Several things in the bill make clear what the intention is and how
it would be carried through. First is that the phrase "reliable,
replicable, research" is included 23 times- at every point where criteria
are required to screen who would or wouldn't be permitted to participate.
Individuals and research institutions and universities are for example so
restricted. There is an explicit definition of "reliable, replicable,
research" as there is of "reading" and "readiness for reading".
Second: The language of the bill defines a "peer review panel". If you
look at the prescribed membership of that panel it includes promininetly
NICHD- Reid Lyons, and the AAAS -which has no expertise in the area and
which would most likely follow Lyon's suggestions. The panel and the
program are housed in an obscure Literacy Institute with no previous role
in staff development. Most evident is the absence of all the national
professional literacy groups: NRC, NCRLL, Ira, NCTE and even AERA.
This panel would create the highly specified application form for "state,
literacy partnerships" and would review them for funding. The panel in
some added language reports to the Sec. of Education but in fact he/she is
given no authority to review or change its decisions.
The composition of the state partnerships is again highly constrained
screening out all individuals and institutions(universities) who are not
doing "reliable replicable research", Each state parnership is required to
promise to change state certification so that it is based on "reliable,
replicable research" within one year.
Further each state must submit to the same peer review panel the
application local school districts will be required to use to be awarded
sub-contracts. Again restrictions make participation is highly
constrained.
The effect is that every district and every state that participates would
be constrained to conform to "reliable, replicable, research" as defined
by the panel. As this has worked in California which already has all this
in place following passage of 12 laws- any member of the panel could
blackball any local or state program.
Further, it is not only the $260 million allotted to the program but all
federal money- Title 1, headstart, even start and federal and state
research moneys that would be controlled.
The effect would be to create a national phonics curriculum, methodology
and teacher certification and teacher education program with a paradigm
police force with total power over it centralized outside the department
of Education. Effectively, Reid Lyon, becomes national reading czar
without any need for Senate confirmation.
Finally I want to point out that the process used to accomplish this and
the structure it creates would be equally applicable to math (the process
has already begun), teacher education (Rep Rigg has announced his intent
to do that through the Higher Education bill) etc etc.
Why has so much been devoted to establishing phonics as a national
curriculum? That's a complex issue, but one evident reason is that it was
an easy place to begin. Let me say as I have for three years: this is not
about whole language and phonics. This is about who controls education and
its funding in the United States and ultimately the future of public
education.
The House has passed the bill and sent it to the Senate where it has been
assigned to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Since Congress has
adjourned, there is a window of opportunity to communicate with the
Senators who will be in their home states. Powerful forces have guided the
whole process of creating this bill and getting it to the point it is. The
administration has, with minor reservations and vague assurances, endorsed
the bill.
This a dangerous bill which sets even more dangerous precedents- the
effects of McCarthyism without the bad press that eventually brought it
down.
Ken Goodman
On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Jay Lemke wrote:
>
> Ken,
>
> I am still interested in the HR 2614 issue. I have been to the hr.gov
> website before, and it is not easy to search or to find what one is looking
> for.
>
> Can you give me some help, like a URL or where to look under to find the
> exact text of the Bill as passed by the House?
>
> I am fairly well convinced by you that the bill is an attempt to push
> phonics over whole language, but I am not yet sure that the language of the
> bill actually succeeds in doing that contrary to all other plausible
> interpretations. If DEd administrators don't think it limits research and
> teaching approaches, then the disbursement of funds will not be limited, as
> it is their interpretation which counts, unless a court says otherwise. If
> anything, ideologically, I would think the Senate would be less willing
> than the House to lock themselves into a really specific set of
> definitions. The Senate republicans are less fervid than those in the
> House, I think, and more temperamentally inclined to leave things vague and
> flexible for the long term.
>
> So it may indeed come down to an exercise in the interpretation of text!
> how ironic, and appropriate! and, I hope, fortunate.
>
> JAY.
>
> ---------------------------
> JAY L. LEMKE
>
> CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
> JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
> ---------------------------
>
*******Now we must learn to live under water*******
----------------------
Kenneth S Goodman, Professor
Language, Reading & Culture, University of Arizona, Tucson
kgoodman who-is-at U.Arizona.EDU
520 6217868 Fax 520 7455285