John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, was stunned by some survey results released about parents’ opinions on education. He took a deep dive, read the raw data, and discovered that the survey was conducted by ExcelInEd, Jeb Bush’s organization. Excel promotes high-stakes accountability for public schools but no accountability whatsoever for voucher schools, which they also promote.
ExcelinEd has familiar game plan: they use inaccurate NAEP statistics to defame public schools, demand more accountability to crush the morale of principals, teachers, and parents, then insist that vouchers and charters are the way forward. As Josh Cowen showed in his book The Privateers, voucher schools get far worse results than public schools, and numerous studies have shown that charter schools are usually no better than public schools and often much worse.
Thompson writes:
Patricia Levesque, the executive director of ExcelinEd, recently wrote a commentary about a survey of 500 Oklahoma parents, claiming that more than 80% of them want “a state testing and accountability system to measure student achievement, and they expect honesty and accuracy about their children’s grade level performance.”
So, I took a dive into the survey. My reading of it was very different than Levesque’s.
In some ways, the survey she described is consistent with the Education Department parent survey that State Superintendent Lindel Fields released. But Levesque’s interpretation of the results was very different than Fields’ analysis of the state’s parent feedback.
The survey Levesque cited found that 74% of parents want a pay raise for teachers, and another 74% say we spend too little on education. Her study found that 80% of parents were very or somewhat satisfied with their school but, for some reason, it adds, “While overall positive, this fails to hit the common 95% satisfaction sought in commercial endeavors.”
While 78% of parents support retention by 3rd grade of students who don’t read on “level,” parents estimate that about 83% students read at or above grade level; and 78% are confident in the way their schools teach reading.
FYI, in 1998, 80% of Oklahoma 8th graders read at that level, but now about 59% do. My reading of the research, and classroom experience, attributes the subsequent decline to the way that No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top undermined the teaching of History, Science, Arts, and of the background knowledge that is essential for reading comprehension; huge funding cuts; COVID; and Ryan Walters; as well as the rise of social media.
Yes, 83% of the survey are supportive of student testing, which is no surprise. But, the study doesn’t dig into the difference between testing for tracking student progress, as opposed to high-stakes testing. After all, there is great support for testing for diagnostic purposes, as opposed to the reward-and-punish testing that has been rampant since the NCLB was enacted.
Conversely, the Education Departments’ parent survey seems to be calling for schools to tackle the crucial issues that they were forced to ignore, as districts invested in high-stakes test-prep.
When Superintendent Fields explained that the results of statewide surveys of educators and parents, informed the budget priorities he is seeking. Superintendent Fields reported, “Early literacy, support systems to improve behavior and mental health resources and teacher recruitment and retention are among the top three concerns for all groups surveyed.”
The parents survey included repeated calls for teaching critical thinking skills, and media literacy; identifying misinformation; and early grade emphasis on literacy.
It explained that parents “highlighted the importance of both academic and life skills, emphasizing the need for students to be well-prepared for real-world challenges.”
Parents said that misinformation is very prevalent, and children need to be taught how to tell fact from fiction. They understand that learning how to be critical consumers of information is “literally the foundation of a successful life.” They know that social media and A.I. can make kids “susceptible to conspiracy theories and propaganda.”
What I didn’t see in the parents’ responses was calls for data-driven accountability; online, as opposed to personal tutoring for 3rd graders; or simple “miracles.”
What I saw was a desire to return to personal connections. I saw goals that would require more support for educators, as well as requiring cooperation with social workers, health providers, and mentors that are necessary for preparing children for a full life in the 21st century.
Stephen Dyer, former legislator, current budget watchdog, warns that Ramaswamy wants to close some of Ohio’s institutions of higher education and make the cost of college even higher for the families of Ohio.
Vivek’s proposal to close public colleges follows years of Republican disinvestment in higher education and public education. Rising costs cause enrollments to decline. Declining enrollments are then an excuse to close colleges.
Why does Ohio want a less-educated public?
Please open the link to his excellent article to read the footnotes.
Dyer writes:
They’re hoping you don’t notice.
Notice that for 30 years, Ohio Republicans have slowly starved higher education funding, which has made the $1 million promise of a college education less attainable for middle-class families.
They’re hoping you fall for the anti-college mythology — they waste money, are giving kids diplomas for basket weaving, are full of hippies. Whatever. They don’t care. Just buy it, already!
They want you to blame anyone but them, even though it’s all their fault.
A personal note. I’m a tuition-paying parent for a public university student.
It’s now more expensive to send my son to Ohio State as an in-state resident than it was for my parents to send me to Tufts University in the 1990s.
Yeah. That’s crazy.
But that cost hike wasn’t because Ohio State is so inefficient or concerned with basket weaving majors that I’m paying through the nose for my son’s education¹.
Nope.
Ohio Republicans made this happen. They’ve steadily made the unattainably expensive college degree a reality since they started dominating the statehouse and Governor’s mansion in 1994. In fact, it seems the two things they’ve consistently done from a public policy perspective is de-fund both public K-12 education and higher education.
So, for example, in 1979, 11.6% of the state budget went to pay for the State Share of Instruction (SSI) — the direct funding portion of the state’s higher education budget that essentially subsidizes in-state tuition (it does more than that, but trying to keep it simple). That was the highest proportion on record.
Next year, it will be 4.7% — the lowest on record.
If the state committed as much of the state budget to SSI next year as it did in 1979, the state would be providing $3.2 billion more just to SSI.
How much is that, you ask?
In the 2024-2025 school year, the total tuition collected by all 2-year and 4-year public higher education institutions by all students, in-state and out-of-state, was $3.6 billion.
That’s right.
If Ohio had maintained the same commitment to its college students that it did in 1979, we could have tuition free — or essentially free — 2- and 4-year public universities for every Ohio resident … and then some.
But we don’t even have to go back to 1979. If you went back to the last time the percentage of SSI funding went up under Gov. Ted Strickland in the 2009-2010 school year, you’d have another $1.6 billion. Or if you went back to the first year Republicans had complete governmental control — 1994-1995, you’d have $1.8 billion.
Wanna bet whether Ohio’s public 4-year institutions would be facing an “enrollment crisis” if tuition were reduced this much, Vivek?
Yet for some reason, Ramaswamy seems to want to make closing University of Akron and Kent State University — and the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs — a tentpole of his gubernatorial bid.
As a former stat legislator who used to represent parts of Summit and Portage counties — where those two universities reside — I’m gonna say that’s certainly a strategy.
A fucking stupid one.
But it’s a strategy.
This is not rocket science. As state commitment drops, the burden placed on college students and their families increases. The correlation is strong, as my buddy Claude pointed out here²:
Notice there’s a little blip in the percentage during the FY10 and FY11 years. Just as a reminder, those were the only two years of a politically divided legislature and Democratic Governor.
As an aside, you’ll recognize a similar blip on the state share of public K-12 education funding during this same period — the only year on record that more state than local property tax funding paid for Ohio’s public schools.
By the way, did I mention this all good stuff happened in a budget I helped negotiate during the height of the Great Recession? Please excuse my shameless public policy prowess plug (and alliteration).
Every other year on that chart, Ohio Republicans controlled every lever of power. And the pattern is clear:
Defund the state funding stream that makes college affordable for working families
Make that option far less affordable for those same families
Then when fewer students attend the universities that rely on first-generation students (Kent State and University of Akron come to mind, don’t they Vivek?), blame the universities
Count on everyone both not noticing the steady drain of resources while they get hooked by the “out-of-touch” higher education narrative
Call on the schools to stop focusing on educating our students and instead become corporations’ training arms
Or, in the case of the Ohio GOP’s billionaire gubernatorial candidate, shut them down
This is all Republicans’ fault. They didn’t have to do this. There wasn’t some crisis that forced them to divest from SSI since they took power.
In fact, according to the most recent Grapevine report, while student share of higher education cost has gone up since 1980, it’s been by 18 percentage points nationally.
In Ohio, that increase has jumped 24 points.
The average Ohio student has to come up with 57 percent of their higher education cost. The national average is 39 percent — still way too high for a country that has to rely on innovation to dominate the world economy.
But Ohio is 46 percent worse than that.
In only 10 states do families have to pay a higher share of the higher education freight than Ohioans.
Since 1980, Ohio has cut its appropriations for higher ed overall by 14.8 percent. The national average over that period was a 13 percent increase.
Look. I know Vivek wants to shutter two of the state’s main economic and intellectual engines because they struggle with enrollment. But that struggle isn’t because of what he says — inefficiency, lack of excellence (whatever that is), etc.
I think that spending 30 years dropping the share of the state budget going to subsidize tuition below 5 percent for the first time ever might explain why fewer kids go to college in Ohio than they used to and why enrollment at first-generation universities — whose students typically come from working-class backgrounds — has struggled to grow.
Yeah.
That sure as hell seems more likely than whatever the fuck Vivek is imagining under his Jimmy Neutron hair.
A reader who identifies as “Retired Teacher” explains the best way to teach reading. The best way is to start by understanding that there is no single way to teach reading. The best way is to assess what’s right for the students in front of you. Some need help in phonics; some don’t. Some are already fluent readers and need challenging and engaging stuff to read.
RT writes:
Most competent reading teachers are effective when they diversify instruction based on the needs of the learner. Generally, the first step in effective reading instruction is to assess students. What often results in elementary classrooms is that teachers often end up placing students into a group with other students with similar needs. Some students arrive in kindergarten reading fluently. They have clearly mastered phonics so there is no need to spend time on phonics lessons the student does not need. Both Diane Ravitch and myself grew up in the “See, Say” era of reading instruction. We didn’t learn phonics. We deduced the sound system from reading it. This method will not work for many students, but there are some that would be successful with this approach.
All learners have strengths and weaknesses. Other students may have other issues like a difficulty with auditory discrimination, and teachers should have the freedom to adjust instruction based on the needs of students. By the way a student with auditory discrimination or memory problems will struggle and flounder in a science of reading environment. This student may have to write the word in order to basically memorize it.
I am a certified reading teacher. I have taught many struggling students, most of whom were English language learners, to read successfully and fluently in English. Part of the reason for positive results was due to the assessing and addressing what the student needed to understand and apply the skill and become a good reader. There is no magic to this process. It is called diversifying instruction, and many competent teachers adjust teaching to meet student needs. Whatever method is used, it needs to meet students’ needs, offer the student a degree of success through application, and be engaging. Professional teachers should have the freedom to adjust instruction without government interference.
Trump stacked the Commission with lackies, some with no relevant experience.
After Judge Leon’s decision, Trump made clear that he would not be deterred. The ballroom, he insisted, was a matter of national security.
“Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” the judge wrote in his ruling, which was punctuated by 19 exclamation points.
The Justice Department has filed a notice of appeal, and Mr. Trump has shown a reluctance to bring the project to Congress, where it would face an uncertain fate.
Instead, he has pointed to a portion of the judge’s ruling that allowed “construction necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House” to continue.
The president has begun arguing that the project is a matter of national security.
“We have bio defense all over,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office this week. “We have secure telecommunications and communications all over. We have bomb shelters that we’re building. We have a hospital and very major medical facilities that we’re building. We have all of these things. So that’s called, I’m allowed to continue building.”
So the ballroom is actually part of the national defense system, and no court judgment will stop it.
I am reposting this commentary because the original post this morning did not include a link to the full post.
Denny Taylor is an accomplished scholar and author. She is Professor Emeritus of Literacy Studies at Hofstra University and has earned a long list of awards. She now has a Substack blog that is worth your time. In this post, she goes into detail about the origins of the “Science of Reading” and the poor quality of research on which it is based.
Taylor wrote this post to caution against a federal mandate based on flawed claims. Congress is currently considering HR 7890 Science of Reading Act of 2026. As she shows, it would be absurd if it passes. Congress should not tell teachers how to teach, nor should state legislatures.
The Science of Reading Act of 2026 – H. R. 7890is a catastrophic mistake for three reasons. First, it makes early 20th century phonics instruction the law of the land. Second, the NRP “5 pillars of reading instruction” are not based on science. Third, H. R. 7890does not prepare children to live and thrive in a digital society that is filled with unforeseen hazards and dangers. We must think anew and act anew – before it’s too late.
H. R. 7890 “Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction Aligned to the Science Of Reading” is Not Based On Science
The six-year qualitative as well as the quantitative forensic analyses provides evidence that the scientific foundation undergirding the teaching of reading in America’s public schools is irreparably flawed. The “evidence-based literacy instruction aligned to the Science of Reading” that is described in the new federal Science of Reading Act – 2026 (H. R. 7890) is a political construct not a scientific one.
Nevertheless, Congress is in the process of making “fidelity” to the “Science of Reading” the law in all 50 states.
H. R. 7890, the Science of Reading Act – 2026 was unanimously approved by the House Education and Work Force Committee on March 17, 2026. It will amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to prioritize funds to promote the use of H. R. 7890. The legislation also aligns with U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s priorities for literacy improvement, but the Right-wing ideologs behind H. R. 7890 are far more formidable than McMahon.
H. R. 7890 Eliminates Reading and Writing Activities which Provide Opportunities for Children to Actively Engage with Meaningful Texts
The Science of Reading Act of 2026 will also officially prohibit the use of the “three-cueing” system in literacy instruction in U.S. public schools. My own pedagogical practices always begin with close observation of children who use many cues to read and write when they are not restricted by authoritarian “Science of Reading” laws that have already been enacted in most states.
H. R. 7890 will have the effect of eliminating reading and writing activities which provide opportunities for children to think. In such circumstances their thinking can be divergent and/or convergent, linear or lateral, abstract or concrete. Often it is meta-cognitive as they discuss with their teachers how they arrived at the meaning of a word. Often the clues are phonetic, and the sentence confirms their reasoning. All these pedagogical opportunities for teachers to support the learning of children are not understood by the public or by Congress. If they were, people would rally against passing the Science of Reading Act of 2026, and Congress would not pass H. R. 7890.
The Research Evidence for H. R. 7890 was Established Based on the False Findings of the 2000 National Reading Panel Report
Through dog whistles, lies, and tropes, the Right convinced people in many sectors of U.S. society that the “five pillars” of reading instruction that the NRP presented to Congress provided solid scientific evidence on how children should be taught to read. The publishers of reading programs that now call themselves technology companies, most prominently McGraw-Hill and HMH, marketed the findings of the NRP creating a bonanza in profits so large that Platinum Equity now owns McGraw-Hill and Veritas Capital now owns HMH.
Draw back the curtain and it is possible to document in minute detail how a false narrative about the National Reading Panel came to be accepted as the unquestionable scientific evidence for the massive changes in reading instruction that has taken place in U.S. public schools.
The “five pillars of reading instruction” and the Science of Reading have become embedded in the knowledge base of people in every sector of U.S. society. I asked AI “what are the five pillars of reading instruction?” AI responded:
The 5 pillars of reading instruction—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—are essential, evidence-based components for developing proficient readers. Defined by the National Reading Panel, these pillars provide a structured framework for teaching decoding, accuracy, and understanding in reading instruction.
The AI response is an accurate rendition of the official narrative that the nation has been deceived into believing through an Right wing initiatives gaining traction in the 1990s that have gaslighted the public through the use of dog whistles, lies and tropes. One of the think tanks on the Right that has had an unprecedented influence of how children are taught to read in public schools is the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (then the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation) advocated for a shift toward scientifically based reading research and explicit phonics instruction in 2002. The Fordham Institute established the National Council of Teacher Quality (NCTQ) that I have written about in previous Substack posts. NCTQ states that it is a “nonpartisan research and advocacy group.” Nothing could be further than the truth. NCTQ’s evaluations of U.S. teacher preparation programs, are flawed, unscientific, and ideologically driven.
Enforced by State Laws, the Five Pillars have Become the Structural Framework of Reading Instruction in Public Schools Across America
Once the Science of Reading Act of 2026 is signed into federal law one of the education goals of the Heritage Foundation will have been achieved. It is relevant that Mike Pence has been accused of “abandoning its principles” and transforming the Heritage Foundation from a traditional conservative organization into an enforcer for “big-government populism” and “America First” extremism. The forensic analysis has documented the initiative undertaken by the Right to control reading instruction in U.S. public schools, especially how Lindsey Burke has led the Right’s initiative to “reshape” public education. Burke spent 17 years at the Heritage Foundation where she was a principal author of the Education Section of Project 2025. She transitioned to the Department of Education where she serves as McMahon’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Programs. Burke is attributed by leaders on the Right with “reshaping” – her word — reading instruction in public schools. Parenthetically, Burke is also associated with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and NCTQ. She is featured on the Fordham Institute website in a podcast entitled, “Trump’s education agenda, with Lindsey Burke” (January 31, 2024). NCTQ is the focus of the October 19, 2025, Substack post entitled, “NCTQ Pressures State Governments, Rejects Teacher Preparation Programs, Dictates To School Districts, Discredits Reading Researchers, Bans Their Books, And Vilifies Teachers.“
Paul Thomas is a professor at Furman University. He has taken a leading role in refuting claims for the “science of reading.”
There are many successful ways to teach reading. some children arrive at school knowing how to read, because a parent read with them every day. Phonics is important. The joy of reading is important. Comprehension is important. Legislatures should not mandate one way to teach.
If you pay attention to the non-stop moral panicking around reading fanned by mainstream media, you may have seen this click-bait headline: Did New York blow $10 million on reading instruction that doesn’t work?
The article repeats tired and misleading (often false) stories about the failures of balanced literacy, NAEP reading scores, the “success” of Mississippi and Louisiana, the promise of structured literacy, and the National Reading Panel as well as the one research study on phonics that is linked.
Let’s consider these:
*No scientific studies identify a reading crisis in the US causally linked to balanced literacy, reading programs, lack of phonics instruction, or inadequacy of teacher education. (Aydarova, 2025; Reinking, Hruby, & Risko, 2023).
*The media hyper-focuses only on grade 4 NAEP reading scores, but notice how the story changes once we consider grade 8—states behind MS in grade 4 catch and pass MS by grade 8 (primarily because MS inflates their grade 4 scores by excessive grade retention, like FL):
*Structured literacy (scripted curriculum) is whitewashing the reading curriculum and restricting teacher autonomy and professionalism. (Khan, et al., 2022; Parsons, et al., 2025; Rigell, et al., 2022).
*The linked research suggests it replicates findings of the NRP; however, the NRP did not prove systematic phonics outperformed whole language or was a silver bullet. As Diane Stephens explains about the findings on phonics: “Minimal value in kindergarten; no conclusion about phonics beyond grade 1 for ‘normally developing readers’; systematic phonics instruction in grades 2-6 with struggling readers has a weak impact on reading text and spelling; systematic phonics instruction has a positive effect in grade 1 on reading (pronouncing) real and nonsense words but not comprehension; at-risk students benefit from whole language instruction, Reading Recovery, and direct instruction.” Further, while the article quotes from the research report, it doesn’t include this much more tentative hedge: “These findings suggest that SL approaches may yield larger positive effects on student learning compared to BL approaches.” At best, structured literacy is no better or worse than whole language or balanced literacy, but to be clear, there is no “settled science” that is works.
But the bigger problem is not that mainstream media continues to repeat misinformation, but that it fails to offer the full story.
Note that the “literacy experts” quoted in the article are supporting structured literacy programs (scripted curriculum), and some of those experts are co-authors of those programs.
Further, these experts are promoting a different teacher training program than the one being attacked in the article, and many states are spending 10s of millions of dollars on that program—LETRS. (My home state of SC a few years ago allocated $11 million for one year, for example.)
What’s missing in this story?
There are two high-quality studies that were released in 2025 on the effectiveness of LETRS, but so far, there have not been click-bait scare headlines about those findings:
*A review (Rowe & Thrailkill, 2025) of reading policy in North Carolina concludes:
Despite LETRS’ claim that it helps educators “distinguish between the research base for best practices and other competing ideas not supported by scientific evidence” (Lexia Learning, 2022, p. 4), we noticed a pattern of misinterpretation, selective inclusion, and omission of literacy research. LETRS is a prime example of a common problem with the deployment of research for educational policy and instructional decision-making, in that multiple claims are not substantiated by a close reading of the original research cited (cf. Hodge et al., 2020).
*And Gearin, et al. (2025) found:
[Abstract] We investigated whether Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling: 3rd Edition (LETRS) was related to student reading ability by comparing the average third-grade reading achievement of schools that used LETRS to that of schools that used exclusively other professional development experiences in the context of Colorado’s Read Act. Guided by What Works Clearinghouse Standards, we conducted a quasi-experiment with propensity score matching and an active comparison group. We supplemented our primary intent-to-treat analysis with three sensitivity analyses designed to demonstrate the robustness of our claims. Effect estimates for completing a LETRS volume on educator knowledge ranged from 0.82 to 0.94. Students’ third-grade reading achievement did not statistically differ for schools that adopted LETRS compared with other professional development experiences in any model, suggesting that LETRS was comparable to the other programs at improving third-grade reading achievement at the school level.
The “science of reading” movement is a political, ideological, and market-based attack on teachers and public education, and the only people profiting off yet another moral panic are the media, political leaders, education reformers, entrepreneurs, and of course, the education market place.
The full story is never covered, because the real story about reading simply isn’t that profitable.
PublicSchoolsFirstNC reacted with outrage at the decision of the North Carolina Supreme Court, overturning the Leandro Decusion of 1994.
The long-awaited North Carolina Supreme Court ruling on the state’s landmark Leandro school funding case is out.
PRESS ALERT: NC Supreme Court Dismisses Case, Does Not Enforce State Constitution
For immediate release: April 2, 2026
In a reversal of its 2022 ruling, which required lawmakers to fund public schools according to the Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan (designed to bring lawmakers into constitutional compliance on school funding), the current court majority “dismissed the case” ruling that a 2017 NC Trial Court ruling was made in error and all subsequent Leandro rulings are invalid.
More than thirty years of fact finding and four prior NC Supreme Court rulings had established that the North Carolina State (legislative and executive branches) had not fulfilled its obligation to North Carolina’s students.
Statewide, students’ right to a sound basic education under the North Carolina State Constitution had been violated, affirming the initial 1994 claim that became the landmark Leandro case. These facts were not disputed.
The North Carolina State Constitution clearly states that all children across our state, no matter their circumstances or background, are entitled to a sound basic education funded by the state. While the court’s decision is disappointing and shocking in the degree to which it removes the courts from responsibility, it does NOT absolve legislators of their legal duty to adequately fund public schools.
Individually and collectively, we must take action to remind our lawmakers of their responsibility to abide by the state constitution’s requirement to ensure our children’s civil and human rights by fully funding a free, uniform public education.
In her dissent, Justice Anita Earls writes that, “The Court today betrays these constitutional commitments.
The majority dismisses North Carolina’s landmark constitutional education rights litigation with prejudice and with no relief for any injured party because no plaintiff formally filed an amended pleading to challenge the current statewide funding system. In other words, the majority concludes that it will not order the State to correct the way it has harmed public school students, even in very low-wealth school districts like Hoke County, and even as two previous Courts concluded that the State is failing to adequately educate students and must act to fix the public education system. In reaching that decision, the majority relies on a hyper-technicality that is not even lawful grounds to dismiss these proceedings and was not argued by any party. Specifically, no party asked this Court to dismiss this case because it was an improper “facial” challenge. The majority’s narrow holding rests on stunning and unsupported assertions.”
PSFNC agrees! The ruling today highlights the judicial and legislative neglect facing our public schools. They have been operating the entire school year without a 2025-26 budget even though their operating costs have increased. Later this month, the legislative short session begins. North Carolina’s students can wait no longer.
PSFNC calls on all North Carolinians to urge legislators to fulfill their obligations—fully fund public schools including Leandro, pay teachers professional, competitive salaries, and invest in the future of our children.
Media Contact: Heather Koons, Communications Director
Supporters of public schools in North Carolina have relied on the Leandro decision for more than three decades as they demanded fair funding of the schools. The North Carolina Supreme Court, now with a Republican majority, just overruled Leandro, which was decided in 1994. The new decision ruled that courts can’t tell the legislature to spend money.
For 32 years, North Carolina leaders have struggled to define what it means when the state constitution says “equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.” The long-running Leandro school lawsuit has seen the courts go back and forth on what the courts can do to provide a “sound basic education” for North Carolina’s 1.5 million public school students. Thursdays ruling by the N.C. Supreme Court marks the latest and potentially final chapter in that fight….
T. Keung Hui of the North Carolina News & Observer wrote:
The North Carolina Supreme Court has overturned a 2022 decision that allowed judges to order the transfer of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to fund public schools.
In a decision released on Thursday, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority ruled that state courts do not have the constitutional authority to order the spending of state dollars for schools. The decision was 4-3 with Republican Associate Justice Richard Dietz joining the two Democratic justices in dissenting.
The decision reverses a 2022 ruling by the former Democrat majority that the courts can require state officials to transfer funds to try to provide students with their constitutional right to a sound basic education. The court dismissed the lawsuit, apparently putting an end to the nearly 32-year-old court case.
“As this litigation comes to a close a few weeks shy of its thirty-second anniversary, we are reminded of these principles from our prior cases: In our constitution, the people established a tripartite system of government,” Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the majority ruling.
“In doing so, the people did not vest the judicial branch with the power to resolve policy disputes between the other branches of government or to set education policy. We would be especially ill-equipped to resolve such questions in any event.”
Decision disappointment for school supporters
The long-delayed ruling had been expected after the 2022 elections flipped the court majority to Republicans. The court’s Republican majority then agreed to block the money transfer and rehear the case over the objections of the Democratic justices.
“Today’s decision is disappointing — but not surprising,” Keith Poston, president of the Wake Ed Partnership, said in a statement Thursday. “The Court ruled on process, not whether students are getting what they need. That responsibility now sits squarely with state leaders. The needs in our schools haven’t changed—and neither has the urgency to act.”
It has been 770 days since oral arguments were heard in February 2024. The lengthy wait for the new ruling had raised questions.
This year’s Supreme Court election won’t shift the court’s majority. Only Democratic Associate Justice Anita Earls, who is running against GOP state Rep. Sarah Stevens, will be on the midterm ballot
The decision comes at a turning point in how the state funds education. A report released in December by the Education Law Center ranked North Carolina last in the nation in school funding effort and 50th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in funding level.
State Republican legislators fought the judicial money transfer, arguing that only the General Assembly can order state dollars to be spent. Democratic lawmakers have supported the 2022 court decision.
“Today’s decision rightly recognizes the constitutional role of the North Carolina General Assembly, since the state Constitution entrusts sole appropriations authority to the legislature,” Demi Dowdy, a spokesperson for House Speaker Destin Hall, said in a statement Thursday. “House Republicans remain committed to investing in public education, including through our budget proposal to raise starting teacher pay to $50,000 and provide 8.7% average raises to our public school teachers.”
Given the fact that about half the states have now mandated that teachers teach “the science of reading,” it seems to be a good time to repost what I wrote on November 1, 2023.
Some things never change.
I wrote:
One of my grandsons sent me an article about the national rush to mandate “the science of reading,” and it caused me to explain briefly (without boring him) the background of the latest panacea.
I didn’t tell him the history of the “reading wars,” which I researched and wrote about in Left Back (2000). I didn’t tell him that reading instruction has swung back and forth between the phonetic method and the “whole word” method since the introduction of public schooling in the first quarter of the 19th century. Horace Mann opposed phonics. But the popular McGuffey readers of that century were phonetic and included examples of good literature.
In 1930, the Dick-and-Jane readers were introduced, and they swept the country. Unlike the McGuffey readers, they featured pictures of children (white and suburban), they used simple words that could be easily recognized, and they were bright and colorful. By the 1950s, Dick and Jane style readers were used in about 80% of American schools. They relied on the whole word method, also known as look-say.
In 1955, this national consensus was disrupted by the publication of Rudolf Flesch’s wildly popular book, Why Johnny Can’t Read, which castigated the look-say method and urged a revival of phonics. The fervor for phonics then is similar to the fervor now.
But the debate about which method was best quickly became politicized. “Bring back phonics” was the battle cry of very conservative groups, who lambasted the whole-word method as the conspiratorial work of liberal elites. Phonics thus was unfairly tarnished as a rightwing cause.
The definitive book about the teaching of reading was written in 1967 by Harvard literacy expert Jeanne Chall: Learning to Read: The Great Debate. Chall wrote about the importance of phonics as part of beginning reading instruction, followed up by wonderful children’s literature. She warned against going to extremes, a warning that has been ignored with every pendulum swing.
The 1980s began the dominance of whole language, which brought back whole-word sight reading and de-emphasized phonics. Textbook companies boasted that their programs were whole language. Literacy conferences were focused on whole language. Phonics was out. Many reading teachers held on their phonics books, even though phonics was out of style.
There is always a crisis in reading, so in the late 1990s, the pendulum began to move again. As it happened, a very influential supporter of phonics held a key position at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Reid Lyon was director of the NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Development. His field of expertise was learning disabilities.
From Wikipedia:
From 1992 to 2005, Lyon served as a research neuropsychologist and the chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the NICHD at the National Institutes of Health; in this role he developed and oversaw research programs in cognitive neuroscience, learning and reading development and disorders, behavioral pediatrics, cognitive and affective development, School Readiness, and the Spanish to English Reading Research program. He designed, developed and directed the 44-site NICHD Reading Research Network.
Lyon selected the members of the National Reading Panel. Like him, most were experimental researchers in higher education. Only one—Joanne Yatvin— was experienced as an elementary school teacher and principal. She wrote a “minority view” dissenting from the report, and she worried that the report would be misused.
President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law on January 8, 2002. This law was the single largest intrusion of the federal government into education in American history. Before NCLB, education was a state responsibility. Since passage of NCLB, the federal government established mandates that schools had to obey.
One of the components of this law was the Reading First program. RF was based on the report of the National Reading Panel, which emphasized the importance of phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and fluency.
The Reading First program allocated $6 billion over six years to encourage districts to adopt the “science of reading,” as established by the National Reading panel.
There were two reasons that the program ended.
First, there were financial scandals. Google “Reading First Program Scandals”). The New York Times reported here about conflicts of interest and steering of contracts to favored textbook publishers. “In a searing report that concludes the first in a series of investigations into complaints of political favoritism in the reading initiative, known as Reading First, the report said officials improperly selected the members of review panels that awarded large grants to states, often failing to detect conflicts of interest. The money was used to buy reading textbooks and curriculum for public schools nationwide.”
Second, the final evaluation of the program found that it taught what it aimed to teach but there was no improvement in students’ comprehension.
Here is the summary of the final evaluation:
The findings presented in this report are generally consistent with findings presented in the study’s Interim Report, which found statistically significant impacts on instructional time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension) in grades one and two, and which found no statistically significant impact on reading comprehension as measured by the SAT 10. In addition to data on the instructional and student achievement outcomes reported in the Interim Report, the final report also presents findings based upon information obtained during the study’s third year of data collection: data from a measure of first grade students’ decoding skill, and data from self-reported surveys of educational personnel in study schools.
Analyses of the impact of Reading First on aspects of program implementation, as reported by teachers and reading coaches, revealed that the program had statistically significant impacts on several domains. The information obtained from the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency indicates that Reading First had a positive and statistically significant impact on first grade students’ decoding skill.
The final report also explored a number of hypotheses to explain the pattern of observed impacts. Analyses that explored the association between the length of implementation of Reading First in the study schools and reading comprehension scores, as well as between the number of years students had been exposed to Reading First instruction and reading comprehension scores were inconclusive. No statistically significant variation across sites in the pattern of impacts was found. Correlational analyses suggest that there is a positive association between time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program and reading comprehension measured by the SAT 10, but these findings appear to be sensitive to model specification and the sample used to estimate the relationship.
The study finds, on average, that after several years of funding the Reading First program, it has a consistent positive effect on reading instruction yet no statistically significant impact on student reading comprehension. Findings based on exploratory analyses do not provide consistent or systematic insight into the pattern of observed impacts.
After the disgrace of the Reading First program, support for phonics dissipated. But in the past few years, journalists (led by Emily Hanford) have trumpeted the idea that the report of the National Reading Panel established the “science of reading.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about the “Mississippi Miracle,“ claiming that the “science of reading” had lifted fourth grade reading scores, and no new spending was needed in a very poorly resourced state. Kristof did not explain why the SOR did not cause a rise in eighth grade scores in Mississippi, nor did he understand that retaining low-scoring third graders raises the percentage of fourth graders who get high test scores. State after state is now mandating the “science of reading.”
Federal Judge Richard Leon issued a decision stopping work on Trump’s Hideous Grand Obsession: the ballroom that will replace the East Wing of the White House. Trump demolished the East Wing without going through the legal requirements and permissions.
Judge Leon, appointed by President George W. Bush, opened his decision with two sentences:
The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!
Trump responded with this cry of outrage:
Trump is determined to leave his garish mark on D.C.
Not only did he tear down the East Wing of the White House, but he plans other major alterations to the White House and the city.
Of course, he added his name to the Kennedy Center, which was dedicated by Congress as a memorial to the assassinated President. After Trump took control of the Center, artists began canceling their performances and ticket sales fell. To cover his embarrassment, he is closing the Center for two years while “renovating” it. Critics fear that it will emerge as a gold-encrusted monument to Trump.
The New York Times reported that Trump is fixated on making changes to the White House:
He plans to turn the historic Treaty Room into a guest bedroom. Really! He has zero respect for history, and he thinks the White House is his personal property.
Mr. Trump already has torn down the East Wing to make room for his $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom; he remade the bathroom attached to the Lincoln Bedroom in marble and gold; he paved over the Rose Garden grass; he added marble floors and a chandelier to the Palm Room; he covered the Oval Office in gold; and he has a new, 33,000-square-foot security screening center for White House visitors in the works.
His latest plans involve the more private spaces of the White House, in the second-floor presidential residence. The Treaty Room — which is separate from the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building — is one of the most historic rooms in the White House. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley used it as a Cabinet room, and it was where the Spanish-American War peace protocol of 1898, and the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963, were signed.
This is a photograph of President John F. Kennedy signing the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in the Treaty Room.
Trump wants to turn this historic room into a guest bedroom.
Trump’s egomania doesn’t stop there. It’s boundless. The U.S. Treasury will mint a $1 coin with his face on it to honor the 250th anniversary of the United States. It will also release a large gold coin with his image that will cost thousands of dollars. And in an unprecedented move, the U.S. Treasury will add Trump’s signature to paper currency. No other President has placed his signature on the nation’s currency. Presently, our paper currency has the signatures of the Secretary of the United States and the Treasurer of the United States. Not the President.
Trump wants to build a gigantic arch on the Virginia side of the D.C.-Virginia border. It will be the Arch of Independence, but is colloquially called the “Arc d’Trump.” It will tower over the nearby Lincoln Memorial. Some renderings show the arch slathered in gold, Trump’s favorite decoration.
The most devastating critique of Trump’s efforts to reshape the District of Columbia and the White House was written by Phillip Kennicott, the Pulitzer-Prize winning critic of art and architecture for The Washington Post. It was published before Judge Leon stopped work on the ballroom. Trump, Kennicott says, is the greatest threat to D.C. and the White House since 1812, when the British burned the Capitol and the White House to the ground.
He wrote:
A loosely circular driveway sweeps through the White House grounds, just below the beloved South Portico of the mansion. Its shape echoes a larger park, known as the Ellipse, which connects the president’s home to the National Mall. It also mirrors the curving pathways of nearby Lafayette Square, on the north side of the complex.
The simple symmetry of this modest roadway and the grace of the White House south grounds are no accident: They were the vision of the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., one of the original members of the Senate Park Commission, which created the monumental core of Washington as we know it, more than a century ago.
The geometry of this driveway — a small but resonant element of Olmsted’s master plan for the White House campus — will soon be erased, now that a federal judge has allowed President Donald Trump to proceed at least temporarily with construction of his 90,000-square-foot, $400 million ballroom. The ballroom, which will be larger than the original mansion, is so gargantuan that the original curving road simply won’t fit. To make room for Trump’s entertaining and fundraising space, a large notch will be clawed out of the driveway, according to drawings released by Shalom Baranes Associates, the D.C.-based architecture firm overseeing one of the most unpopular projects of the president’s second term.
Washington has a composed geometry built up from significant details like this elliptical drive. As with the diagonal avenues that connect symbolically important circles, squares and civic landmarks, the Platonic perfection of this shape is best appreciated from the air. But it is a vital reminder of the care taken, over the past 200 years, in the design of the capital city, and the deference paid to a set of aesthetic and cultural values that came out of the Enlightenment, including a love of symmetry, repetition, iterative patterns and a fine balance between grandeur and grandiosity.
Trump is the most significant threat to the city’s architectural and design legacy since British forces burned the Capitol and White House during the War of 1812. He has already demolished the East Wing of the White House, which dates to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He will replace it with a building that makes James Hoban’s neo-Classical executive mansion a mere appendage to a space meant to function like a hotel-convention-center-entertainment venue. He has proposed (but temporarily delayed) painting the next-door Eisenhower Executive Office Building a blinding shade of white, which preservation groups argue could irreversibly damage the stone facade.
He wants to build a 250-foot-tall memorial arch near the most hallowed ground in the country, Arlington National Cemetery. His “Independence Arch,” which he has said will honor himself personally, would dwarf the largest victory arches in the world, including the arch in Pyongyang, built in 1982 to honor North Korea’s murderous dictator, Kim Il Sung. Only Eero Saarinen’s slender ribbon of steel, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, would be taller. Although it would be built in a traffic circle on the Virginia side of the Potomac, the Trump arch would compete with some of the tallest buildings in Washington, including the Washington Monument and Washington National Cathedral, fundamentally altering a meticulously preserved skyline.
The president’s proposed “National Garden of American Heroes” would introduce a forest of quickly designed statues to the banks of the Potomac almost opposite the new triumphal arch. A sylvan space defined by monumental memorials to Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thomas Jefferson would be cluttered, wax museum-style, with hundreds of stubby tributes to showbiz stars, folk heroes and sports celebrities.
These proposals, the rush to realize them, the stacking of key oversight groups with Trump loyalists and flunkies and the collaboration of firms like Shalom Baranes Associates, have upended and effectively destroyed the process of design review — which has until now preserved Washington as a monumental, picturesque capital.
They would also manifest in stone, cement and steel a vision of the city fundamentally at odds with the democratic ideals of the city’s founders, the stewards of its expansion in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the vigilance of its latter-day defenders against shabby development, cheapness and commercialization.
In 1806, Benjamin Latrobe, perhaps the first great architect in America, sent a letter to Congress, defending his work on the U.S. Capitol, which was then under construction. Latrobe, who also contributed to the interiors of Hoban’s White House, was a proud and difficult man, and his letter to Congress, which exercises authority over the design of the nascent city — a duty it is now shirking — was prickly and defensive. But in it, he articulated foundational principles for the aesthetics and architecture of the new republic, which recognized no kings, and no absolute authority beyond the laws and the Constitution. “Nothing appears so clear,” he wrote, “as that a graceful and refined simplicity is the highest achievement of taste and art.” American buildings should be “chaste and simple,” and to ornament them just for the sake of surface attraction was folly.
“We find ornaments increase in proportion as art declines, or as ignorance abounds,” he maintained.
This was the common language of American architecture at the time — stately, chaste, simple, dignified — and it echoed ideas from a half-century earlier, as capitalism and representational government were together forging a new, bourgeois worldview. In Adam Smith’s 1759 “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” the Scottish philosopher and economist sometimes called the Father of Capitalism wrote that two new aesthetics were in competition as the world industrialized and broke down the old, feudal orders.
One was based on greed, power and avidity; the other on equity, justice and humility. These values would express themselves in our political systems, our economies, our ethics, our art and our architecture.
“Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour,” he wrote. “The one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline; the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other, attracting the attention of scarce anybody but the most studious and careful observer.”
The elliptical drive at the White House, about to be disappeared by a gaudy new ballroom, was the exact sort of subtle detail that delighted the designers of early Washington, a pattern hidden in plain sight that would attract the attention of only “the most studious and careful observer.”
The ballroom itself, which Trump has promoted as spectacular and ornate, exemplifies the aesthetic — and moral value system — that Smith found both dangerous and abhorrent. How did we get here? How have we strayed or been misled so far from the values, ideals and aesthetics that gave Washington its current form?
Trump doesn’t have a coherent or consistent aesthetic ideal. Rather, the veteran real estate developer has reflexive responses and aesthetic tics when it comes to design — and for a president, an unprecedented willingness to assert them. Three of these habits are easy to see in his plans for Washington, mirroring his style of politics and his use of rhetoric and language. He has a primitive attraction to the big, the grand, the colossal. When he speaks, he uses superlatives reflexively, and he brings the same sensibility to architecture. And just as nature abhors a vacuum, Trump abhors anything he sees as empty. There is no value in silence, no beauty in open, uncluttered spaces. Everything must be filled, branded, made busy. Finally, he has no sense of context or formal relationships, no understanding of the hierarchies of how buildings (and institutions) relate to each other, to history, to formal plans.
The design of beautiful cities, and the design of effective governments, are predicated on “gentleman’s agreements,” voluntary deference to precedents and conventions. Trump respects none of this.
But there is a fourth deficiency in his understanding of architecture and design, which arises from and amplifies his other three failures of taste and judgment: He appears utterly uninterested in basic American values, history and symbols, and so there are no guardrails, no limits, to the damage done by his other failings.
Trump’s single-minded and unwavering preference for the biggest, his equating of size with significance, has become so familiar we have started to overlook it. But the architectural consequences for Washington will be devastating. When Stanford White — whose architecture firm McKim, Mead & White designed several branches of New York’s Public Library and the original Pennsylvania Station — drafted a memorial arch, he included in an 1892 rendering the figure of a man holding a measuring stick to offer a sense of its size. The arch, built in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park to honor the nation’s first president, rose to 77 feet, a bit taller than the ancient Roman Arch of Titus on which it was loosely modeled. But while grand and imposing, it still had a relationship to human scale.
Trump’s arch will dwarf this, and all other ancient precedents. Only the monuments erected by modern governments that rule by terror and dehumanization offer any comparable examples. And it is larger than many of those, too, dwarfing the Victory Arch in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
It will also fundamentally alter one of the essential elements of what is known as the McMillan Plan, the Senate Park Commission’s 1902 redesign of the capital city which created the National Mall and the monumental core of Washington. The McMillan Plan forged a grand, axial vision of national healing and reconciliation that symbolically reconnected the North and the South by a bridge across the Potomac, joining a city of the dead at Arlington Cemetery to the city of the living, with the Lincoln Memorial as a hinge point. Long vistas and clear views drew the eye from the memorial to the military architect of Civil War victory, Ulysses S. Grant, at the base of the U.S. Capitol, to the temple devoted to the political architect of reunification, Lincoln, more than two miles away. The men and women who sacrificed their lives for reunification were honored by the Arlington Memorial Bridge leading to the cemetery and low-lying hills of Virginia just beyond.
That open view across the Potomac River to the hallowed burial ground was essential. A winning design in an early competition for a bridge at that crossing included two massive arches over its central piers — small compared to Trump’s arch, but large enough to impede views. The leaders of the McMillan Plan not only rejected these arches, they took particular care to keep sight lines open and the design of the shallow, low-slung bridge (by McKim, Mead & White) simple and elegant. They also stripped away a complex plan for some 40 decorative sculptures. The closer they got to the final resting place of Civil War soldiers, the more the planners insisted on dignity, sobriety and simplicity.
All of Trump’s proposed designs for a victory arch that he has shared on social media would block that carefully preserved view. One would also be laden with gilded statues, eagles and other glittering ornamental forms.
To understand the true scale of Trump’s ballroom, you have to get beyond the mere size of its floor plan — at 90,000 square feet, almost twice as large as the original structure’s 55,000 square feet. Rather, you need to take into account the context of the White House grounds and the surrounding federal buildings. The scale of the addition will destroy any sense of symmetry between the East and West wings and reorient the White House campus to the east, where it faces the massive Treasury Department building, a dispiriting, fortresslike phalanx of Ionic columns that natter on like someone discoursing on the infallible wisdom of free markets. Renderings of the new structure make it look like the old White House mated with Treasury, spawning a grotesque creature that has traded the livability of a domestic space for the untrammeled power of a banking colossus.
Trump’s gilded arch, ballroom and his redesign of the Oval Office with incrustations of historically anachronistic gold ornament, introduce a fussiness and busyness into a Washington aesthetic that has generally favored the chaste and simple, at least when it comes to the profile of classical buildings. His hanging of banners — in many cases featuring gigantic portraits of himself — as well as projecting images onto the blank face of the city’s most sublime and minimalist structure, the Washington Monument, suggest a need to fill in blank space, animating planes that are meant to be spare and quiet. The ballroom isn’t simply too big, it is also too busy.
Like the news cycle, architectural and urban spaces are treated as mere voids, waiting to be filled with Trumpian noise. Once filled, he owns them, at least in his own mind. Once owned, they can be monetized, and it’s likely only a matter of time until advertising is projected onto the Washington Monument and other structures.
All of this has consequences on a deeper, symbolic level. The ballroom reorients the White House to suggest that it is fundamentally responsive to economic rather than civic power, confirming visually what is too often the case politically: The executive serves the financial class first and foremost. The triumphal arch will be placed on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, effectively crowning the South as the victor in the Civil War. That too reaffirms in visual terms what is too often the case in civic life: That the values of the Confederacy, including its deeply entrenched racism and violence, remain extraordinarily powerful in American culture.
The gilding of the arch echoes the tinsel applied to American history through entrenched mythologies like the Lost Cause.
There is no final price tag on all of this, beyond a few figures floated by the president, who has said that his $400 million ballroom will be financed privately — by billionaire donors and corporations maintaining contracts with the federal government in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Some of the funding for the National Garden of American Heroes will come from siphoning money out of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. We may never know how much it all costs, or who curried favor by paying for it, or what conflict-of-interest lines were crossed.
But the larger, less tangible costs can be roughly tabulated. The Commission of Fine Arts, which was created in 1910 to oversee the design of the city and execute and protect the vision of the McMillan Plan, is now a toothless organization stacked with loyalists including some with no expertise in design or architecture — among them a 26-year-old White House aide who has served as the president’s executive assistant.
Design review is dead, and with it the values of simplicity, chastity and modesty celebrated by Latrobe and Smith. Washington is now subject to design by fiat, by whim, by executive orders, whether legal or not. Trump is moving quickly to introduce noise, disorder and incoherence into the design of the capital city. It will be a lot less beautiful. And people who live here and those who visit may not know why, but they will sense that disorder and incoherence and tune it out, like just more noise.
Diane Ravitch's blog 