SC must not get caught in the revolving door of reading reforms | Opinion

Legislators are again poised to address reading in South Carolina with “Read to Succeed” scheduled for a subcommittee hearing on Jan. 10.

I have been a literacy educator in South Carolina for 40 years, including 18 years as a high school English teacher. As an Education professor at Furman University, I’m now in my 22nd year in higher education.

My doctoral work at the University of South Carolina afforded me the opportunity to explore the long history of debate about reading in the U.S. reaching back into the 1940s when literacy teacher and scholar Lou LaBrant raised a familiar concern about “the considerable gap between the research currently available and the utilization of that research in school programs and methods.”

Just after a reading crisis was declared in the 1940s due to low literacy rates among WWII recruits, LaBrant wrote: “(W)e hear many persons saying that the present group of near-illiterates are results of ‘new methods,’ ‘progressive schools,’ or any deviation from the old mechanical procedures. They say we must return to drill and formal reciting from a text book.”

Eighty years later, journalists, pundits and political leaders are announcing another reading crisis — the “science of reading” movement — and pointing at the exact same causes while offering the same solutions grounded almost entirely in phonics and a return to basics.

South Carolina has been targeting reading for a decade through Read to Succeed, and yet, we find ourselves still mired in a reading crisis. Let’s instead look at the evidence around us to close the gap LaBrant acknowledged.

In Connecticut, legislation has targeted reading mandating the “science of reading,” but now the unintended consequences are coming home to roost: “(T)he new mandate will cost districts collectively more than $100 million in the school year 2024-25.”

Even more concerning is this legislation bans adopted materials while mandating new materials, even for schools with strong reading proficiency: “CSDE ordered the remaining 68 applicants to either augment their existing programs or replace them entirely. These districts include New Canaan Public Schools, where 83.2% of their students read proficiently. Darien, Westport Eastford, Wilton, Colebrook, Cheshire, Ridgefield, Bethany were also denied in part or all together, even though their third graders scored near or above the 80% level.”

A recent analysis in the Harvard Educational Review reveals a similar pattern in reading legislation in Tennessee: “Since the early 2010s, Tennessee has had ‘a revolving door of reading reforms’ — from the Ready to Read initiative in 2016 to the revisions of English language arts standards that in 2017 introduced ‘foundational literacy’ skills.” Like CT, TN is facing a $100 million price tag, yet most of that funds purchasing commercial reading products not supported by science.

This “science of reading” fad is a repeat of the Common Core era of new standards and new teaching and learning materials — a cycle of reform that never achieves what is promised.

Often in South Carolina, we pride ourselves on not simply following the fad, but in education, we have failed to do something different since the 1980s. Yes, we should serve better the individual needs of students as readers, but jumping on the “science of reading” bandwagon is taking the same path we have been traveling and expecting a different destination.

Regretfully, we persist in the historical negligence LaBrant confronted in 1942: “An easy way to evade the question of improved living and better schools for our underprivileged is to say the whole trouble is lack of drill. Lack of drill! Let’s be honest. Lack of good food; lack of well-lighted homes with books and papers; lack of attractive, well equipped schools, where reading is interesting and meaningful; lack of economic security permitting the use of free schools — lack of a good chance, the kind of chance these unlettered boys are now fighting to give to others.”

Legislators should resist the “science of reading” fad and make a different commitment to students and reading.

Paul Thomas is a professor of Education at Furman University.