Looks good from up here
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
As 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.
As the mandate passes down through layer after layer, each layer reinterprets the mandate in its own way. And everybody has ideas about how to teach reading. Expect everyone between legislators and teachers—every administrator, professional development presenter, every college professor, every state department of education leader and employee—to read the legislation through their own lens.
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.
When new research appears about reading instruction, how quickly will states be able to adjust their mandates?
Incentivizing politics
When legislators start mandating instructional techniques, the result is a system that rewards people for being good at working the political system, not for being good at teaching. Common Core was shepherded through by well-connected folks like Bill Gates, not a collection of classroom educators.
To modify the old saying, when you mix politics and education, you get politics. The power to influence a multi-billion dollar industry will always be attractive.
It would take a whole series of separate pieces to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of the “Science of Reading.” But set the merits aside for the moment; even the most high-quality instructional method would be damaged by legislative mandate. Attempting to micro-manage classroom instruction from the capital will never be a fruitful exercise.
