is to homogenize our diverse multicultural society. We must all be gravely concerned about the current administration's heavy-handed regulatory intrusion into the spheres of decision-making of local school districts, which must be responsive to the particular
challenges, resources and values of their linguistically and culturally diverse populations. The inevitable result of a stifling uniform federal policy will be the inability of local educational jurisdictions to adapt to their sociocultural and linguistic contexts. This is a lamentable, but not unavoidable, consequence for our public schools, which for generations have been vehicles of equity, democracy and progress in our growing and changing society.

Jill Kerper Mora, Ed.D.
Associate Professor of Teacher Education
San Diego State University
Resident Director AY 2003-04
Mexico BCLAD Credential Program
CSU Mexico International Program
Website: http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora
E-mail: jmora@mail.sdsu.edu