CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Whitmer Stands Up For Reading Sense (GLEP Opposes)

CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Whitmer Stands Up For Reading Sense (GLEP Opposes)

MI: Whitmer Stands Up For Reading Sense (GLEP Opposes)

Of all the pieces of bad, dumb, abusive policy that have come out of the ed reformster movement, one of the worst is third grade reading retention. Michigan has it, and their governor wants to get rid of it. Guess who wants to stand up for it.

Lansing in winter; much like April in Paris

How did this damn fool policy get spread across the country? Somebody half-looked at some  research and said, "Hey, there's a correlation between how well a student reads in third grade and their later success, so let's just flunk all third graders who don't pass the Big Standardized Reading Test." This is bad policy for oh so many reasons. Let me count the ways:

* It confuses correlation with causation. It's like saying "We notice that students who have larger than size 5 shoes at age 8 are taller by age 12, so let's hold everyone who has smaller shoe sizes in third grade until they get big enough. That way they'll be taller when they're age 12." No, actually, it's worse than that, because the low reading level and the lack of future success are probably both related to something else entirely and that something else is what schools should be addressing.

* It assumes that for some reason a bunch of eight year olds are slacking off and that what would CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Whitmer Stands Up For Reading Sense (GLEP Opposes)