Saturday, January 30, 2021

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity
Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement




SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement (link coming; original with hyperlinks below)

South Carolina is poised with Bill 3613 to continue the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.

Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing to learn to read.

Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger CONTINUE READING: Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity