John Thompson on Natalie Wexler’s Book
John Thompson is a historian and a retired teacher in Oklahoma.
He writes:
I have very strong, positive and negative feelings about Natalie Wexler’s The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System and How to Fix It. For better and/or the worse, the Oklahoma State Department of Education has committed to what Wexler calls science-based reading instruction and what many experts see as another push for phonics, paired with an assault on so-called “Progressivism.”
My big worry is the way that some of her hypotheses are being appropriated by privatizers in their latest attacks on public schools.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0735213550/theatla05-20/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-radical-case-for-teaching-kids-stuff/592765/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-radical-case-for-teaching-kids-stuff/592765/
And since former Chief for Change Janet Baressi, who pushed for the retention of 3rd graders based on their reading scores, is running for Congress, Oklahoma educators need to participate in an evidence-based evaluation of Wexler’s book and respond to many of her sources, out-of-state think tanks seeking to restore the test and punish policies we’ve repealed or made less destructive.
Surely we can agree that that corporate school reform CONTINUE READING: John Thompson on Natalie Wexler’s Book | Diane Ravitch's blog
