Teach Effectively!

In a column distributed by the Tribune Media Services, entertainer Garrison Keillor makes a clear pitch for teaching reading effectively and sustaining the Reading First initiative. Mr. Keillor, who has consistently supported politicians in the Democratic party, argues that Democrats should not discard the RF program on political grounds when there are children who need help.

And then there is the grief that old righteous people inflict on the young, such as our public schools. I’m looking at U.S. Department of Education statistics on reading achievement and see that here in Minnesota - proud, progressive Minnesota - on a 500-point test (average score: 225), 27 percent of fourth-graders score below basic proficiency, and black and Hispanic kids score 30-some points lower than white on average, and the 30 percent of public schoolkids who come from households in poverty (who qualify for reduced-price school lunches) score 27 points lower than those who don’t come from poverty.

Reading is the key to everything. Teaching children to read is a fundamental moral obligation of the society. That 27 percent are at serious risk of crippling illiteracy is an outrageous scandal.

This is a bleak picture for an old Democrat. Face it, the schools are not run by Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats but by perfectly nice, caring, sharing people, with a smattering of yoga/raga/tofu/mojo/mantra folks like my old confreres. Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy. When the grand poobah Ph.D.s of education stand up and blow, they speak with great confidence about theories of teaching, and considering the test results, the bums ought to be thrown out.

There is much evidence that teaching phonics really works, especially with kids with learning disabilities, a growing constituency. But because phonics is associated with behaviorism and with conservatives, and because the Current Occupant has spoken on the subject, my fellow liberals are opposed.

Read the full version of Mr. Keillor’s column in the Chicago Tribune, Salon (be forewarned that there may be a gateway advertisement before one gets to the actual column), or other sources that carry it.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Reading First Federal Advisory Committee. That I have pointed to Mr. Keillor’s column does not imply that I endorse or condemn the views expressed in his column. I’m only passing along the news here, folks.