California Will Teach Kids Anything Except How to Read – WSJ

We also need cautionary tales, clear examples of mistakes and pitfalls to avoid. On education, California has stepped into that role. Any aspiring policymaker looking for guidance on sensible education reform should take a glance at Sacramento over the past half-decade and do exactly the opposite.

Most recently, under pressure from teachers unions, the Legislature killed a bill introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio that would have mandated the teaching of phonics. The bill had the support of both the state-level parent-teacher association and the NAACP and rightly so. A mountain of research going back to the 1950s vindicates phonics as the best way to teach young children to read.

The nation s schools have had something of a reckoning in the past few years: Millions of children struggled to read because schools followed pseudoscientific theories about early literacy. Now at least a generation more will suffer the same fate in California.

via www.wsj.com

Daniel Buck.

No doubt not teaching phonics is easier for teachers, and that’s the important thing.