The Business of Reading

I am sure that I join many S.B. Independent readers in thanking Callie Fausey for her fine piece of journalism (“Not As East As ABChttps://www.independent.com/2023/11/15/not-as-easy-as-abc-santa-barbara-schools-tackle-literacy/,” November 15, 2023) regarding local efforts to implement instructional policies and practices meant to significantly reorient reading instruction toward knowledge accumulated by rigorous research over the past decades. Fausey’s well-researched article contributes to similar attempts being made by good journalists to inform parents and other stakeholders in communities across the country.

Successful reading instruction is a major foundation for every student’s continued learning and, therefore, future opportunities. The success of this latest effort after a 70-year saga of controversy hopefully will result in fueling the curiosities and aspirations of students and the progress of whole communities. Therefore, the continued attention given by the S.B. Independent to thoroughly reporting on the reform of reading instruction is critical for anyone who has high hopes for the future of the entire Santa Barbara region.

I would like to make two observations about the article. It notes that the curricular materials purchased to be the foundation for the school district’s effort cost $1.7 million. Also, there will need to be significant other resources used to support teachers and principals in this transition.

So, first, reading instruction is not merely teachers designing lessons and teaching them. It is also a big business that interacts with a big state bureaucracy. Between the research and what resources teachers use, there always has been significant drift, modification, or outright distortion. And, of course, what actual efforts teachers make in the end are not assured.

Second, the tragedy of many children coming to school in wave upon wave and then not learning to read well. We need to acknowledge, though, that there also have been cohort after cohort of teachers — taught by our universities, licensed by our state — that have not themselves learned how to teach reading effectively, or curiously not supported in doing so by the schools that employ them.

As the article makes clear, the purchased curricular materials do not do the teaching. Skilled teachers must do that. If the system does not at every level commit to preparing, monitoring, and fairly paying effective teachers, we all lose. But, the “system” is us. All of that structure — university training, state credentialing, legislative policy-making, Board of Education oversight, administrative supervision, and parental attention — that is all “us.” Everyone is complicit if this fails.