The Real Lessons of the Read Act in Minnesota

A Podcast version of this article:

There’s always a lesson beyond the lesson.  There’s always the thing beyond the thing.

The Read Act

And the thing about lessons beyond the lesson is that they are often more powerful than the initial lesson.  Recently, the Minnesota State Legislature passed the Read Act, sponsored by Democratic representative Heather Edelson.  It’s a law based on the fad of the day; the shiny new thing called the “science of reading”.  Ironically, this law is based on misconceptions and un-understandings related to both science and reading. 

This law states that I and other literacy professors in Minnesota must follow, with fidelity, the mandates put forth by state lawmakers.  These are lawmakers who have never taught a kid to read, who have never read a research article related to reading instruction, and whose knowledge about reading instruction is reliant on the information given to them by radio journalists and podcasters. 

As part of the Read Act, the Minnesota Department of Education is now forcing me, a literacy professor at Minnesota State University, to teach things to my students that a wide range of research has shown to be ineffective in helping young children learn to read.  I am forced to teach the preservice teachers in my literacy methods courses at Minnesota State University to engage in educational malpractice in their future classrooms.  

The Minnesota Department of Education mandates that future teachers learn strategies that will impede their future students’ ability to achieve their full literacy potential.  The result is that I must now promote the de-literalization of children by telling teachers to focus primarily on lower-level reading subskills instead of higher-level cognitive functions related to reading and comprehension.  Worse, I must teach them how to suck all the joy out of reading.

The Read Act

 The Lessons Beyond

So, what are we to really learn?  What are the lessons beyond the lesson in the Read Act here in Minnesota?  What’s the lesson behind the lesson in the 32 states that have passed similar reading laws?  What are the lessons beyond the Science of Reading lessons?  What are we really teaching?  Four lessons stand out:

Lesson #1:  Knowledge, expertise, and experience are not of value.  For the last 28 years, the state of Minnesota has paid me to be an expert in literacy instruction, teaching, and learning.  I’m paid to know how best to teach reading and writing to children and adults.  I’m paid to be well-informed, to keep up with research trends, and to do my own investigations and scholarly work.  And the state of Minnesota is getting their money’s worth out of me.  By all objective (and subjective) standards, I’ve done my job exceedingly well, thank you very much.  And I continue to work hard to study, publish, teach, tutor kids, and do what I can to move the field of literacy instruction forward.

You’re welcome.

But the Read Act says that I and other literacy experts must feign ignorance.  We must ignore our knowledge, expertise, and experience and instead teach what is not true. 

As well, the knowledge, experience, and expertise of classroom teachers is to be similarly devalued.  “What do they know?” the Great State has declared.  “They’re just teachers.  They need to just shut up and follow the directions.  We don’t pay them to think!” 

Teachers with their own ideas are sent off to LETRS and Orton-Gillingham re-education camps until they’re willing to implement the official program with fidelity.  They are conditioned to ignore the responses of their students.  They are made to ignore their own knowledge and experiences because the Great State knows better.  The Great State knows all.  Read the directions.  Follow the directions.  Don’t think.  Do.

Lesson #2: Real science is not of value.  Real science starts with a question and uses research to answer the question.  Pseudo-science starts with the answer and designs research to support their answer.  Also, real science recognizes the limitations of anecdotal evidence, personal experience, tradition, I-think-isms, and data used out of context.  These are the very essence of pseudo-science.

Lesson #3: If you can’t win the argument in an academic setting, you should go outside the academic setting and bully, threaten, and silence those who disagree.  In an academic setting, the term ‘argument’ is not an angry quarrel or disagreement; rather, it is the formal process of presenting a point of view and then making a case for it using supporting propositions.  Academic discourse consists of these types of formal arguments using reason and research to make a case for one’s point of view.  Within the academy, disagreements and differing views are considered healthy as they lead to the continued evolution of the field.  The academy here refers to the academic community with a field.  These are the scholars and researchers who seek to improve or maintain standards within their respective fields. 

Academic discourse commonly takes place within peer-reviewed academic journals and professional conferences.  Again, respectful academic discourse using reason and research is considered an essential part of the academy. 

Within the academy, there is not and never has been universal agreement as to how to best teach reading.  This is a discussion that has been going on for over 100 years.  It is those outside the academy who have dubbed these discussions as “the reading wars”.  The term is useful in selling books and reading programs but it’s not at all helpful in moving the field forward and it is inaccurate.  The real war here is the war against the academy.

 Within the academy, the Science of Reading zealots have failed to make a compelling case against a balanced approach to early literacy instruction in favor of a purely skills-based approach.  In an academic setting, their arguments simply do not stand up, often because they cannot accurately define or describe balanced literacy instruction.  And other times because of the propensity to use pseudo-science to make their case.

The Read Act in Minnesota certainly could not stand up to rigorous academic debate within an academic setting.  If you were to write an article proposing that which is in the Read Act, you would not get it published in a legitimate academic journal related to literacy.  Heather Edelson and the SoR advocates couldn’t win the argument within an academic setting, so they circumvented the academy.  The result is that the natural academic discussion and peer-reviewed vetting of ideas that would have occurred were bypassed.  Instead, pseudo-science, cartoonish portrayals, misinformation, and even a radio journalist with no expertise in the field were used to make the case for an extremely limiting form of reading instruction. 

They can’t win the argument in an academic setting.  They can’t even have the discussion.  They’ve gone outside the academic setting and they bully, threaten, and silence those who disagree. 

Lesson #4: You can avoid addressing the cause of a problem by focusing on the effect.  Of all the variables possibly impacting reading achievement, the SoR zealots have identified “balanced literacy” as the cause of the problem and “structured literacy” as the solution.  Reading difficulties are often the effect of other issues.  Figure 1 has just some of the variables impacting students’ ability to learn to read.

Lesson #5: Politicians have reformed our public education system into something that does not work for teachers, students, or society as a whole. And it seems to be getting worse. We should have a moratorium on political interference with education for at least two decades and then see if we see any progress in literacy and skills. Especially skills that are not measured by standardized tests. (I got this lesson from Andreas Jurewitsch.)