New legislation will transform American public education. Basic to the No Child Left Behind Act and the Put Reading First program is a new and substantial federal intrusion into local curriculum control and teacher autonomy. This intrusion is masked in the legislative mandate for "evidence-based", or "scientific", reading instruction. Beyond the distortions of the findings of the National Reading Panel Report that undergird the new federal initiatives, there are other federal mandates, past and current, that have also impeded improving reading instruction—and worse, the public education system—through privatization, teacher disempowerment, and a systemic business model.
In this timely and important book, nationally-recognized reading researcher Richard Allington tracks and questions the 30-year campaign that has focused on testing, accountability, and federalization of education. He and other educators, including Jim Cunningham, Michael Pressley, Elaine Garan, and Patrick Shannon, have contributed articles that provide an overview of past and recent federal education policies, including the NRP Report and associated legislation and policy making, with analyses of the premises of the new national reading plan. By showing how these premises are manufactured—that is, not reliably supported by the research—they explain why this plan is an unwarranted federal encroachment into local educational decision making.
Contents:
Introduction: Big Brother and the National Reading Curriculum
1. Troubling Times: A Short Historical Perspective, R. Allington
I. Unreliable Evidence: Responses to the National Reading Panel Reports
2. The National Reading Panel Report [A Review], J. Cunningham
3. Why the National Reading Panel's Recommendations Are Not Enough, M. Pressley, S. Dolezal, A. Roehrig, & K. Hilden
4. Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors: A Critique of the National Reading Panel Report on Phonics, E. Garan
5. More Smoke and Mirrors: A Critique of the National Reading Panel Report on Fluency, S. Krashen
6. Babes in the Woods: The Wanderings of the National Reading Panel, J. Yatvin
7. Can Teachers and Policy Makers Learn to Talk to One Another? C. Toll
II. Politics, Policies, and Profits: The Political Context of the National Reports
8. The Politics of Phonics, F. Paterson
9. Decodable Text in Beginning Reading: Are Mandates Based on Research? R. Allington & H. Woodside-Jiron
10. Explicit and Systematic Teaching of Reading—A New Slogan? B. Cambourne
11. The Will of the People, J. Edmondson & P. Shannon
Conclusion: An Unwanted Intrusion: The Evidence Against the National Reading Plan
12. Accelerating in the Wrong Direction: Why Thirty Years of Federal Testing and Accountability Haven't Worked Yet and What We Might Do Instead, R. Allington
13. Why We Don't Need a National Methodology, R. Allington
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