The Big Lie about the “Science of Reading”
While something of a Wild West frontier, inordinately dangerous for the most vulnerable, social media can be a powerful window into how we think about and judge education. Recently, the reading wars have been once again invigorated; this time driven often by parents and advocates for students with special needs and accompanied by a very familiar refrain, the “science of reading.”
One problem with public debate about education is that political and public voices often lack experience and expertise in education as well as any sort of historical context.
First, those who have studied the history of education, and specifically the ever-recurring reading wars, know that there has never been a decade in the last 100+ years absent political and public distress about a reading crisis.
However, one doesn’t need a very long memory to recognize that if we currently are (finally?) having a reading crisis, it comes in the wake of almost two decades (nested in a larger four decades of accountability birthed under Ronald Reagan) dedicated to scientifically-based education policy, specifically reading policy driven by the National Reading Panel (NRP).
The NRP was touted as (finally?) a clearing house of high-quality evidence on teaching children to read (although it proved itself to be partisan hokum).
This is all quite fascinating in the context of the current media blitz about CONTINUE READING: The Big Lie about the “Science of Reading” | radical eyes for equity
