Principal: Congress gets it wrong again
My guest is George Wood, principal of Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, Ohio, and executive director of the non-profit Forum for Education and Democracy, a collaboration of educators from around the country. In this post, Wood writes about a hearing scheduled today by the U.S. House Education & Workforce Committee entitled "Education in the Nation: Examining the Challenges and Opportunities Facing America's Classrooms." By George Wood A while ago I wrote that I was disappointed that no one in Washington was interested in the wisdom to be found in our successful public schools. I put it this way, “Would somebody please explain to me how the success of my staff, and many schools just like ours, is no longer of value to a nation that seems to still want a good public education system?” Today it feels like déjà vu all over again.
When should kids be able to read?
It used to be that kids in the early elementary school grades were allowed to learn how to read at their own speed. Today test-obsessed public schools don’t offer that luxury; if youngsters aren’t starting to learn to read in kindergarten, and can’t read by the end of first grade, they are already behind. The new Common Core standards, which have been adopted by most states, say, for example, that first graders should be able to, “With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.” The second grade standard: “By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.” This flies in the face of research that shows that some students need more time to learn how to read, and that boys
