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NEPC: There Is No “Science” in the “Science of Reading”

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2024 //
27

The National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado posted a summary of research about the current “Science of Reading” fad, which finds that the “science” is missing. SoR has turned into another “miracle cure” that is being imposed and mandated by legislatures, anticipating a dramatic result in which “no child is left behind.”

NEPC reports:

What’s scientific about the “science of reading?”

Not much, according to NEPC Fellow Elena Aydarova of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as explained in a recent article published in the peer-refereed Harvard Educational Review. In fact, she warns that legislators are using science-of-reading legislation to distract from more serious approaches to addressing students’ needs.

Using an “anthropology of policy approach,” Aydarova zeroes in on legislative debates surrounding science of reading (SOR) reforms that have swept the nation in the past half decade. As of July 2022, 29 states and the District of Columbia had adopted this approach, Aydarova writes.

Aydarova closely examines Tennessee’s Literacy Success Act (LSA). She analyses videos of legislative meetings and debates, stakeholder interviews, and examinations of bills, policy reports, media coverage, and other documents associated with the LSA, which was passed in 2021.

This SOR bill was first introduced in 2020. As the bill underwent revisions, the phrase “science of reading” was substituted with “foundational literacy skills” to describe the same content: “Across contexts and artifacts produced by various actors, the meanings of ‘science of reading’ shifted and were frequently replaced with new signs, such as ‘foundational literacy skills,’ ‘phonics,’ and others.”

Aydarova finds little evidence that advocates, intermediaries, or legislators grounded their support in anything resembling scientific evidence. Instead, “science of reading” becomes a catch-all phrase representing a grab bag of priorities and beliefs: “[I]n advocates’ testimonies and in legislative deliberations, neuroscience as SOR’s foundational element was reduced to vague references to ‘brain’ and was often accompanied by casual excuses that speakers did not know what ‘it all’ meant.”

Motivations for supporting SOR reforms range from commercial to ideological. For instance, Aydarova notes that after the passage of The Literacy Success Act in 2021, nearly half of Tennessee’s school districts adopted curricula promoted by the Knowledge Matters Campaign. This campaign, supported by curriculum companies such as Amplify and wealthy backers such as the Charles Koch Foundation, added SOR wording to its marketing effort as the curriculum it had originally supported fell out of favor due to its association with Common Core State Standards, which had become politically unpopular in many states.

As the SOR bill reached the legislative floor, “science” was rarely mentioned.

“The link to science disappeared, and instead the sign shifted toward tradition rooted in these politicians’ own past experiences,” Aydarova writes. “During final deliberations, legislators shared that they knew phonics worked because they had learned to read with its help themselves.”

Concerningly, the bill’s supporters also positioned it as “a substitution for investing in communities and creating the safety nets that were necessary for families to climb out of poverty.”

For instance, legislators dismissed as “state over-reach” proposals that would have expanded access to early education or placed more social workers in schools in underserved communities. Yet they “emphasized the importance of proposing legislation to reform reading instruction to solve other social issues,” such as incarceration, impoverishment, and unemployment. Aydarova writes:

Based on artificial causality—poverty and imprisonment rates would decline if phonics was used for reading instruction—these reforms naturalized the widening socioeconomic inequities and depoliticized social conditions of precarity that contribute to growing prison populations. Through these material substitutions, the SOR legislation promised students and their communities freedom, and robbed them of it at the same time.

In the end, Aydarova finds that, “Science has little bearing on what is proposed or discussed, despite various policy actors’ claims to the contrary. Instead, SOR myths link tradition, curriculum products, and divestment from social safety nets.”

Categories Education Reform, Hoax, Literacy, Research, Tennessee

Peter Greene: What “Science of Reading” Advocates Can Learn from the Common Core

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2024 //
58

Peter Greene, retired teacher, is a regular contributor to Forbes, where this article appeared. It’s heartening to know that a business publication is exposing its readers to a veteran teacher who knows what he is talking about.

In this article, he cautions champions of “the science of reading not to repeat the same mistakes as Common Core, our last overhyped educational panacea.

He writes:

Bills mandating the “Science of Reading” have been passing left and right across the nation.

While some, like the Pennsylvania bill that passed 201-0, provide gentle nudging and support, others, like Indiana’s law, provide strict mandates on what teaching techniques are required and which are forbidden. And that’s a bad idea.

America has seen this movie before.

A bipartisan collection of political leaders, concerned about improving America’s education system, came together to mandate certain education practices, based on the recommendations from advocates located far from actual classrooms. The result was a contentious and controversial mess that did not seem to actually make things a bit better.

That was Common Core. “Science of Reading” fans would do well to learn a few lessons.

Brand identity

Despite widespread discussion, Common Core meant many different things to many different people. The group that wrote the standards disbanded and did not stick around to answer questions (of which there were many). Common Core the brand was open to anyone’s interpretation. This left businesses free to claim their materials were “Common Core aligned” without fear of contradiction.

Likewise, there is no widespread agreement on what “Science of Reading” actually entails. Publishers can slap “Now with more Science of Reading” on materials and hit the marketplace.

Top down

 Tom Loveless pointed out in his excellent Common Core post mortem, pushing programs from the top down leads to implementation issues. Legislators can mandate traffic patterns from 100 miles up, but on the ground, folks have to navigate potholes, hills, valleys, other traffic, and everyday surprises. What look like stripes from far above may turn out to be a staircase…

Response time

Research can course correct quickly. Legislators cannot. Under No Child Left Behind, legislators tried to influence instruction by attaching high stakes to a big standardized test, with the goal that 100% of US students would score above average on that test by 2014. Legislators assured alarmed educators that the law would be rewritten before that unachievable goal came due. The law was rewritten in December of 2015.

Legislators deleted the original goal of 2014 as the date by which all students would magically score above average, but they left in place a harsh series of demands that were disruptive and demoralizing.

Open the link to read Peter’s analysis of ways to avoid making the same mistakes as Commin Core while pushing the goal of reaching new heights of literacy.

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Literacy

Paul Thomas: Big Lies of Education: Confusing NAEP Proficient with “Grade Level”

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2024 //
25

I served on the National Assessment Governing Board from 1998-2004. NAGB is the governing agency for NAEP, the federal test. I was appointed by President Bill Clinton. I learned about the inner workings of standardized testing, much of which made me skeptical of it.

I have often observed that critics of public schools assume that NAEP Proficient is the same as “grade level,” when in fact NAEP warns readers explicitly in every score report that NAEP Proficient is NOT “grade level.” In fact, NAEP Proficient represents mastery of what was tested, which I would characterize as an A or A-.

In 2010, when the anti-public school documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’” was released, I reviewed it for The New York Review of Books and criticized it for confusing NAEP Proficiency with grade level, then claiming that most American kids can’t read, all because of their terrible public schools, their terrible teachers and those awful unions. The way to a better future, the documentary claimed, was charter schools. Not true. Even Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has repeated this erroneous claim. Apparently neither he nor his speech writers reads NAEP reports with care and no one has briefed them.

I have explained this confusion on several occasions on the blog. I even called the Commissioner of the National Center on Education Statistics and proposed that NAEP Proficient be renamed “NAEP Mastery,” to clarify its meaning. She sounded enthusiastic about the idea (which came from a reader of this blog) but nothing changed.

I am very happy to see that Professor Paul Thomas at Furman University in South Carolina has launched a series called “Big lies in Education,” and this claim is one of the Big Lies. It is a lie because the fact that NAEP Proficient is not grade level is stated plainly in every release of NAEP scores.

Thomas begins:

One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading,” wrote Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times.

Kristof’s piece in 2023 can be traced back to a similar claim by Emily Hanford in 2018: “More than 60 percent of American fourth-graders are not proficient readers, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and it’s been that way since testing began in the 1990s,” including a surprisingly ineffective graphic.

Open the link to see this and other graphics.

The student reading proficiency Big Lie grounded in misrepresenting or misunderstanding NAEP is likely one of the most complicated Big Lies of Education.

In media and political rhetoric, first, the terms “reading proficiency” and “grade level reading” are commonly jumbled and used inappropriately as synonyms.

Achievement levels such as “basic” and “proficient,” such as used in NAEP for reading, are misleading and complicated for most people not familiar with technical terminology.

NAEP “basic” is approximately grade level (although even that claim is problematic since no standard exists in the US for “proficient” or “grade level”), and “proficient” on NAEP is high: 

Another important graph. Open the link.

Hanford’s and Kristof’s Big Lie, then, is a combination of blurring NAEP achievement levels with grade level reading achievement and manufacturing a reading crisis with that misinformation.

Ironically, NAEP grade 4 reading scores for a decade show that 2/3 of students are reading at or above grade level, the inverse of the false crisis claims of the media:

Open the link for the graph.

This is an excellent expose, which everyone should read. The claim that most kids read below grade level is foundational to the claim that public schools are in crisis. Its a Big Lie.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Fake, Lies, Literacy, NAEP, Standardized Testing

Arkansas: New Member of State Library Board Tries to Defund Libraries that Fight State Censorship Law

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2024 //
2

Debra Hale-Shelton of the Arkansas Times reported on a battle over censorship on the State Library Board. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed two new members to the board. One of them—Jason Rupert— proposed to cut off funding to libraries that were suing the state to block a censorship law. But other members of the State Library Board voted him down, including Governor Sanders’ other pick.

A former state Senator, Rapert is founder and president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers and Holy Ghost Ministries.

Hale-Shelton writes:

Please give the women, especially those who respect the First Amendment, a round of applause.

I refer to the women on the Arkansas State Library Board — even Shari Bales, the one recently appointed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Thanks to them, former state senator Jason Rapert did not get a second on a motion today to defund libraries pushing back against a new state censorship law.

Today was the first meeting of the seven-member State Library Board since Sanders appointed Rapert and Bales. As expected, Rapert talked more than any other board member, tapping his foot on the floor much of the time. His motion was to suspend funds to any library suing the state or Arkansas taxpayers pending the outcome of litigation.

Libraries that would have been immediately affected include the Central Arkansas Library System, the Fayetteville Public Library and the Eureka Springs Carnegie Public Library. They are among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the new state law, Act 372, which seeks to impose criminal penalties on librarians or others who make supposedly “harmful” materials available to minors. The challenged portions of the law are on hold pending a bench trial, set to begin Oct. 15 at the earliest.

To keep funding those libraries amounts to writing them a check to help pay for the lawsuit, Rapert said.

Other members of the board pointed out that defunding the libraries would hurt their communities.

Later in the meeting, Rapert wanted to know if Arkansas libraries contain certain books that some have found objectionable, such as “Gender Queer.”Not surprisingly, Rapert chose to focus on books with LGBQT+ themes and not those with extreme violence or steamy heterosexual sex scenes. Arkansas State Library Director Jennifer Chilcoat suggested that he email her details of his request.

SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM!

Categories Arkansas, Censorship, Extremism, Librarians, Libraries, Literacy

CNN: “Moms for Liberty” Is Encountering Stiff Resistance

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
69

When an education story is featured by a major media outlet like CNN, you can bet it’s captured mainstream attention.

Many educators have worried about the pernicious agenda of “Moms for Liberty,” which arrived on the scene in 2021 with a sizable war chest.

What is that agenda? Defaming public schools and their teachers. Accusing them of being “woke “ and indoctrinating students to accept left wing ideas about race and gender. Banning books they don’t like. Talking about “parental rights,” but only for straight white parents who share their values.

M4L got started in Florida, as do many wacky and bigoted rightwing campaigns, but it has been shamed recently by the sex scandal involving one of its co-founders, Brigitte Ziegler. The two other co-founders dropped her name from their website, but the stain persists.

CNN reports that this rightwing group is encountering stiff opposition from parents who don’t share their agenda and who don’t approve of book banning.

The story begins:

Viera, FloridaCNN —

In Florida, where the right-wing Moms for Liberty group was born in response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates, the first Brevard County School Board meeting of the new year considered whether two bestselling novels – “The Kite Runner” and “Slaughterhouse-Five” – should be banned from schools.

A lone Moms for Liberty supporter sat by herself at the January 23 meeting, where opponents of the book ban outnumbered her.

Nearly 20 speakers voiced opposition to removing the novels from school libraries. One compared the book-banning effort to Nazi Germany. Another accused Moms for Liberty of waging war on teachers. No one spoke in favor of the ban. About three hours into the meeting, the board voted quickly to keep the two books on the shelves of high schools.

RELATED ARTICLEOusted Florida GOP leader Christian Ziegler won’t be charged with sexual battery

“Why are we banning books?” asked Mindy McKenzie, a mom and nurse who is a member of Stop Moms for Liberty, which was formed to counter what it calls a far-right extremist group “pushing for book banning and destroying public education.”

“Why are we letting Moms for Liberty infiltrate our school system?”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hypocrisy, Injustice, Libraries, Literacy, Literature, Media, Parent Groups, Privatization, Racism

Texas: Federal Court Overturns Law Forcing Bookstores to Review Books They Sell to Schools

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2024 //
7

Last May, I wrote about a punitive law in Texas that terrified the state’s 300 or so independent bookstores. The law, House Bill 900, required bookstores to rate every book they sold—now and in the past— to school libraries.

The bookstores sued to overturn to the law, arguing that the administrative burden of complying would put most of them out of business.

Their suit succeeded at the District Court level. Then it advanced to the very conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the plaintiffs were fearful. [A sign of the times: Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when the federal courts were constantly challenged to enforce the Brown decision of 1954, the Fifth Circuit was considered highly liberal in facing down segregationists.]

But to the delight of the booksellers, the Fifth Circuit sided with them.

The Texas Monthly reported:

The lawsuit, which was filed by Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop and Austin-based BookPeople, along with a group of free speech organizations, argued that HB 900’s requirement essentially compelled the private businesses to engage in speech by requiring them to create a rating system for the materials they sold.

…the Fifth Circuit issued an uncommon ruling against the state, rejecting arguments from the Texas Education Agency—the suit’s lead defendant—that claimed that requiring booksellers to rate books was a mere administrative task. “This process is highly discretionary and is neither precise nor certain,” the court’s opinion read. “The statute requires vendors to undertake contextual analyses, weighing and balancing many factors to determine a rating for each book,” a process the opinion said was “anything but the mere disclosure of factual information.”

The plaintiffs had several issues with the law—tasking short-staffed booksellers with reading every single book any customer wanted to order would be an impossible task, for instance—but, according to Blue Willow owner Valerie Koehler, the real sticking point was being required by law to offer opinions on the contents of the books she sold. “I think common sense has prevailed,” she told Texas Monthly. “It’s not really up to the vendor to rate these books, where they’re compelling us to rate a book that they could then say, ‘No, that’s not a good rating.’ They were making us take a stand, and then were still in charge of whether our standards were right or not.”

The future of the law is still undecided—representatives from the office of the attorney general and the Texas Education Agency did not return requests for interviews—but the state would face an uphill battle with the Supreme Court after losing at the typically reliable Fifth Circuit. Koehler is accordingly optimistic—and reflective—about the struggle.

“We’ve never said, ‘We’re not going to carry that book because we don’t believe in it.’ We’ll carry it on our shelves if we think someone is going to come in and ask for it. That’s what we do as a business,” she said. “I didn’t take a stand against Greg Abbott; I took a stand as a business, for common sense, and my First Amendment rights as a bookseller.”

Categories Censorship, Cruelty, Democracy, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Ignorance, Literacy, Literature, Texas

Legislatures Should Not Mandate How to Teach or Ban Instructional Strategies

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2024 //
24

Several states have endorsed legislation requiring teachers to use “the science of reading” in their classrooms. Only the “science of reading.” The legislators, of course, know nothing about teaching reading but they have it on good authority (reports in the media) that there is only one correct way to teach reading, so they feel it is appropriate to mandate that way and ban other ways.

As someone living in New York City, I don’t know whether to laugh or groan. In 2002, Michael Bloomberg, the new mayor, took control of the New York City public schools. He selected attorney Joel Klein as the city’s all-powerful chancellor. A year later, after much deliberation, Klein and Bloomberg announced a single citywide curriculum in reading and mathematics. With the exception of a few high-performing schools, all teachers were required to teach Balanced Literacy. Phonics advocates howled but they were dismissed. Any teacher who taught reading during the three terms of Mayor Bloomberg was mandated to teach Balanced Literacy.

But now, Balanced Literacy is out, and phonics is in. Are there new longitudinal studies showing the success of one and the failure of the other? No, but there is a new zeitgeist, and Americans are always ready to rally around the latest cure-all.

Some states are not only mandating “the science of reading,” but banning Balanced Literacy and its practices. Louisiana banned the use of three-cuing in 2022. In North Carolina, the General Assembly also banned the use of “three-cuing.” Three-cuing is a feature of Balanced Literacy.

As of last October, three-cuing has been banned in Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Kansas.

What is three-cuing? The definition in Louisiana is quoted at the end of this post.

In addition, three states have banned the program called Reading Recovery: Arkansas, Louisiana, and Indiana.

I have not seen evaluations or experimental evidence proving that students read better and comprehend better if teachers use only one instructional strategy and no other. The fourth grade scores in states that hold back third graders with low scores are proof of nothing, other than the certainty that scores go up when low-scoring students are not in the testing pool.

Suppose a first-grade reading teacher is fully onboard with phonics; suppose she does everything exactly by the book and is devoted to everything associated with “the science of reading”? This otherwise blameless teacher must take care not to show students how to use context cues! If she does so, she has broken the law! Will she be subject to prosecution and imprisonment for using the wrong method?

There has been a vigorous campaign to install phonics as the best way to teach reading. I repeat for the nth time that I’ve always been a proponent of phonics. I remember when Balanced Literacy became a national fad in the 1980s and 1990s; every publisher endorsed it (except Open Court). And I opposed it because I typically look skeptically on fads, movements, and panaceas.

The struggle between phonics and “whole word” methods has been ongoing since the 1830s. The pendulum swings back and forth. Now, everything from the big publishers will be decodable. Wherever Rudolf Fleisch may be, he is very happy (he wrote a book in the 1950s called Why Johnny Can’t Read, calling for a revival of phonics, which had been replaced by the Dick and Jane readers and the “look-say” method).

But it’s irresponsible to pass laws banning other ways of teaching! Wouldn’t it be wise to wait for some solid results before declaring that there is one and only one way to teach reading?

My view: Teachers should be prepared to teach phonics and other methods. No instructional method should be banned. Teachers should know a variety of teaching strategies and do what’s best for the children in front of them.

Three-cuing as defined in Louisiana law:

Act 517 of the 2022 Louisiana Legislative Session prohibits the use of the three-cueing system, or the MSV technique, in curriculum and instructional materials. This approach has been proven ineffective by empirical research in teaching students to read. This guidance document provides an explanation of what the three-cueing system is, what to look for when identifying these strategies in curricular materials, why it is not best for students learning to read, and what instructional strategies are proven effective for teaching students to read and comprehend.


What is the “Three-Cueing System?”


The three cueing system is an approach to foundational skills instruction that involves the use of three different types of instructional cues: semantic (gaining meaning from context and sentence-level cues), syntactic or grammatical features, and grapho-phonic (spelling patterns). When students encounter words that they cannot read automatically, they are prompted to question themselves using the following three questions: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?

At the earliest stages of learning to read, students are prompted to default to semantic or syntactic cues before attempting to use grapho-phonic cues. Students are encouraged to use illustrations to “guess” the meaning of words in predictably-written texts.

As part of the three-cueing system, teachers analyze student reading errors using the “MSV” technique and seek to determine if reading errors are related to “meaning, structure, or visual” issues. If students’ errors are meaning-related, the teacher will focus instructional efforts on supporting a student in using semantic cues to read passages. If the issues are related to structure, the teacher will focus on supporting students’ use of syntactic cues, and if the errors are visual, the teacher will prompt students to use grapho-phonic strategies.

As evidence mounts against the three-cueing system, many programs no longer refer to this instructional approach using this terminology, so identifying three-cueing in curricular resources requires careful observation of the strategies used to guide students as they learn to read.

When Might I See “Three-Cueing?”

The three-cueing approach is most-often found during foundational skills instruction in grades K-2. Some of the common prompts associated with this approach – “Does this make sense?” or “Look at the picture” – can be appropriate in other instructional contexts, such as when a student is encouraged to use illustrations to support deeper comprehension of stories, or when students are monitoring their own reading, but they are not effective strategies or prompts for teaching students to read words on a page. Instead of relying on multiple, varied cues, students should instead be consistently prompted to decode words using learned spelling and syllabication patterns.
As the three-cueing approach typically involves teachers prompting students to use different cues, this type of instruction is often found in small-group or individual settings.

It is a hallmark of “Balanced Literacy.”

Categories Data, Education Industry, Literacy, Teachers and Teaching

Nancy Bailey: What Secretary Cardona Should Do Now

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2024 //
26

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has been nearly invisible these past three years, other than lamenting test scores. Veteran educator Nancy Bailey has some suggestions about how he could help kids, schools, and teachers right now. This post was reposted by the Network for Public Education.

The secretary keeps talking about raising the bar. Nancy Bailey has some thoughts about some bars he could work on. Reposted with permission.

She writes:

Education Secretary Cardona focuses on reducing absenteeism, tutoring, and after-school programs. And he refers to raising the bar, which sounds like A Nation at Risk talk.

Yet there are so many K12 issues that Cardona and the Biden administration could address, lead, and support the states and local school districts.

Here are some educational issues Cardona should drive this new year. If you have more, please share.

1. The Arts

Poor public schools have gone without the arts for years. Cardona should push for qualified art and music teachers for every school.

The arts help students struggling with mental health difficulties, and jobs exist in the arts.

Every child in K12 should have access to a vital arts program.

2. Career Education

Career-technical education is essential, but companies pushing their agendas into high schools to get workers raises concerns.

Tax dollars should help students decide what careers they want, giving them the chance to experience high school, not creating schools for corporate preparation.

3. Class Size

Reducing class sizes would help students with disabilities in inclusion classes and is essential for student safety. Cardona must endorse lowering class sizes and showcase schools that do.

If schools can’t lower every class (classes like P.E. wouldn’t be necessary), give students access to at least one small class where they are known.

Lowering class sizes in K-3rd grade would also help children get a good start. See the STAR Study.

4. Corporal Punishment

In 2023, The Washington Post reported that 15 states still permitted corporal punishment in schools (St. George, 2023). Like Florida, which vaguely gives a nod to it. Teens who wear the wrong kind of prom dress or misunderstandings resulting in paddling are examples.

Cardona deserves praise for standing against corporal punishment last year in schools, claiming educators should favor evidence-based approaches and that there should be no spanking, hitting, or paddling.

5. Data

Cardona must study and draw attention to child privacy laws which are currently inadequate.

In 2018, the NEPC published Educating All Our Children: Your Kids, Their Data, No Privacy by Linda McSpadden McNeil.

She stated:

When children’s privacy is violated in ways that are overt, visible, and knowable, the violation is unquestioned. It is unacceptable. In most cases, it is illegal.

So why is it different when the violation is hidden, opaque, electronic, commercial, and complicated?

6. High-Stakes Standardized Testing

President Biden promised teachers and parents he’d end harmful high-stakes standardized tests. Instead, he pushed assessments even during the pandemic.

Can Cardona show the American people who want these tests reduced or eliminated what, if anything, the Biden administration will finally do to end high-stakes standardized tests?

7. Lead in School Pipes

The Biden-Harris team promised to repair the lead pipes in homes and schools. They’re to be commended for this. It would be nice, however, if Cardona presented a report.

No amount of lead is O.K. for developing children, and it can lead to learning disabilities.

8. Reading

Reading has become a volatile issue, and Cardona has been mostly silent. Many commercial programs with little independent study, but nonetheless called the Science of Reading, are being pushed into classrooms.

The subject of reading deserves a better forum than short, often hostile debates on X.

Cardona should call for a new National Reading Panel to study programs and address reading instruction. The panel should include teachers who teach reading since they were left off the last panel. This panel should consider the concerns of the last NRP member, the only educator on the panel, Joanne Yatvin (Yatvin, 2002). Parents should also be given a voice on this panel. A new NRP would allow for a better collection of the research, old and the latest findings, and a review of the work of the last NRP.

9. Recess

Every public school in the nation should give children several unstructured breaks throughout the school day, supervised, on safe, well-designed playgrounds.

Driving students to work nonstop with mindfulness training or a dozen other excuses to bypass recess should not be permitted.

10. School Buildings

Americans need to know the status of their public school buildings. How are the HVAC systems and air quality? How many school facilities are still falling apart? Are public school buildings safe?

Are new schools being built to support teachers?

11. School Choice

The Biden administration discussed regulating charter schools (Lieberman, 2022). But concerns about vouchers, educational savings account, nonprofit and for-profit charters, and religion in schools needs to be better addressed.

In addition, the Biden administration should describe what they mean by community schools (often called charter schools), partnerships, and social impact bonds and how these schools are still public.

12. School Libraries and Librarians

It’s an abomination to drill children to learn to read in poor schools, and then not provide them a school library with a qualified school librarian.

Closing school libraries has been a disaster in many school districts, see Philadelphia as an example.

13. School Safety

The gun lobby is unfortunately influential, so despite shootings in this country, don’t hold your breath for meaningful gun laws. It was thoughtful of Cardona to visit Parkland.

In the meantime, school administrators must devise creative ways to make schools safe and identify students in their schools who need mental health help. See class size above.

14. Social-Emotional Learning

Concerns about the data collected on students includes social-emotional learning. Teachers always want their students to be socially and emotionally healthy, but social-emotional learning seems more about collecting unnecessary sensitive data about students.

Who is using this information and why?

15. Special Education

Parents are in danger of losing special education services. The All Handicapped Children’s Act reauthorized to IDEA should have evolved into a more inclusive and better programs for students with exceptional needs, but instead it has been hijacked by those who don’t want to pay for it.

Cardona should look into special education and create a task force to study it and determine exactly how much special education funding schools receive and the kind of services students receive. He might start with Tammy Kolbe’s work and the National Education Policy Center report Funding Special Education: Charting a Path that Confronts Complexity and Crafts Coherence.

16. Teacher Preparation

School reform has changed teacher preparation dramatically. There needs to be more effort to oversee these mostly fast-track nonprofit or for-profit programs often connected to charter schools.

Cardona should step up here to promote fully university-prepared teachers, and he should work with university education programs to improve their coursework and degree offerings. The United States Department of Education might provide scholarships to attract young people who want to pursue a teaching career in university education programs, not unknown nonprofits or charter school preparation.

Fast-track groups like Teach for America are a concern because they turn those without real qualifications into the system with little understanding of child development or what’s needed to teach well, and Grow Your Own programs are ill-defined.

17. Technology

While technology is useful to learning, a recent Columbia University study indicates that children read better with paper print not online.

The Guardian cites MIT neuroscientist John Gabrieli, skeptical about the promises of big tech and its salesmen.

Gabrieli states:

I am impressed how educational technology has had no effect on scale, on reading outcomes, on reading difficulties, on equity issues.

Is Cardona behind teachers or for replacing them with technology? Actions matter.

18. Third-Grade Retention

Third-grade retention is unnecessary. No child should be made to feel like a failure. Children can still learn to read in third grade, can still grow and become great learners. Speaking out on this issue would help end it.

References

St. George, D. (2023, August 10). In over 15 states, schools can still paddle students as punishment. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/10/school-paddling-corporal-punishment/.

Yatvin, J. (2002). Babes in the Woods: The Wanderings of the National Reading Panel. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(5), 364–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170208300509

Lieberman, M (2022). Lawmakers, Education Secretary Clash Over Charter School Rules. Education Week, https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/lawmakers-education-secretary-clash-over-charter-school-rules/2022/04

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Categories Art, Arts Education, Biden, Cardona, Miguel, Class size, Corporate Reform, Creativity, Data, Education Reform, Funding, Literacy, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Privatization, School Choice, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

PEN America: Escambia County, Florida, Banned More than 1,600 Books,Including 5 Dictionaries!

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2024 //
38

Governor Ron DeSantis claims that Florida isn’t banning books, which may be technically true, yet demonstrably false. Librarians and school district officials are removing books from school and classroom libraries to comply with state law, until the books have been screened for any offensive sexual or racial language.

PEN America reported that more than 1,600 books have been removed from circulation until they have received approval from school officials. The big joke in Escambia County is that a dictionary is in the Escambia list of books that possibly violate the law. Actually, five dictionaries!

But many other books are on Escambia’s list that have been read by generations of students.

Is it fair to say that such lists are censorship or banning? I say yes. What do you think?

PEN America posted this statement:

It has come to this: Escambia County, Florida, schools have banned the dictionary.

Five dictionaries are on the district’s list of more than 1,600 books banned pending investigation in December 2023, along with eight different encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not – all due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools.

Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshallare on the list, alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Panther comics by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Feminism Book was banned along with The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion.

The list obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project also includes Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. The Princess Diaries and 14 other books by Meg Cabot have been taken from libraries, alongside books by David Baldacci, Lee Child, Michael Crichton, Carl Hiassen, Jonathan Franzen, John Green, John Grisham, Stephen King (23 of them), Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Celeste Ng, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult,and Nicholas Sparks. Conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly’s two books, Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan, were also banned pending investigation.

PEN America, Penguin Random House, and a diverse group of authors joined with parents and students in Escambia County for a first of its kind federal lawsuit alleging that an earlier set of book bans and restrictions violate their rights to free speech and equal protection under the law. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 10.

If you open the link, you can see the list of banned books in Escambia County.

Here are a few that caught my eye:

Books of Greek and Roman myths

Baroque and Rococo Art

Five books by Maya Angelou

James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Sixteen books by Meg Cabot

Albert Camus, The Stranger

Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

Multiple books about sexually transmitted diseases

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield -Adapted for Young Readers

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Five novels by William Faulkner

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude

William Golding, Lord of the Flies

I’m stopping here. You get the drift. Scan the rest of the list and see what you think.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Democracy, DeSantis, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Librarians, Literacy, Literature

Here Are the Books Removed from Classroom Shelves in Orange County, Florida

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2023 //
49

Leslie Postal of the Orlando Sentinel reported the list of banned books.

Please scan the list and let me know which you think should never be banned. Are there any on the list that you think should not be in any 3-8 classroom? Any that should not be available in high school?

Here is a list of the 673 books removed from teachers’ classroom shelves in Orange County for fear they might violate state law and rules on “sexual conduct:” Some might be returned to shelves after further review.

“In the Belly of the Beast,” Jack Henry Abbott
“The Pool Was Empty,” Gilles Abier
“The Poet X,” Elizabeth Acevedo
“With the Fire on High,” Elizabeth Acevedo
“Call Me By Your Name,” Andre Aciman
“Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight,” Peter Ackerman
“Half of a Yellow Sun,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Changes,” Ama Ata Aidoo
“River of Darkness,” Rennie Airth
“Say You’re One of Them,” Uwem Akpan
“Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda,” Becky Albertalli
“The Upside of Unrequited,” Becky Albertalli
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Sherman Alexie
“The House of the Spirits,” Isabel Allende
“In the Midst of Winter,” Isabel Allende
“The Blood of Flowers,” Anita Amirrezvani
“Wintergirls,” Laurie Halse Anderson
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” Jesse Andrews
“The Haters,” Jesse Andrews
“I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou
“Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas,” Maya Angelou
“Lucy in the Sky,” Anonymous
“And Eternity,” Piers Anthony
“On a Pale Horse,” Piers Anthony
“Four Plays,” Aristophanes
“From Blood and Ash,” Jennifer L. Armentrout
“Storm and Fury,” Jennifer L. Armentrout
“City of the Lost,” Kelley Armstrong
“Mosquitoland,” David Arnold
“Damsel,” Elana K. Arnold
“Infandous,” Elana K. Arnold
“Red Hood,” Elana K. Arnold
“What Girls Are Made Of,” Elana K. Arnold
“Oryx and Crake,” Margaret Atwood
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood
“The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel,” Margaret Atwood
“The Testaments,” Margaret Atwood
“Alias Grace,” Margaret Atwood
“Hag-Seed,” Margaret Atwood
“Madd Addam Trilogy,” Margaret Atwood
“The Blind Assassin,” Margaret Atwood
“The Clan of the Cave Bear,” Jean M. Auel
“The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters
(Earth’s Children, #1-3),” Jean M. Auel
“The Tale of John Barleycorn: From Barley to Beer,” Mary Azarian
“My Friend Dahmer,” John “Derf” Backderf
“Six of Crows,” Leigh Bardugo
“Dance Nation,” Clare Barron
“Wise Young Fool,” Sean Beaudoin
“Herzog,” Saul Bellow
“The Color Master,” Aimee Bender
“The Seven Rays,” Jessica Bendinger
“Glimpse,” Stacey Wallace Benefiel
“The History Boys,” Alan Bennett
“Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife,” Linda Berdoll

“Best in Show,” Laurien Berenson
“Dark Eye,” William Bernhardt
“Friday Night Lights: A Town A Team And A Dream,” H.G. Bissinger
“Geektastic,” Holly Black
“Red Glove,” Holly Black
“I Was a Teenage Fairy,” Francesca Lia Block
“Sex on the Brain,” Deborah Blum
“Forever…,” Judy Blume
“Midwives: A Novel,” Chris Bohjalian
“Bronxwood,” Coe Booth
“The Best American Short Stories 2015,” T.C. Boyle
“The Road to Wellville,” T.C. Boyle
“The Darkest Minds,” Alexandra Bracken
“The Dark Garden,” Eden Bradley
“The Mists of Avalon,” Marion Zimmer Bradley
“Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood,” Ann Brashares
“The Last Summer of You and Me,” Ann Brashares
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” Ann Brashares
“Electric Girl,” Michael Brennan
“The Demon’s Surrender,” Sarah Rees Brennan
“Monkey Man,” Steve Brewer
“Over the Edge,” Suzanne Brockmann
“Candy,” Kevin Brooks
“Angels & Demons,” Dan Brown
“The Bridges of Madison County (musical),” Jason Robert Brown
“A Secret Splendor,” Sandra Brown
“Above and Beyond,” Sandra Brown
“In a Class by Itself,” Sandra Brown
“Lethal,” Sandra Brown
“Seduction by Design,” Sandra Brown
“Send No Flowers,” Sandra Brown
“Unspeakable,” Sandra Brown
“Doing It,” Melvin Burgess
“The Neon Rain,” James Lee Burke
“The Glister,” John Burnside
“Running with Scissors,” Augusten Burroughs
“Summer and the City,” Candace Bushnell
“The Carrie Diaries,” Candace Bushnell
“Kindred,” Octavia E. Butler
“Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation,” Octavia E. Butler
“El Gigante Solitario,” Mary Cappellini
“Xenocide,” Orson Scott Card
“How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity,” Michael Cart
“The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories,” Angela Carter
“Kisses From Hell,” Kristin Cast
“Chosen,” P.C. Cast
“Marked,” P.C. Cast
“The Big Sleep,” Raymond Chandler
“The Big Sleep; The High Window; The Lady in the Lake; The Long
Goodbye; Playback; Farewell, My Lovely,” Raymond Chandler
“Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell My
Lovely / The High Window,” Raymond Chandler
“The Year of Living Awkwardly,” Emma Chastain
“Pieces,” Stephen Chbosky
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Stephen Chbosky
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower YA edition,” Stephen Chbosky
“The Lady and the Unicorn,” Tracy Chevalier
“My Wicked Wicked Ways,” Sandra Cisneros
“The Tesla Testament,” Eugene Ciurana
“Chain Of Iron,” Cassandra Clare
“Chain Of Thorns,” Cassandra Clare
“Queen of Air and Darkness,” Cassandra Clare
“The Red Scrolls Of Magic,” Cassandra Clare
“Little Bee,” Chris Cleave
“The Girls,” Emma Cline
“Ready Player One,” Ernest Cline
“Scooter Girl,” Chynna Clugston-Flores
“Disgrace,” J.M. Coetzee
“Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List,” Rachel Cohn
“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” Rachel Cohn
“Finding Yvonne,” Brandy Colbert
“The Goats,” Brock Cole
“American Gangster,” Max Allan Collins
“Brules: A Novel,” Harry Combs
“The Lords of Discipline,” Pat Conroy
“Captain Marvel,” Gerry Conway
“Coma: A Novel,” Robin Cook
“Leviathan Wakes,” James S.A. Corey
“Heroes,” Robert Cormier
“Scarpetta,” Patricia Cornwell
“Three Complete Novels: Postmortem, Body Of Evidence, All That
Remains,” Patricia Cornwell
“Postmortem,” Patricia Cornwell
“Nearly Gone,” Elle Cosimano
“A Veil Removed,” Michelle Cox
“The Bondwoman’s Narrative,” Hannah Crafts
“First Semester,” Cecil R. Cross II
“Running Loose,” Chris Crutcher
“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,” Sijie Dai
“Esperanza Rising,” Julie Danneberg
“Cendrillon,” Luc Darbois
“Sir Apropos of Nothing,” Peter David
“The Westing Game,” Beatrice G. Davis
“Never Cry Werewolf,” Heather Davis
“Corelli’s Mandolin,” Louis de Bernieres
“Gates of Paradise,” Melissa de la Cruz
“Sunset Boulevard,” Zoey Dean
“Tall Cool One,” Zoey Dean
“American Beauty,” Zoey Dean
“The Feeling of Falling in Love,” Mason Deaver
“The Girl Before,” J.P. Delaney
“The Inheritance Of Loss,” Kiran Desai
“This Lullaby,” Sarah Dessen
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Junot Díaz
“Blade Runner (do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep),” Philip K. Dick
“Don’t Get Caught,” Kurt Dinan
“Strangers She Knows,” Christina Dodd
“These Shallow Graves,” Jennifer Donnelly
“Room,” Emma Donoghue
“The Cases that Haunt Us,” John E. Douglas
“November Blues,” Sharon M. Draper
“Panic,” Sharon M. Draper
“House of Sand and Fog,” Andre Dubus III
“A Stolen Life: A Memoir,” Jaycee Dugard
“Submarine,” Joe Dunthorne
“Paso a Paso,” José Antonio Echeverria
“The Circle,” Dave Eggers
“Perfect Chemistry,” Simone Elkeles
“The Authority,” Warren Ellis
“Invisible Man,” Ralph Ellison
“The Gathering,” Anne Enright
“The Painter from Shanghai,” Jennifer Cody Epstein
“The Round House,” Louise Erdrich
“Sophomore Undercover,” Ben Esch
“Like Water For Chocolate,” Laura Esquivel
“Middlesex,” Jefferey Eugenides
“The Horse Whisperer,” Nicholas Evans
“Sleepless,” Thomas Fahy
“Ask the Dust,” John Fante
“Bad Days In History,” Michael Farquhar
“The Comedy Writer,” Peter Farrelly
“White Oleander,” Janet Fitch
“Madame Bovary,” Gustave Flaubert
“Dark Places,” Gillian Flynn
“Sharp Objects,” Gillian Flynn
“Separation of Power,” Vince Flynn
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” Jonathan Safran Foer
“The Carnival at Bray,” Jessie Ann Foley
“The Guest List,” Lucy Foley
“The Pillars of the Earth,” Ken Follett
“World Without End,” Ken Follett
“Come Back,” Claire Fontaine
“If I Stay,” Gayle Forman
“Just One Day,” Gayle Forman
“The Jane Austen Book Club,” Karen Fowler
“Joy Special of the Day,” Elaine Fox
“You Hear Me?,” Betsy Franco
“Palo Alto,” James Franco
“Dime,” E. R. Frank
“Cold Mountain,” Charles Frazier
“The Likeness,” Tana French
“Anansi Boys,” Neil Gaiman
“The House of Bernarda Alba,” Federico García Lorca
“Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” Gabriel García Márquez
“Love in the Time of Cholera,” Gabriel García Márquez
“Annie on My Mind,” Nancy Garden
“Killjoy,” Julie Garwood
“Eat, Pray, Love,” Elizabeth Gilbert
“Howl and Other Poems,” Allen Ginsberg
“Girl in Pieces,” Kathleen Glasgow
“Fat Kid Rules the World,” Kelly L. Going
“Bee Season,” Myla Goldberg
“Kenang-Kenangan Seorang Geisha (Memoirs of a Geisha),” Arthur Golden
“Memoirs of a Geisha,” Arthur Golden
“Sister Mischief,” Laura Goode
“A Reliable Wife,” Robert Goolrick
“Forever for a Year,” B.T. Gottfred
“The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy,” B.T. Gottfred
“The Nerdy and the Dirty,” B.T. Gottfred
“Tomorrow Girls,” Eva Gray
“An Abundance of Katherines,” John Green
“Looking for Alaska,” John Green
“Will,” John Grayson
“Paper Towns,” John Green
“Sex Plus: Learning, Loving and Enjoying Your Body,” Laci Green
“The Quiet American,” Graham Greene
“None Of The Above,” I.W. Gregorio
“Changeling,” Philippa Gregory
“The Other Boleyn Girl,” Philippa Gregory
“A Time to Kill,” John Grisham
“The Firm,” John Grisham
“John Grisham Value Collection: A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Client,”
John Grisham
“From Where I Watch You,” Shannon Grogan
“Water For Elephants,” Sara Gruen
“The Freedom Writers Diary,” Erin Gruwell
“Snow Falling On Cedars,” David Guterson
“A Map of the World,” Jane Hamilton
“We’ll Always Have Summer,” Jenny Han
“The World’s Strongest Librarian,” Joshua Hanagarne
“Fly Away,” Kristin Hannah
“The Art of Fielding,” Chad Harbach
“Jude the Obscure,” Thomas Hardy
“Chocolat,” Joanne Harris
“The Lollipop Shoes,” Joanne Harris
“The Silent Wife,” A.S.A. Harrison
“Plainsong,” Kent Haruf
“The Best 100 Poems of Gwen Harwood,” Gwen Harwood
“Necropolis,” Jordan L. Hawk
“Second Skin,” John Hawkes
“The Girl on the Train,” Paula Hawkins
“Catch-22,” Joseph Heller

“The Collected Plays,” Lillian Hellman
“Demian the Story of Emil Sinclairs Youth,” Hermann Hesse
“Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend.,” Hermann Hesse
“Siddhartha (Dual-Language),” Hermann Hesse
“Siddhartha: A Novel,” Hermann Hesse
“Skin Tight,” Carl Hiaasen
“The Island,” Elin Hilderbrand
“Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition,” Katie Rain Hill
“Here Comes Santa Claus,” Sandra Hill
“Royal Assassin,” Robin Hobb
“The Dress Lodger,” Sheri Holman
“Watch Me,” A.J. Holt
“November 9,” Colleen Hoover
“Heart Bones,” Colleen Hoover
“Hopeless,” Colleen Hoover
“It Ends With Us,” Colleen Hoover
“It Starts With Us,” Colleen Hoover
“Layla,” Colleen Hoover
“Losing Hope,” Colleen Hoover
“Regretting You,” Colleen Hoover
“Verity,” Colleen Hoover
“Confess,” Colleen Hoover
“Ugly Love,” Colleen Hoover
“Impulse,” Ellen Hopkins
“Burned,” Ellen Hopkins
“Collateral,” Ellen Hopkins
“Crank,” Ellen Hopkins
“Fallout,” Ellen Hopkins
“Identical,” Ellen Hopkins
“Love Lies Beneath,” Ellen Hopkins
“People Kill People,” Ellen Hopkins
“Perfect,” Ellen Hopkins
“Tilt,” Ellen Hopkins
“Tricks,” Ellen Hopkins
“I Never,” Laura Hopper
“The Changeling,” Kate Horsley
“The Kite Runner,” Khaled Hosseini
“A Thousand Splendid Suns,” Khaled Hosseini
“Taken at Dusk,” C.C. Hunter
“Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley
“M Butterfly,” David Henry Hwang
“Icy Sparks,” Gwyn Hyman Rubio
“A Widow for One Year: A Novel,” John Irving
“The World According to Garp,” John Irving
“Never Let Me Go,” Kazuo Ishiguro
“Bit of a Blur,” Alex James
“Fifty Shades Series,” E.L. James
“Green River Killer: A True Detective Story,” Jeff Jensen
“No One to Trust,” Iris Johansen
“All Boys Aren’t Blue,” George M. Johnson
“Truly Devious 3-Book Box Set,” Maureen Johnson
“The Graduate,” Terry Johnson
“Choice Words,” Peter H. Johnston
“The Recognition of Sakuntala,” Arthur William Ryder Kalidasa
“Scent of Danger,” Andrea Kane
“Confessions of a Not It Girl,” Melissa Kantor
“The Big Bad Wolf Tells All,” Donna Kauffman
“Milk and Honey,” Rupi Kaur
“The Sun and Her Flowers,” Rupi Kaur
“Summer in the City of Roses,” Michelle Ruiz Keil
“Street Dreams,” Faye Kellerman
“Mr. Ding’s Chicken Feet,” Gillian Kendall
“The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend,” Kody Keplinger
“YOU: A Nove,” Caroline Kepnes
“On The Road,” Jack Kerouac
“The Book of Longings,” Sue Monk Kidd
“Four Past Midnight,” Stephen King
“Dolores Claiborne,” Stephen King
“Lisey’s Story,” Stephen King
“Night Shift,” Stephen King
“The Drawing of the Three,” Stephen King
“The Wastelands,” Stephen King
“Under the Dome,” Stephen King
“Prodigal Summer: A Novel,” Barbara Kingsolver
“Confessions of a Shopaholic,” Sophie Kinsella
“Shopaholic and Baby,” Sophie Kinsella
“Fear the Hunters,” Robert Kirkman
“Miles Behind Us,” Robert Kirkman
“Don’t Say a Word,” Andrew Klavan
“Primary Colors,” Joe Klein
“Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,” Chuck Klosterman
“Gender Queer: A Memoir,” Maia Kobabe
“City of Night,” Dean Koontz
“Twilight Eyes,” Dean Koontz
“The Bear Went Over the Mountain,” William Kotzwinkle
“Born on the Fourth of July,” Ron Kovic
“The Pirate,” Jayne Ann Krentz
“The Poppy War,” R F. Kuang
“Dark Triumph,” Robin La Fevers
“Grave Mercy,” Robin La Fevers
“The Namesake,” Jhumpa Lahiri
“I Know This Much Is True,” Wally Lamb
“Search for Safety,” Paul Langan
“Survivor,” Paul Langan
“Liar,” Justine Larbalestier
“My Sister Rosa,” Justine Larbalestier
“The Splendid and the Vile,” Erik Larson
“Recipe Box,” Sandra Lee
“Furyborn,” Claire Legrand
“Mystic River,” Dennis Lehane
“The Grass Is Singing,” Doris Lessing
“Another Day,” David Levithan
“Dexter Is Delicious,” Jeff Lindsay
“Last Night at the Telegraph Club,” Malinda Lo
“The Dirt on Sex,” Justin Lookadoo
“Character, Driven,” David Lubar
“The Bourne Identity,” Robert Ludlum
“The Robert Ludlum Value Collection: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne
Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum,” Robert Ludlum
“Brave New Girl,” Louisa Luna
“Game,” Barry Lyga
“I Hunt Killers,” Barry Lyga
“Boy Toy,” Barry Lyga
“A Court of Frost and Starlight,” Sarah J. Maas
“A Court of Mist and Fury,” Sarah J. Maas
“A Court of of Wings and Ruin,” Sarah J. Maas
“A Court of Silver Flames,” Sarah J. Maas
“A Court of Wings and Ruin,” Sarah J. Maas
“House of Earth and Blood,” Sarah J. Maas
“A Court of Thorns and Roses,” Sarah J. Maas
“Fall on Your Knees,” Ann-Marie MacDonald
“Easter Rising,” Michael Patrick MacDonald
“Guyaholic,” Carolyn Mackler
“The Hike,” Drew Magary
“Son of a Witch,” Gregor Maguire
“Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” Gregory Maguire
“Wicked: Memorias de una bruja mala,” Gregory Maguire
“The Natural,” Bernard Malamud
“Nectar in a Sieve,” Kamala Markandaya
“Slightly Single,” Wendy Markham
“Blue is the Warmest Color,” Jul Maroh
“A Game of Thrones,” George R.R. Martin
“A Dance with Dragons,” George R.R. Martin
“A Feast for Crows,” George R.R. Martin
“A Storm of Swords,” George R.R. Martin
“The Mystery Knight,” George R.R. Martin
“The Official A Game of Thrones Coloring Book,” George R.R. Martin
“A Clash of Kings,” George R.R. Martin
“Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling’s Disgustingly Dirty Joke Book,” Jackie Martling
“Paper Dollhouse,” Lisa M. Masterson
“Strange Intimacy,” Anne Mather
“Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour,” Morgan Matson
“The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn,” Robin Maxwell
“The Good Lord Bird,” James McBride
“Perfect Fifths,” Megan McCafferty
“Second Helpings,” Megan McCafferty
“Freedom’s Choice,” Anne McCaffrey
“All the Pretty Horses,” Cormac McCarthy
“No Country for Old Men,” Cormac McCarthy
“Outer Dark,” Cormac McCarthy
“Man o’ War,” Cory McCarthy
“Sold,” Patricia McCormick
“The Revolution of Little Girls,” Blanche McCrary Boyd
“The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” Martin McDonagh
“Sophomore Switch,” Abby McDonald
“Amsterdam,” Ian McEwan
“Atonement,” Ian McEwan
“On Chesil Beach,” Ian McEwan
“Duquesa by Default,” Maura McGiveny
“Beautiful Disaster,” Jamie McGuire
“The Memory of Running,” Ron McLarty
“Lonesome Dove,” Larry McMurtry
“Everything You Want Me to Be,” Mindy Mejia
“Talking in the Dark,” Billy Merrell
“Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined,” Stephenie Meyer
“Pretty Woman,” Fern Michaels
“The Real Deal,” Fern Michaels
“The Authority,” Mark Millar
“Circe,” Madeline Miller
“The Song of Achilles: A Novel,” Madeline Miller
“Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained (The Signet Classic Poetry
Series),” John Milton
“Paradise Lost,” John Milton
“Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and
Being a Human (A Graphic Novel),” Erika Moen
“All My Friends Are Dead,” Avery Monsen
“Watchmen,” Alan Moore
“Camp Confidential,” Melissa J. Morgan
“The Year of Secret Assignments,” Jaclyn Moriarty
“The Center of Everything,” Laura Moriarty
“Seikai 1,” Hiroyuki Morioka
“The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison
“Beloved,” Toni Morrison
“Paradise,” Toni Morrison
“Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison
“Kafka on the Shore,” Haruki Murakami
“Heart of Stone,” C.E. Murphy
“Dead End,” Jason Myers
“Street Love,” Walter Dean Myers
“Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks,” Lauren Myracle
“Rhymes with Witches,” Lauren Myracle
“Shine,” Lauren Myracle
“L8R G8R,” Lauren Myracle
“The Infinite Moment of Us,” Lauren Myracle
“ttfn,” Lauren Myracle
“TTYL,” Lauren Myracle
“yolo,” Lauren Myracle
“The Art of Hana-Kimi,” Hisaya Nakajo
“Skin,” Donna Jo Napoli
“Linden Hills,” Gloria Naylor
“The Men of Brewster Place,” Gloria Naylor
“The Women of Brewster Place,” Gloria Naylor
“Like a Love Story,” Abdi Nazemian
“Getting Somewhere,” Beth Neff
“On the Volcano,” James Nelson
“Suite Francaise,” Irene Nemirovsky
“The Sympathizer,” Viet Thanh Nguyen
“We Are All Made of Molecules,” Susin Nielsen-Fernlund
“Holding Up the Universe,” Jennifer Niven
“Breathless,” Jennifer Niven
“Everlasting,” Alyson Noël
“Evermore,” Alyson Noël
“Night Star,” Alyson Noël
“Where I end and You Begin,” Preston Norton
“Sweat,” Lynn Nottage
“Plague in the Mirror,” Deborah Noyes
“Back Roads,” Tawni O’Dell
“Beasts,” Joyce Carol Oates
“The Assignation: Stories,” Joyce Carol Oates
“We Were the Mulvaneys,” Joyce Carol Oates
“Panic,” Lauren Oliver
“Before I Fall,” Lauren Oliver
“When the Emperor was Divine,” Julie Otsuka
“Ars Amatoria,” Ovid
“Metamorphoses,” Ovid
“Where the Crawdads Sing,” Delia Owens
“Choke,” Chuck Palahniuk
“Invisible Monsters Remix,” Chuck Palahniuk
“Lullaby,” Chuck Palahniuk
“In Order to Live,” Yeonmi Park
“The Dogs of Babel,” Carolyn Parkhurst
“Learning Tree,” Gordon Parks
“Bel Canto,” Ann Patchett
“The Patron Saint of Liars,” Ann Patchett
“Honeymoon,” James Patterson
“Private,” James Patterson
“Sail,” James Patterson
“Sam’s Letters to Jennifer,” James Patterson
“Sideways,” Alexander Payne
“A Day No Pigs Would Die,” Robert Newton Peck
“The Leftovers,” Tom Perrotta
“Out Stealing Horses,” Per Petterson
“Prague,” Arthur Phillips
“Fishtailing,” Wendy Phillips
“A Spark of Light,” Jodi Picoult
“Handle with Care,” Jodi Picoult
“Picture Perfect,” Jodi Picoult
“The Pact: A Love Story,” Jodi Picoult
“The Storyteller,” Jodi Picoult
“The Tenth Circle,” Jodi Picoult
“Nineteen Minutes,” Jodi Picoult
“A Year and a Day,” Leslie Pietrzyk
“Thirst No. 1,” Christopher Pike
“Thirst No. 2,” Christopher Pike
“Thirst No. 4,” Christopher Pike
“Thirst No. 5,” Christopher Pike
“Into White,” Randi Pink
“It Doesn’t Have to Be Awkward: Dealing with Relationships, Consent,
and Other Hard-to-Talk-About Stuff,” Drew Pinsky
“Yes Please,” Amy Poehler
“Tinisima,” Elena Poniatowska
“Behind the Shadows,” Patricia Potter
“The Whistling Toilets,” Randy Powell
“The Cabin,” Natasha Preston
“The Cellar,” Natasha Preston
“Caves Graves,” Natalie Prior
“Jane Swann’s Way,” Marcel Proust
“La Belle Sauvage,” Philip Pullman
“Burning Glass,” Kathryn Purdie
“The Family,” Mario Puzo
“Gabi, a Girl in Pieces,” Isabel Quintero
“The Elegant Gathering of White Snows,” Kris Radish
“The Fountainhead,” Ayn Rand
“Modern Love,” Andrew Rannells
“Punkzilla,” Adam Rapp
“Beautiful,” Amy Reed
“The Cute Girl Network,” M.K. Reed
“Such a Fun Age,” Kiley Reid
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” Taylor Jenkins Reid
“Stop in the Name of Pants!,” Louise Rennison
“Stone Fox,” John Reynolder
“Wide Sargasso Sea,” Jean Rhys
“The Vampire Armand,” Anne Rice
“The Witching Hour,” Anne Rice
“Life,” Keith Richards
“Juliet Takes a Breath,” Gabby Rivera
“Redeeming Love,” Francine Rivers
“The Atonement Child,” Francine Rivers
“Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal,” Mary Roach
“Birthright,” Nora Roberts
“The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters,” Elisabeth Robinson
“Normal People,” Sally Rooney
“Jack of Hearts (and other parts),” L.C. Rosen
“Portnoy’s Complaint,” Philip Roth
“The Casual Vacancy,” J.K. Rowling
“The God of Small Things,” Arundhati Roy
“All of Us with Wings,” Michelle Ruiz Keil
“Elegies for Angels Punks and Raging Queens,” Bill Russell
“The Dead-Tossed Waves,” Carrie Ryan
“Leviathan Wakes,” James S.A. Corey
“And They Lived …,” Steven Salvatore
“Bait,” Alex Sanchez
“Once a King, Always a King,” Reymundo Sanchez
“Option B,” Sheryl Sandberg
“The Fool’s Run,” John Sandford
“Vampire, Interupted,” Lynsay Sands
“Push,” Sapphire
“Blindness,” José Saramago
“Jesus Land: A Memoir,” Julia Scheeres
“Uses for Boys,” Erica Lorraine Scheidt
“The Reader,” Bernard Schlink
“The Beginning of Everything,” Robyn Schneider
“Bully,” Jim Schutze
“The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue,” V.E. Schwab
“The Gift of Forgiveness,” Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt
“Living Dead Girl: A Novel,” Elizabeth Scott
“Lucky,” Alice Sebold
“The Lovely Bones,” Alice Sebold
“Naked,” David Sedaris
“Peony in Love,” Lisa See
“Writing My Wrongs,” Shaka Senghor
“Equus,” Peter Shaffer
“Skin and Bones,” Sherry Shahan
“Demon Apocalypse,” Darren Shan
“Forbidden Knowledge,” Roger Shattuck
“Tweak,” Nic Sheff
“The Stone Diaries,” Carol Shields
“Sea Glass: A Novel,” Anita Shreve
“Alichino,” Kouyu Shurei
“The Food Chain,” Nicky Silver
“If I Was Your Girl,” Ni-Ni Simone
“Wilder,” Andrew Simonet
“The Straight Girl’s Guide to Sleeping with Chicks,” Jen Sincero
“The Silence and the Roar,” Nihad Sirees
“The Primal Blueprint,” Mark Sisson
“Prep: A Novel,” Curtis Sittenfeld
“You Think It, I’ll Say It,” Curtis Sittenfeld
“Stay In Line,” Teddy Slaterguess
“A Thousand Acres,” Jane Smiley
“The Way I used to Be,” Amber Smith
“Joy in the Morning,” Betty Smith
“Tree Grows In Brooklyn,” Betty Smith
“The Geography of Girlhood,” Kirsten Smith
“Betwixt,” Tara Bray Smith
“Anatomy of a Boyfriend,” Daria Snadowsky
“Sadar’s Keep,” Midori Snyder
“No Visible Bruises,” Rachel Louise Snyder
“MARS,” Fuyumi Soryo
“Summer on Wheels,” Gary Soto
“The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” Muriel Spark
“It Happened to Nancy,” Beatrice Sparks
“At First Sight,” Nicholas Sparks
“Message in a Bottle,” Nicholas Sparks
“Nights in Rodanthe,” Nicholas Sparks
“The Guardian,” Nicholas Sparks
“The Rescue,” Nicholas Sparks
“The Wedding,” Nicholas Sparks
“Small Town Girl,” Lavyrle Spencer
“Everyone likes Eggs,” Jerry Spinelli
“Star (French Edition),” Danielle Steel
“The Gift,” Danielle Steel
“East of Eden,” John Steinbeck
“Still Missing,” Chevy Stevens
“Earth (the book) A Visitors Guide to the Human Race,” Jon Stewart
“Every Last Word,” Tamara Ireland Stone
“Marcelo in the Real World,” Francisco X. Stork
“Until the Twelfth of Never,” Bella Stumbo
“Sophie’s Choice,” William Styron
“We Should Hang Out Sometime,” Josh Sundquist
“The Kitchen God’s Wife,” Amy Tan
“The Valley of Amazement,” Amy Tan
“American Colonies,” Alan Taylor
“Just Friends,” Billy Taylor
“The Spectacular Now,” Tim Tharp
“Concrete Rose,” Angie Thomas
“The Loners,” Lex Thomas
“Picking Cotton,” Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
“Blankets,” Craig Thompson
“First Time,” Meg Tilly
“Sigh, Gone,” Phuc Tran
“Milk Glass Moon,” Adriana Trigiani
“Stuck in Neutral,” Terry Trueman
“The RattleRat,” Janwillem Van de Wetering
“Red Thunder,” John Varley
“Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything,” Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
“Y: The Last Man,” Brian K. Vaughan
“When We Make It,” Elisabet Velasquez
“The Covenant of Water,” Abraham Verghese
“Shojo Beat,” Viz Media
“Dicey’s Song,” Cynthia Voight
“All I Want is Everything,” Cecily Von Ziegesar
“Don’t You Forget about Me,” Cecily Von Ziegesar
“Tempted,” Cecily Von Ziegesar
“You Know You Love Me,” Cecily Von Ziegesar
“It Had To Be You,” Cecily Von Ziegesar
“Slaughterhouse-Five,” Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel,” Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“The Color Purple,” Alice Walker
“Black White and Jewish,” Rebecca Walker
“We All Looked Up,” Tommy Wallach
“A Thousand Country Roads: An Epilogue to The Bridges of Madison
County,” Robert James Waller
“The Bridges of Madison County,” Robert James Waller
“The Glass Castle,” Jeannette Walls
“Stargazing,” Jen Wang
“Salvage the Bones,” Jesmyn Ward
“Numbers,” Rachel Ward
“Something Worth Saving,” Sandi Ward
“The Graduate,” Charles Webb
“Girl Boy Etc,” Michael Weinreb
“Chasing Harry Winston,” Lauren Weisberger
“Little Altars Everywhere: A Novel,” Rebecca Wells
“A Certain Slant of Light,” Laura Whitcomb
“The Professor and the Madman,” Simon Winchester
“Happiness Sold Separately,” Lolly Winston
“A Man in Full,” Tom Wolfe
“The Interestings,” Meg Wolitzer
“Turkish Delight,” Jan Wolkers
“Brighter than Gold,” Cynthia Wright
“Native Son,” Richard Wright
“Blu’s Hanging,” Lois-Ann Yamanaka
“Revolutionary Road,” Richard Yates
“Armageddon Summer,” Jane Yolen
“The Sun Is Also a Star,” Nicola Yoon
“Everything, Everything,” Nicola Yoon
“Nothing But Your Ski,” Cathy Ytak

Compiled by staff writer Richard Tribou. Source: List obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project and confirmed by Orange County Public Schools.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Censorship, DeSantis, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom to Read, Literacy, Literature
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