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

Wed Aug 7 20:37:56 BST 2013

Thanks for the addition ken. Especially working with teachers. I can
and will support this version. Sign me up!!

Pdp

Sent from my iPhone by P. David Pearson. Please respond to

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851 Euclid Ave
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On Aug 7, 2013, at 10:26 AM, Ken Goodman <kgoodman at u.arizona.edu> wrote:

> *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
> 7814 South Galileo Lane
> Tucson, Az 85747
> 520-745-6895
>
> Use Google to see :
> Ken Goodman's Morning post
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