TLDR the post article is lazy trash but this is an actual problem being considered by serious people and many teachers have issue with our curriculum.

There is a serious problem with how reading is taught most places in the US. When most of us learned, we learned phonics - learning what sounds the letters made and how to blend them together to “sound out” a word. They literally don’t do that anymore.

A while back there was a push by grifters to change to something called “balanced literacy” which is complete garbage. It involves learning “sight words” and literally guessing at words by context. This method encourages students not be challenged but to be assigned to “read on grade level” with the theory that giving students challenging material will discourage them from reading. This works while books are simple and illustrated but every study shows student reading progress largely cratering after grade 3.

There have been articles about this change lately in many reputable (ahem- think NYT, not NYP) papers challenging this new pedagogy because it has absolutely DESTROYED kids’ ability to read. It’s now widely been discredited and there is a push to fully eliminate its use, but the cities are the most resistant to return to “traditional” methods. In TN, where it was scrapped a few years ago and replaced by phonics and other older reading methods, scores have improved dramatically over any other area, which continue to see declines.

Students can’t write because they are taught that spelling, punctuation and grammar are (I am not making this up) if not outright racist, systemically unfair to POC due to either large amounts of ESL or AAVE. Thus their work isn’t marked for this (these mistakes aren’t corrected and certainly cost no points from the grade).

This is, I think, the real reason for the push to eliminate standardized testing, from middle school to LSATS. Kids in high school who were subject to this now can’t read and the decision makers and for profit education materials company lobbyists are covering their asses on this.

There is a serious problem with high level union and administrators falling for this type of stuff to justify their inflated salaries and own ego. More power needs to be given to teachers to run their classrooms and engage children without new, difficult and untested methods.

I think teaching is a very noble profession and it is high time we start letting teachers have serious and meaningful input on methodology (for all subjects but especially early learning) and policy (including disciplinary) without then having to worry about “wrongspeak” or we will continue to use them as a human shield while big business and unelected bureaucrats line their pockets at the expense of children.

Source: have daughter, realized while the pandemic why she couldn’t read and taught her phonics, now she attends Catholic school after a lottery fiasco and is a total bookworm whose writing, spelling, vocabulary and grammar are dramatically improved.

I could say “not my problem” but… Education IS the great equalizer and there is a reason a public education is a right. I can afford private school but many can’t. Failure to change course on this will result in more kids being unprepared for college or even struggling in non-degree requiring occupations. Is is a national emergency IMO and we should be sounding the alarm as loudly as possible that we are setting kids- especially poor and ESL kids- up for failure.

So, I volunteer at a family literacy clinic where families, often immigrants whose parents’ English reading skills are rudimentary, come for reading and math help. A group works with parents and another with kids (5-13, with most around 10) on reading and math skills. Many of us (some, frustrated teachers) are elder millennials or young GenX and teach using phonics. The kids make a ton of progress and parents have thanked us for teaching them how to sound things out because halfway through elementary school their kids had not been taught this.

I lean a bit more conservative than this sub (I’m center-left, so my extended suburban family thinks I’m a card carrying full communist) but in reality I’m just a parent who did very well largely because of my love of reading, and wants my and all kids in the city to have the same advantage. The NYP is right here for the wrong reason- no context, no background- utter laziness. But if you are interested check out Karen Vaites on twitter who is a literacy advocate here in NY who is pushing for change from within the left.