Paul Thomas was a teacher in South Carolina for many years; he is now a professor of education at Furman University. He believes that the movement to mandate “the science of reading” is a fraud, as is the so-called “Mississippi Miracle.” The key to the alleged miracle, he says, is holding back third-graders with low reading scores. That is the magic bullet, not the reading curriculum.

In this post, he compares the claims for SOR with research.

He writes:

Journalists and politicians are both drawn to and depend on compelling stories.

Regretfully, whether or not those stories are factually true is less and less important, and in some cases, what makes the stories compelling is over-simplification while the truth is complicated or often not clearly defined.

The stories told about education have a long history of being trapped in compelling but false claims. Currently, the most popular and compelling education story is about reading proficiency among US students; this story is grounded in a very compelling story about reading reform in Mississippi, identified as reform labeled the “science of reading.”

The repetition of the so-called Mississippi “miracle” has occurred dozens of times since 2019—and here are just two of the most recent:

•Rahm Emanuel on Twitter:

•And yet another article in The New York Times: How Mississippi Transformed Its Schools From Worst to Best.

Everything about the Mississippi story fits perfectly into the larger stories that Americans love.

So there is now a recurring accusatory question: If high-poverty poverty state with a large proportion of Black students can radically improve reading proficiency among their students, why don’t all states adopt that policy?

From that, it gets uglier because the implication and direct accusations that follow are damning: The education establishment, bolstered by teachers unions, simply don’t think poor and Black students can learn; the education establishment uses poverty as an excuse and will not let go of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Throughout the stories being told about reading, teachers, and education, there is a discouraging pattern: The stories are not supported by the evidence (ironically, the stories behind the “science of reading” lack scientific research), and in many cases, the evidence contradicts the story being told.

Is poverty an excuse for student achievement and is teacher quality/knowledge a major reason students underachieve?

Poverty, inequity, and other out-of-school factors are the primary cause factors in measurable student achievement (test scores), accounting for 60% or more of those scores.

Teacher quality impacts measurable student achievement at rates of about 1-14%.

Research:

If you want to read the research that directly contradicts the received wisdom about how to teach reading, open the link.