[Reading-hall-of-fame] 3rd message of 3

Thu Aug 1 18:22:21 BST 2013

Diane Ravich in

 Valerie Strauss blog\

CTQ was created by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in
2000<http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2002/200205_tbfffiveyear/report.pdf>.
I was on the board of TBF at the time. Conservatives, and I was one, did
not like teacher training institutions. We thought they were too
touchy-feely, too concerned about self-esteem and social justice and not
concerned enough with basic skills and academics. In 1997, we had
commissioned a Public Agenda study called “Different
Drummers<http://www.publicagenda.org/press-releases/professors-education-its-how-you-learn-not-what-you-learn-thats-most-important>”;
this study chided professors of education because they didn’t care much
about discipline and safety and were more concerned with how children learn
rather than what they learned. TBF established NCTQ as a new entity to
promote alternative certification and to break the power of the hated ed
schools.

For a time, it was not clear how this fledgling organization would make
waves or if it would survive. But in late 2001, Secretary of Education Rod
Paige gave NCTQ a grant of $5 million
<http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2002/200205_tbfffiveyear/report.pdf>to
start a national teacher certification program called the American Board
for Certification of Teacher Excellence (see p. 16 of the link). ABCTE has
since become an online teacher preparation program, where someone can
become a teacher for $1,995 <http://www.abcte.org/teach>.

Today, NCTQ is the partner of U.S. News & World Report and will rank the
nation’s schools of education. It received funding from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation to review teacher quality
<http://www.nctq.org/tr3/consulting/docs/nctq_lausd_06-07-2011.pdf>in
Los Angeles. It is now often cited as the nation’s leading authority on
teacher quality issues. Its report has a star-studded technical advisory
committee  <http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/assessment_report.pdf>of
corporate reform leaders like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee.

And I was there at the creation.

An hour after this blog was first published, a reader told me
<http://thecuckingstool.blogspot.com/2010/05/disseminating-propaganda-national.html>that
NCTQ was cited as one of the organizations that received funding from the
Bush administration to get positive media attention for NCLB. I checked his
sources, which took me to a 2005 report of the Inspector General of the
U.S. Department of Education (a link in this
article<http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2005/09/more-corruption-at-ed.html>
leads
to the Inspector General report), and he was right. This practice was
suspended because the U.S. Department of Education is not allowed to expend
funds for propaganda, and the grantees are required to make full disclosure
of their funding. At the time, the media focused on payments to commentator
Armstrong Williams.

According to the investigation, NCTQ and another organization received a
grant of $677,318 to promote NCLB. The product of this grant was three
op-eds written by Kate Walsh, the head of NCTQ; the funding of these
articles by the Department of Education was not disclosed.

* *

5**

Acknowledgments from the 2006 reading course study

The full study of What Education Schools Aren’t Teaching about Reading and

What Elementary Teachers Aren’t Learning is available online from
www.nctq.org.

AUTHORED BY:

Kate Walsh, Deborah Glaser, and Danielle Dunne Wilcox

OUR THANKS TO:

RESEARCH ANALYSTS: Rona Abad, Elizabeth McCorry and Emily Cohen

DATABASE DESIGN AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT: Jeff Hale

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Colleen Hale

CONSULTATION: Louisa Moats and G. Reid Lyon

WITH PRINCIPAL FUNDING FROM:

The D&D Foundation

NCTQ BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Stacey Boyd, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ira Fishman, Marti Garlett, Clara M.
Lovett, Andrew J. Rotherham,

Eric J. Smith, Danielle Wilcox, Kate Walsh, President

NCTQ ADVISORY BOARD:

Steven J. Adamowski, Roy E. Barnes, Alan D. Bersin, Lawrence S. Braden,
Cheryl Ellis,

Michael Feinberg, Ronald F. Ferguson, Eleanor Gaines, Michael Goldstein,
Eric A. Hanushek,

Frederick M. Hess, Paul T. Hill, E.D. Hirsch, Jan Hungate, Jason Kamras,
Frank Keating,

Paul Kimmelman, Martin J. Koldyke, Wendy Kopp, Hailly Korman, Deborah
McGriff,

William Moloney, Eva Moskowitz, Robert H. Pasternack, James A. Peyser,
Michael Podgursky,

Michelle Rhee, Felicity Messner Ross, Stefanie Sanford, Kim Smith, Lewis C.
Solmon,

Thomas Toch, Joseph Wilson

Sumary of 2006  elements of Scientific  Reading instruction (headings only

■ Early identiﬁcation of children at risk of reading failure.

■ Daily training in linguistic and oral skills to build awareness of speech
sounds,

or phonemes.

■ Explicit instruction in letter sounds, syllables, and words accompanied
by explicit instruction

in spelling.

■ Teaching phonics in the sequence that research has found leads to the
least amount of

confusion, rather than teaching it in a scattered fashion and only when
children encounter

difﬁculty.

■ Practicing skills to the point of “automaticity” so that children do not
have to think about

sounding out a word when they need to focus on meaning.

■ Concurrently with all of the above, building comprehension skills and
vocabulary knowledge

through reading aloud, discussing, and writing about quality children’s
literature and

nonﬁction topics.

■ Frequent assessment and instructional adjustments to make sure children
are

making progress.

2006 study findings

FINDING No. 1:

MOST EDUCATION SCHOOLS ARE NOT TEACHING THE SCIENCE OF READING

FINDING No. 2:

EVEN COURSES CLAIMING TO PROVIDE A “BALANCED” APPROACH IGNORE THE SCIENCE
OF READING.

FINDING No. 3:

CHARACTERISTICS SUCH AS NATIONAL ACCREDITATION DO NOT INCREASE THE
LIKELIHOOD THAT AN

EDUCATION SCHOOL IS MORE LIKELY THAN OTHERS TO TEACH THE SCIENCE OF READING.

FINDING No. 4:

PHONICS IS TAUGHT MORE FREQUENTLY THAN ANY OTHER COMPONENT OF READING
INSTRUCTION,

SUGGESTING THAT IDEOLOGICAL RESISTANCE TO THE “PHONICS CAMP” DOES NOT FULLY
EXPLAIN WHY

THE SCIENCE IS BEING IGNORED.

FINDING No. 5:

MUCH OF CURRENT READING INSTRUCTION IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE SCIENCE.

FINDING No. 6:

TEACHER EDUCATORS PORTRAY THE SCIENCE OF READING INSTRUCTION AS ONE
APPROACH THAT IS NO MORE VALID THAN OTHERS.

FINDING No. 7:

MANY COURSES REFLECT LOW EXPECTATIONS, WITH LITTLE EVIDENCE OF
COLLEGE-LEVEL WORK.

ING No. 8:

THE QUALITY OF ALMOST ALL READING TEXTBOOKS IS POOR. THEIR CONTENT INCLUDES
LITTLE TO NO HARD SCIENCE, AND IN FAR TOO MANY CASES THEY ARE INACCURATE
AND MISLEADING.

FINDING No. 9:

THERE IS NO AGREEMENT IN THE FIELD ABOUT WHAT CONSTITUTES “SEMINAL” TEXTS

RECOMMENDATIONS

STATES

STATES NEED TO DEVELOP BOTH STRONG READING STANDARDS AND LICENSING TESTS
BASED ON THOSE STANDARDS.

MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATIONS

EDUCATION SCHOOLS THAT DO NOT TEACH THE SCIENCE OF READING SHOULD NOT BE
ELIGIBLE FOR

ACCREDITATION

AACTE NEEDS TO BE AN ACTIVE CHAMPION FOR THE SCIENCE OF READING, PROVIDING
PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHER EDUCATORS TO RETOOL THEIR SKILLS.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

■ ELEMENTARY TEACHERS SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO PASS A TEST IN READING TO
ACHIEVE “HIGHLY

QUALIFIED TEACHER” STATUS.

■ EDUCATION SCHOOLS SHOULD BE ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE TITLE II PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT FUNDS

TO IMPROVE FACULTY EXPERTISE IN READING.

TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS

PUBLISHERS NEED TO IDENTIFY LEGITIMATE EXPERTS IN THE FIELD AND HIRE THEM
TO DEVELOP AND WRITE BETTER READING TEXTBOOKS.

 EDUCATION SCHOOLS

EDUCATION SCHOOLS NEED TO BUILD FACULTY EXPERTISE IN READING

C

-- 
Ken Goodman
7814 South Galileo Lane
Tucson, Az 85747
520-745-6895

Use Google to see :
Ken Goodman's Morning post