2005 National and State Mathematics and Reading Assessments for grades 4 and 8 are now available. Robert Tomsho takes a look at the reading results: Observers say boosting reading scores isn’t likely to get any easier, given the rapidly changing demographics in the nation’s schools where, for many students, English is a second language. Indeed, … Continue reading 2005 NAEP Results
It turns out that traditionalists and reformers were both right in their own way, but both were overzealous in their devotion to a particular mode of instruction and in their blanket dismissal of the competing point of view.
Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Study shows that Direct Instruction is successful, particularly with hard to reach students. The study is on-line at http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume18/Vol18no4.pdf Summary: Education That Works in the Milwaukee Public Schools: The Benefits from Phonics and Direct Instruction by Sammis White, Ph.D. A phonics-based teaching technique (Direct Instruction) is proving successful in some Milwaukee … Continue reading Milwaukee Public Schools Direct Instruction Study
Mr. Rainwater says, “We are long past the time that we can solve our revenue cap problems by being more efficient or eliminating things that are nice but not necessary (March 2005 Budget Discussion Items Report – basically, budget cut document). Without the budget, this is a scary statement. Sadly, a budget would show this … Continue reading Budget Hides Extras – Public Only Shown Cuts Not Budget: Current School Board Not Governing Budget Priorities
Diane Ravich It makes no sense to blame the high schools for their ill-prepared incoming students. To really get at the problem, we have to make changes across our educational system. The most important is to stress the importance of academic achievement. Sorry to say, we have a long history of reforms by pedagogues to … Continue reading Failing the Wrong Grades (cont’d) – Needs Better High School Preparation
One of the only bright spots appeared to be the Lewis Lemon elementary school. With a student body that was 80 percent nonwhite and 85 percent poor, the school recorded some of highest scores in Rockford on statewide tests. On a reading test, Lemon’s third graders trailed only those from a school for the gifted.
Lemon’s principal, Tiffany Parker, had accomplished all this by embracing a method of teaching reading known as “direct instruction.” Intended to address the needs of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, direct instruction provides teachers with scripted lessons, heavy on drilling and repetition, that emphasize phonics – that is, learning words by sounding them out…
In the last several months, however, Ms. Parker and Lewis Lemon have collided with Dr. Thompson and his agenda for reform. Instead of serving as beacons for what is possible, the school and its principal have been portrayed as impediments to progress. The superintendent recently transferred Ms. Parker to a middle school, and has begun phasing out direct instruction in favor of an approach known as balanced literacy.
In that respect, the battle in Rockford is a microcosm of the debate nationally over how to teach reading, particularly to at-risk and minority children. Advocates of balanced literacy – including school officials in New York City who installed it several years ago – insist that it splits the difference between the highly traditional style of direct instruction and the progressive “whole language” method that eschews phonics and spelling. The handful of pupils who actually need intensive drilling in phonics can receive it as an “intervention.”
In the academy and the pages of education journals, the dispute can proceed at the level of competing theories and studies. Telescoped down into a school of 400 children in a city of 150,000, the argument cannot help but be personal and emotional.
Barb Williams wrote: I’m glad Jason Shepard questions MMSD’s public display of self-congratulation over third grade reading test scores. It isn’t that MMSD ought not be proud of progress made as measured by fewer African American students testing at the basic and minimal levels. But there is still a sigificant gap between white students and … Continue reading Barb Williams: Letter to the Isthmus Editor on 3rd Grade Reading Scores
The WSJ Editorial page published a very useful editorial this morning on the Madison School District’s rejection of $2M in federal Reading First funds for reading improvement programs: Taxpayers have the right to ask why the Madison School District would turn its back on a $2 million grant. Read a number of other articles on … Continue reading WSJ Opinion: Reading between the lines of rigidity
This week’s Isthmus includes a damning internal assessment of Reading Recovery, “a remedial first-grade reading program considered a cornerstone of Madison’s school iteracy efforts.” “The district would be ‘well-served to investigate other methods’ to reach struggling reaaders, says the report.” One of those other methods will be presented Sunday, at 1:00 p.m., at the Madison … Continue reading Reading program not worth cost; Rainwater pledges that it will continue
Please plan to attend a presentation by two principals of Milwaukee elementary schools that use a curriculum that won Barton Elementary federal recognition as a Blue Ribbon school, the only one in Wisconsin: Could Madison Use Milwaukee�s Successful Reading Programs? Norm and Dolores Mishelow 1:00 p.m. Sunday, November 7 Madison Senior Center 330 W. Mifflin … Continue reading Could Madison Use Milwaukee�s Successful Reading Programs?
On Friday, October 15, Madison School Board members received an e-mail from Superintendent Art Rainwater announcing that the district will withdraw from a federal program known as Reading First. In subsequent interviews with local newspapers, Rainwater estimated that the decision means forgoing approximately $2M in funds for materials to help students in the primary grades … Continue reading Madison Superintendent Declines $2M in Federal Funds Without Consulting the Board
Wisconsin DPI just released statewide third grade reading test results: DPI Superintendant Elizabeth Burmaster’s comments: (6 page pdf) Sarah Carr: Still, at the state level, educators need to work on closing a persistent achievement gap between students of different races and socioeconomic classes, said Joe Donovan, state Department of Public Instruction spokesman. This year, 64% … Continue reading 3rd Grade Reading Scores Released
A new study of remedial programs for students with dyslexia shows “that more aggressive treatment can make dyslexic brains work the way normal brains do, activating a region that plays a vital role in reading fluency”.