Thank you to the S.B. Independent for hosting the recent Santa Barbara Unified School District’s Candidate Forum. It was illuminating.
When Independent reporter Callie Fausey asked the candidates about literacy and the science of reading, board member and candidate Bill Banning dismissed it as “just a term.”
Perhaps Mr. Banning is unaware of the National Institutes of Health’s National Reading Panel Report. This peer-reviewed, large scale, five-decade study across multiple languages involving the fields of neuroscience, cognitive and educational psychology among others, which “culminated in a preponderance of evidence on how proficient reading and writing develop.”
In states and districts that embrace, not only the term, but the science behind it have shown substantial growth in literacy across different populations.
It would be beneficial for district officials and board members to visit these districts where the normalization of a 50 percent failure rate (in the 30 percents for minority students) as it is in Santa Barbara, is not tolerated.
These districts meet the challenge head on in an open and transparent way, recognizing that just as science improves all of our lives in such diverse areas as medicine, space travel, and conservation, it can do the same for literacy.
Maybe after such a visit, the science of reading will be more than “just a term.”