Texas educators split over teaching English basics

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...
 

Texas educators split over teaching English basics

The inability of many Texas students to write and speak good
English is like a dreadful disease requiring aggressive treatment, say
some education advocates who want to use different teaching
approaches. Social conservatives on the State Board of Education,
influenced in part by a retired teacher, are backing a new curriculum
that increases the focus on basics, including grammar.
They've met fierce resistance from teachers and educators who warn
this emphasis will prepare students for the 1950s, not the 21st
century, and embarrass Texas in the process.

They fear the state's proposed new standards for reading and English
language arts contradict established research and will only make
things worse. "The results will be bloody," predicted one of those
language experts, former English professor Joyce Armstrong Carroll. A
fight over the board's perceived exclusion of Hispanic experts from
development of the curriculum has overshadowed this larger struggle. A
public comment period on the proposed curriculum will end May 18, and
the 15-member board is to take final action on May 22. If approved, it
will guide how the state's 4.7 million public schoolchildren learn
English and reading over the next decade.

Full story:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5716392.html


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