Phonics Claimd To Be Pushed By Feds

[Grant Barrett]

 From the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59455-2002Sep9.html

The Bush administration is making a concerted effort to promote the
teaching of phonics in America's classrooms, and in the process, some
educators charge, advancing specific commercial reading products.

Administration officials say they want to end a national crisis in
which almost 70 percent of low-income fourth-grade students cannot read
at a basic level, and they deny usurping local authority by telling
schools what specific programs to use.

  "We can't do that nor would we want to," said Susan B. Neuman,
assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the
Education Department. "What we want is a proliferation of excellence.
We want more programs out there that are doing wonderful things. And we
would be crazy to narrow the field."

Some educators, however, charge that the Education Department is so
narrowly prescribing what states can do with new federal reading funds
that the federal government is violating the clause in the country's
new K-12 education law that bars federal authorities from involvement
in local curriculum and instructional content.

--
Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
Small Business Apple Macintosh Support in New York City
http://www.worldnewyork.org/