Stacking the Deck for Private Programs

Never an administration to keep kooks out of the bureaucracy or to allow reality intrude upon programs, the Bush administration had a Phonics only moron heading up the Reading First program and they made it so the scientifically supported programs were essentially all programs from private companies. There’s a reason for this–whole language often requires teachers that are better trained to improvise. Because teacher quality especially in urban districts varies, phonics programs requiring heavily paced programs tend to be easier to demonstrate as working.  And so the private companies do better, but Districts doing well with whole language or whole language/phonics fusions are being pushed away from such programs.

It’s been clear for some time that neither program is the best for all students and most progressive educators have blended the approaches to provide different students the tools to succeed.  The administration hired a faith based believer in phonics to spread the one true gospel, however, and now everyone else is paying for it.