Why Georgia Has So Much Illiteracy

The suspense is over. The contest for Most Revealing Newspaper Headline of the Year has already been won. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on September 4th, knocked out all the competition with this gem:

One of the nation’s great liberal newspapers reveals in no uncertain terms that reading has been nothing special in the state of Georgia for many decades. And even now, after an extraordinary effort by the new governor, it is going to be promoted only PARTWAY to where it belongs.

This is an astonishing admission, and helps explain why one-third of public school students can’t read at grade level, and why Georgia ranks among the dozen most illiterate states.

Reading is without question the most important skill that children can learn. Probably it is more important than the others combined. It should have always been the #1 priority. That it was allowed to drift down to fourth, seventh or whatever could happen only if incompetent and irresponsible people were in charge. (These faux-experts might appropriately be charged with educational malpractice.)

Typically, the media work to protect the Education Establishment; our education commissars are allowed to claim they adore literacy. But now the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has ripped away the veil and revealed to the world that the people in charge don’t value reading very highly at all. And as reading goes, so go all the other subjects. A child who cannot read can’t learn history, geography, science, literature, current events, or very much else.

Another amazing thing about the story is that the governor is said to be exploring all kinds of complex, expensive fixes to reverse the decline that should never have been allowed to happen, for example: “the idea of a pay differential for topnotch teachers willing to work with some of the state’s youngest students.”

Otherwise, the article wants to be very clear that reading is oh-so-important in Georgia; and if this governor has his way, reading will most assuredly move a few notches higher on the priority ladder.

Here’s a wild idea. What if Governor Deal (such is his name) endorsed a phonics program and started making sure Georgia’s kids can read in the first grade. Then he could bring about the improvement he says he wants without administrative maneuvers or extra expense. Easy as A-B-C.

In fairness to Georgia, reading is a disaster all across the country. Flawed methods are commonly used, in particular, variations of Whole Word, Sight Words, Dolch Words, Balanced Literacy and the like. (All of these are pernicious because they force children to memorize phonetic words as graphic designs.) Use of these bogus techniques has resulted in 50 million functional illiterates. Indeed, the assault on reading is one of the most intriguing stories of the 20th century. A good case can be made that this assault is, in fact, the crime of the century. The crime continues to unfold in Georgia and the other 49 states.

(For a 3-minute graphic video explaining what happened to reading, see: “The Biggest Crime in American History” -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfzo02gWqF0 )

I come from a family of teachers. The 800 pound gorilla is the rejection of sound phonics instruction in the classroom. The kids in better schools are “after-schooled” by their parents so that the educational malpractice by our “highly trained education professionals” is not as evident with them.

In international tests our students from “good schools” do even worse against their international peers than do our students taken on average.

The word “afterschooling” is generally reserved for those who have been institutionalized for their schooling but gets help outside of their institutional school. It is shorthand way of saying “homeschooled after institutional school”. Therefore, a homeschooler is already homeschooled so would not be “homeschooled after homeschooling”.

I have never seen the term applied to college students.

As for you being a child and helping another institutionalized child ( in this case privately institutionalized), yes, you were “afterschooling”. I see this among the Latino children in our congregation. They find someone who is a good student, usually someone who has been afterschooled. Make friends with them and then ask for help.

In our Latino congregation, we had tutoring every Tuesday evening. An Anglo 3 grade teacher was asked to run the program. She would also go to the children's homes to help them learn phonics and traditional math. **That** is a perfect example of “afterschooling”.

Guess who is taking all the credit for the improvement in the children's scores? Yep! The local government school!

I used to tutor but finally had to stop. The methods used by the school were so irrational that I was afraid that I would make snarky remarks about the school and the teachers. I didn't see how that could be helpful.

This isn't just my opinion, but settled opinion of a whole lot of experts in the field of education.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

They are wrong.

Were you aware that **NO** studies have ever been done that show how much knowledge is acquired in the classroom as compared to that learned at home due to the parents, friends of the family, or the child himself.

This has NEVER been studied. NEVER!

We spend up to a quarter of a million dollars or more per child for 13 years of education and NO ONE knows if they learn anything in school. Or...If the knowledge they do acquire is due to the parents, the child, or others outside of school! Imagine that!

If you doubt me, I will send the e-mail from a prominent Stanford University professor of education where he plainly states these studies were NEVER done.

Wintertime has neatly explained here why Sight Words are a wicked Ponzi scheme:

“Since our congregation’s kids are so smart, they **easily** memorize the first 100 words needed for 1st grade and then the 200 or so words needed in 2nd grade. Their parents think that they are learning to read when they are **NOT**. In third grade they hit a wall.”

Eight or nine years old, these kids know only a few hundred sight-words. They can read only books with a “controlled vocabulary.” That is, they can’t actually read. The Education Establishment perpetrates this vicious hoax.

I see among the Spanish-speaking adults with elementary-grade educations from Mexico or Central America that they did learn phonics. When they write down lyrics to songs (I lead a Spanish choir) or announcements for the service, they spell Spanish words phonetically, mixing v and b, j and x, d and r, missing silent letters, etc., according to their local pronunciations.

Since they do actually decode words instead of having them memorized, they can easily be trained as lectors or learn new songs, even if some words are unfamiliar, because they know the sounds letters make and the rules of accent.

Many of our Spanish parents falsely believe that the methods used in their mud-hut elementary schools are being used in the U.S. They assume that their children will learn to read, since they did ( in schools with one bare light-bulb per classroom).

WRONG!

The poor child feels horrible about not being able to read. They get pressure from school and lots of disapprobation for “not working hard enough” from the immigrant parents. It is pure emotional child abuse, day after day.

That is very sad. I haven’t been sufficiently involved with the hispanic children’s education to see that level of detail.

Last year I had a first grade Sunday School class that was half Anglo and half Latino, but at 6 years old, reading fluency is extremely varied, and there were no observable differences between the children in different groups. Some children could read very well, and some just barely. Basic ability is an issue at that age, I think; I had my 4-year-old and 6-year-old sons in the class, and the younger one reads more easily than the older. Vlad is one of my “instant readers,” from three years old, while James had to be taught phonics.

All the Spanish-speaking children knew their prayers and basic Bible content, though. They come to Mass every Sunday, from grandparents to babies, and the families who are regular Mass attendees also practice their faith and teach the Bible at home.

It is not a teacher’s business if a child is obese, and few children who are not obviously handicapped are unable to learn to read, if properly taught from the age of 5 or 6. Even some people with Down’s Syndrome learn to read, as do many others with different mental impairments.

Many, perhaps most, people lack the capacity to master theoretical physics (for what it’s worth, Sheldon), just as many will never be star musicians or world-renowned artists, based on personal ability. However, this is simply not an issue when we’re talking about basic literacy and numeracy.

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