[Reading-hall-of-fame] final statementon NCTQ

[Ken Goodman]

*Colleagues:*

*This is the final version of this statement with thanks to suggestons for
revision to several who have signed. I promise to not bother you again, all
who wish to add their names are welcome. My intention is to send this to
the media who are likely to be interested..*

*Ken Goodman*

*A statement from members of the Reading Hall of Fame on the report of the *
*National Council on Teacher Quality**

As elected members of the Reading Hall of Fame with broad and diverse
perspectives on reading and reading instruction we want to raise strong
objections to key aspects of the NCTQ report on teacher preparation
programs.

1.     NCTQ was founded by the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation[i]<file:///C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/A%20statement%20from%20members%20of%20the%20Reading%20Hall%20of%20Fame%20on%20the%20National%20Council%20on%20Teacher%20Quality.docx#_edn1>to
*“**provide an alternative national voice to existing teacher organizations
and to build the case for a comprehensive reform agenda that would
challenge the current structure and regulation of the profession.”* NCTQ
would control the education of teachers by asserting its authority to rate
teacher education.[ii]<file:///C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/A%20statement%20from%20members%20of%20the%20Reading%20Hall%20of%20Fame%20on%20the%20National%20Council%20on%20Teacher%20Quality.docx#_edn2>Teacher
education programs are now regulated by state certification and
state education agencies and by their university administrators. They also
comply with standards of their professional associations. NCTQ seeks to
insert itself above these authorities.

2.     To achieve that end they frame “existing teacher organizations” as
vested interests opposed to reform.

*3.     *This attempt to control teacher education follows the attempt to
control schools through NCLB and Reading First. Reading first, a major part
of NCLB mandated a narrow direct instruction phonics curriculum and method.
 And it banned whole language. That has been the law since 2001 and it has
not improved reading comprehension and it has certainly not improved
schools.[iii]<file:///C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/A%20statement%20from%20members%20of%20the%20Reading%20Hall%20of%20Fame%20on%20the%20National%20Council%20on%20Teacher%20Quality.docx#_edn3>.(Gamse,
et al., 2008),**

4.     NCTQ, with the advice or Reid Lyon and Lousia Moats, key players in
Reading First, asserts that the National Reading Panel provided the answers
to, “*man**y fundamental **edu**cational questions*” establishing a single
scientific reading method.

5.     So with one stroke NCTQ limits the teaching of reading to teaching
the “scientific “ reading program, the same one which failed for 13 years
in NCLB and it limits teacher education programs to training teachers in
this one true method.

And who needs reading research if the fundamental questions are already
answered?

6.     NCTQ has rated teacher education programs through rating their
courses in teaching beginning reading repeating the tactic used in NCLB’s
Reading First mandates that there are two approaches to teaching reading:
the scientific approach (direct instruction phonics) and everything else.

7.      NCTQ’S assertion that “*teacher educators choose **to train
candidates in “whole language” methods rather than scientifically-based r
eading instruction*” indicates that NCTQ’s evaluators had so broad a
definition of whole language that it is anything other than what NCTQ would
mandate. After thirteen years they are still claiming that schools are
failing because of whole language.

8.     NCTQ would deskill teachers: they would be “trained” as technicians
with limited knowledge and authority by teacher educators constrained to a
single “scientific” method of reading instruction.

9.     The texts authored by over 60 members of the Reading Hall of Fame
were listed as unacceptable by NCTQ. Few were rated acceptable. The issue
is not our texts. It is that anyone or any group can impose their judgment
and become arbiters of books or methods.

10.   NCTQ ridicules the view that prospective teachers should confront
their attitudes toward “race, class, language and culture” in their teacher
education programs. This is but one example of the NCTQ view that reading
is an autonomous skill that can be taught out of context without regard for
who the learners are and what they are asked to read.

11.  NCTQ sees “Academic Freedom run amok” in teacher education. Yet the
concept was created to protect teachers and other academics from just the
sort of political interference in their teaching and research NCTQ is
attempting.

As professionals in the field of literacy education, we understand,
appreciate, and accept the responsibility for improving teacher education.
 Our teachers need to know much more about the processes and practices of
reading, writing, and thinking.  To that end, we commit ourselves
individually and collectively to promoting broader and deeper knowledge of
literacy processes and practices.  In contrast, however, to the message of
NCTQ, we will accomplish these improvements not by tearing down, but
respecting dedicated teachers and by building with them, on the rich
knowledge base for literacy that has taken so long to develop.

 *This statement represents those members signed below and should not be
construed as an official position of the Reading Hall of Fame

 Please respond to Kgoodman at .arizona.edu by August 7, 2013.

Members signing this statement (Affiliation for identification only)

Kenneth S Goodman     Professor emeritus University of Arizona

James Hoffman             Professor University of Texas

Jane Hanson                 Professor Emerita University of Virginia, Team
member, Central Virginia Writing Project

Richard Vacca               Professor Emeritus Kent State University

Richard Allington           Professor University of Tennessee

Yetta M Goodman         Regents Professor emerita University of Arizona

Brian Cambourne          Professor Wollongong University Austrailia

David Olson                   University Professor Emeritus OISE/University
of Toronto

Dorothy Watson             Professor Emeriita University of Missouri ,
Columbia

Carl Braun                      Professor emeritus University of Calgary,
Alberta Canada

Denny Taylor                 Professor Emerita, Hofstra University

Donald Leu                    Professor University of Connecticut

Patrick Shannon            Professor Pennsylvania Sate University

P. David Pearson          Professor University of California, Berkeley

Robert Calfee                Professor Emeritus on Recall, Stanford
University







------------------------------

<file:///C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/A%20statement%20from%20members%20of%20the%20Reading%20Hall%20of%20Fame%20on%20the%20National%20Council%20on%20Teacher%20Quality.docx#_ednref1>I
Ravich, Diane says: “NCTQ 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… TBF established
NCTQ as a new entity to promote alternative certification and to break the
power of the hated ed schools.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-what-is-nctq-and-why-you-should-know/2012/05/23/gJQAg7CrlU_blog.html

[ii]<file:///C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/A%20statement%20from%20members%20of%20the%20Reading%20Hall%20of%20Fame%20on%20the%20National%20Council%20on%20Teacher%20Quality.docx#_ednref2>
Teacher Prep Review (2003)P 93

[iii]<file:///C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/A%20statement%20from%20members%20of%20the%20Reading%20Hall%20of%20Fame%20on%20the%20National%20Council%20on%20Teacher%20Quality.docx#_ednref3>
Calfee,R
(In press)Knowledge, Evidence, and Faith: How the Federal Government Used
Science to Take Over Public Schools in Goodman,K, R.Calfee and Y Goodman
Whose Knowledge Counts in Government Literacy Policies (Routledge 2014)

-- 
Ken Goodman
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