This is the Reading Instruction Show.
I am your podcast host, Dr. Andy Johnson.
Topic of today's podcast, the educational crisis is a myth.
Or why Laura Yoon and Richard Chamberlain are woefully ignorant.
There's a lot of yapping about school failure, usually by people with a political or for-profit
agenda of some sort.
And I recently read a column written by Laura Yoon at the Minneapolis Tribune describing
an alleged failure of our schools to teach reading, to teach children how to read.
The data upon which her conclusions were based, you asked.
It was her observation of her first grade sons struggle to sound out a word and what
she heard on a radio documentary.
While these are interesting and compelling, neither is what one would consider in most
circles anyway as valid or reliable sources in coming to conclusions about anything, much
less something as broad as reading instruction in Minnesota schools.
Further, Laura Yoon alleged that reading test scores are plummeting in Minnesota and that
Minnesota's reading test scores are far below the national average, neither of which is
true.
Minnesota State Senator Richard Chamberlain has made similar false claims in promoting
a for-profit teacher professional development program called Letters.
Now, Ms. Yoon blamed something called the queuing system, which isn't really a thing
and I'll explain that in my next podcast.
She also blamed whole language and balanced literacy, both of which, based on her writing,
she knows nothing about.
But that didn't seem to get in the way of coming to a conclusion for her or assigning
causality.
That didn't seem to get in the way of Senator Chamberlain's need to blame teacher preparation
programs for the alleged failure.
Now the critiques and conclusions of Laura Yoon and Senator Chamberlain are not atypical.
They get noted here.
There are a lot of Laura Yoon's and Senator Chamberlain's all over the United States
and far beyond.
They come to conclusions based not on reliable data or actual research, but on I think isms
and perceptions and what they want to believe or what for-profit and political entities tell
them to believe.
This seems to be more the norm than the exception with the school critiquers.
But if the premise is true that schools are failing and teachers are doing a horrible
job and professors like me are ruining America and sending our economy into decline, if that's
true, I want to see some research based data showing said decline and I want to see some
variables isolated.
Show me some valid reliable, comparable data collected over time that shows that our schools
are failing and teachers are doing a horrible job.
Give me some solid data that indicates that our schools are worse today than they were
five, 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
That data should not be based on your selected memory of what you think schools were like
once upon a time, but on some solid data with appropriate sample sizes that represent the
population to which you are seeking to generalize and hopefully that data has been peer reviewed.
As well that data should not be cherry picked to support your predetermined beliefs.
Causality should not be assigned to whatever issue you seem to take exception with at the
particular time.
Now let's take a look at test scores.
There are many who insist that test scores should be used to determine the quality of
education.
Those like Miss Ewan who claim that there's a massive decline in test scores, which isn't
true, assign causality to the variables of their choice.
Senator Chamberlain is the same way.
The reason why test scores are going down so they say is because of whatever variable
they have issue with.
It's because of whole language or teachers unions or violence on TV or too many guns
or too few guns or gay marriage or lack of family values or religion not in schools or
critical race theory or lack of standards or teacher tenure or teacher preparation, whatever
one has a particular beef with, that becomes the variable of choice, the causal factor
for ruining public education.
Now okay, I understand that I will never get some to think outside the standardized test
box.
There are those who cannot begin to conceive of determining the quality of education using
anything other than test scores.
I understand it's okay, all well and good.
But if you do happen to be one of those who are clinging tightly to that test based paradigm
with white knuckles, I'd invite you to look at the National Assessment of Educational
Progress Data, NAEP data.
This is collected by the National Center of Educational Statistics, which is part of the
U.S. Department of Education.
NAEP, often called the nation's report card, is the largest nationally representative
and continuing assessment of what students in public and private schools in the United
States know and are able to do in various subjects including reading, math, science,
and writing.
Starting in 1969, you're able to track changes occurring over time by individual states or
nationally.
And the same type of measure is used so you can make these comparisons.
Now contrary to Ms. Yoon, Senator Chamberlain and other school teachers, there is no massive
failure in our schools.
Massive failure is a myth perpetuated by those with political and for-profit agendas.
It's a manufactured crisis.
Schools are doing pretty much a good job.
Now this does not mean that we don't need to improve.
But since 1969, most scores have been steadily rising or stayed similar.
Go look yourself.
Of course there have been short-term fluctuations.
That's normal.
And recently there's been a worldwide pandemic and massive school closings.
These tend to have an impact on things such as student learning.
But the online graph of educational reality has for the most part been steadily rising.
There is no massive long-term downward trend.
Now thus said, test scores should never be used to determine the quality of education
students are receiving or the effectiveness of teaching.
Test scores are not valid or reliable indicators of teaching quality.
Good teaching is determined by, well, let me see, teaching.
More specifically, good teaching is teaching that is good.
Not test scores that are above average.
And here's the thing with standardized tests representing a normal distribution of scores
from a normal population.
There's always going to be a bell-shaped curve.
That means that 50% of the population is always going to be below average.
That's what average is.
Now this does not mean that we don't do everything we can to help each student achieve his or
her full potential.
But this is much different from trying to make standardized test scores go up.
Now we want effective teachers.
Everyone agrees with this.
But how do you determine who is and isn't an effective teacher?
Well let me give you a clue in case you have no.
I would not ask Laura Yoon, Richard Chamberlain, or any political or for-profit entity.
I will tell you.
Effective teachers are defined by effective teaching behaviors, not test scores.
Effective teachers are those who know and use a variety of research-based strategies
that are adopted and adapted to meet the needs of the students in front of them, not the
needs of Laura Yoon or Richard Chamberlain.
As well, effective teachers have four kinds of knowledge.
One, knowledge of subject matter.
Two, pedagogical knowledge.
This is knowledge of general teaching strategies.
Three, pedagogical content knowledge.
This is knowing how our knowledge of strategies for teaching specific content areas such as
reading, writing, and math.
And fourth, knowledge of learners, learning, and human development.
This includes understanding a little bit about our learning organ, how the human brain learns.
Now is it possible to develop adequate knowledge and skills in these four areas in three semesters
of any teacher preparation program?
No.
This is why we must require and continue to push for and fund continued, valid, appropriate
teacher professional development.
It must be a part of maintaining one's teaching license.
A final thing about test scores.
There will always be fluctuations in test scores.
That's because human beings are human beings and not standardized cogs in an educational
machine.
There always be fluctuations because test scores are a snapshot in time taken on a specific
instant in time.
And here's the thing about snapshots.
We never know what's behind the snapshot or outside the camera lens.
In the same way, test scores tell us nothing about context or what's behind the test scores
are outside the lens of the standardized tests.
So is there a crisis in education today?
The only crisis is that which is being perpetuated on teachers and schools by state legislators
and people with for-profit and political agendas who are outside our schools.
We need to empower teachers to make the decisions.
We want creative and intelligent people teaching our children.
We must empower and enable them to be creative and intelligent.
This has been the Reading Instruction Show with Dr. Andy Johnson.