Is Early Reading a Problem?

Robert Pondiscio appeared on US News this week to stick up for the Common Core's demand that kindergartners learn to read.

He's responding to the recent report from Defending the Early Years and the Alliance for Childhood. The report (which I covered here) makes a case that the Core ignores developmental experts.

Pondiscio engages in a subtle but significant misrepresentation of the criticism of CCSS's early reading requirement when he says "What critics seem to be saying is that Common Core is simply too hard for kindergarten."

Well, no. Not exactly.

I can't think of a single person I've encountered on any side who has said, "For the love of God, whatever you do, don't let kindergartners learn to read!! Don't even let them get ready to read!" Nor do I know of anyone in education who doesn't recognize the value of learning to read. I do look askance at statements about early reading success being predictive of "a child's academic trajectory" because it smells a great deal like one more person confusing correlation with causation. But even if I don't buy the usefulness of that observation, it doesn't make me value reading any less.

However, there is a world of difference between saying, "It's a good idea for children to proceed as quickly as they can toward reading skills" and "All students must demonstrate the ability to read emergent reader texts with purpose and understanding by the last day of kindergarten."

The development of reading skills, like the development of speech, height, weight, hair and potty training, is a developmental landmark that each child will reach on his or her own schedule.

We would like all children to grow up to be tall and strong. It does not automatically follow that we should therefor set a height standard that all children must meet by their fifth birthday-- especially if we are going to label all those who come up short as failures or slow or developmentally disabled, and then use those labels in turn to label their schools and their teachers failures as well. These standards demand that students develop at a time we've set for them. Trying to force, pressure and coerce them to mature or grow or develop sooner so that they don't "fail"-- how can that be a benefit to the child.

And these are five year olds in kindergarten. On top of the developmental differences that naturally occur among baby humans, we've also got the arbitrary age requirements of the kindergarten system itself, meaning that there can be as much as a six-month age difference (10% of their lives so far) between the students. [Edit: As correctly pointed out by some readers, depending on how your local district handles kindergarten registration, that age spread can be as large as a full year.]

Saying that we want all students to grow up exposed to rich environments that promote reading-- that's a great idea. Setting an arbitrary cut-off standard and then labeling everyone who doesn't meet it a failure is a terrible idea. The Common Core does not present its reading standards (developed without input from any early childhood learning experts) as suggestions; it presents them as a list of Things Students Must Know By the End of the Grade. That's what Pondiscio tiptoes around in his piece-- that we are going to tell five year olds who aren't at the standard that they are failures (and probably on a path to be failures for life).

And I'm not even starting on how the Core encourages the use of standardized testing to show how students have met the standard. What earthly good does it do to subject a five year old to a standardized test?

Giving each child the earliest best possible shot at learning to read is an admirable and worthwhile goal, but demanding that each and every child meet a One Size Fits All standard is not, particularly when that standard has not taken into account the realities and varieties of early child development.

Van Roekel, Fordham and Defending the Brand

What a difference a year can make.

A year ago, Dennis van Roekel's message to NEA members was, "Well, if not Common Core, then what in its place?" This year, his message was, "Common who? Hey, look at this toxic testing badness!"

With all the tight aim of a finely-crafted focus-group-tested PR campaign, DVR used the NEARA convention as a launching pad for a campaign to push back hard against The Big Test while also, as Fred Klonsky put it, building a firewall around Common Core.

DVR's keynote seems (full disclosure-- I wasn't in Denver and I am depending on the reports of those who were) a work of exceptionally fine tuning, the kind of careful tap dance that you can't perform without knowing every inch of the dance floor.

He led off with a history of the last several decades of school reform, name-checking the usual rage-inducing suspects (even in a speech, it seems, She Who Must Not Be Named is red meat click bait) without getting lost in details. But somehow a study of the evolution of various ill-fated, teacher-blaming, education-crushing reforms did NOT bring DVR to Common Core. Rather, the evil bad boy of school reform is high stakes testing, first bullying its way into the spotlight and now ruining the entire show.

Look! Look over there, at that Bad Testing!! No no no-- not over here at the CCSS! It's the tests! That's what done it!

DVR outlines four points for getting the accountability train back on track:
1) expand early childhood education to improve school readiness, 
2) redirect resources away from testing companies and toward  improved conditions of learning and teaching,  
3) create high standards for all learners and 
4) take ownership of and responsibility for a quality teacher workforce.

1 is harmless. 2 is an interesting pipe dream. 4 is perhaps the most interesting, representing an intention of the union to finally get involved in teacher quality. And 3, of course, reaffirms the NEA's devotion to the Common Core. Not that DVR ever mentioned the Core. Focus-testing apparently made it clear that it was not a guaranteed applause line. 

No, the purpose of this initiative is two-fold. Attack the tests. Defend the brand.

It helps that the tests deserve attacking. They're a weak target at this point, and they are the backbone, teeth and testicles of the entire CCSS movement. And they are odious, awful, wretched excuses for anything useful. They are every bit as bad as DVR said they are, and that's part of the campaign's strength-- it's based on truth. It just stops telling the truth once we get to the question of why we have these tests in the first place. Because for some reason, the imperative is to protect the CCSS brand.

Gates proposed moratorium on testing is likely the same thing. At all costs protect the brand.

CCSS is a hot air balloon struggling to avoid crashing back to earth, and testing is the overweight guy who may have been our BFF when we took off, but now we need to get rid of anything that is dragging the CCSS balloon down, so over the side with you, buddy.

Likewise, CCSS foes were chortling yesterday to see Robert Pondisco at the Fordham Institute's blog eviscerating a model teaching example from engageNY's Kate Gerson, who demonstrated an example of why Common Core is often associated with students who would rather have their eyebrows plucked bald one hair at a time. Gerson appears to be channeling the worst teaching techniques of the 1960s, and my heart goes out once again to NY teachers who have to deal with this drivel.

But is Pondisco, shooting holes in the Core? Of course not. The Fordham has been relentless in defending the brand-- from everybody and anybody including She Who Must Not Be Named and Arne Duncan himself. The Fordham applies the same technique over and over again-- they spot something egregious or stupid, and instead of making the amateur hour mistake of trying to protect it because it's Core, they get out their knives, carve it up, and declare, "This is NOT Common Core. This is what you get when some idiot does Common Core wrong." They have mastered a not-easily-mastered skill, because defending yourself from your enemies is easy; defending yourself from your friends is way harder.

Look, I welcome NEA attacking tests. As I've written before, the tests are the very worst, most destructive part of the reformy beast. But if we keep supporting the idea of national standards, we are going to keep getting national standardized tests. Railing against the testing while defending the CCSS is like cutting off dandelions and carefully tending their roots.

This circling of the wagons around the Core is good news for those of us in the resistance. For one thing, Core supporters are way over-estimating how easily CCSS can be cut loose and protected from the effects of things like a testing system that was built right into the Core's dna. For another, the fact that they're willing to try is a measure of how much trouble they're in.

And if, a year after defiantly defending it, DVR is ready to go through his last speech without even mentioning the Common Core, there is hope that my national union might be starting to get the beginning of a clue.