From FreedomProject Media:
After blowing the whistle on the disastrous “reading” program in the Common Core national standards, Dr. Louisa Moats, one of the contributors to it, is criticizing the U.S. Department of Education’s increasingly detrimental role in education as well. However, despite serious concerns, the internationally renowned reading expert expressed optimism that the truth was coming out and that positive changes may be forthcoming.
In an interview with FreedomProject Media’s The Newman Report, Dr. Moats slammed the early literacy component of the Obama-backed national standards for being deeply flawed and contributing to a national reading crisis. “The foundational skills that enable kids to learn to read in the first place were relegated to the back of the document, which I thought was very strange,” she explained, adding that the “sight words” mandated in Kindergarten were among the many problematic elements.
But what happened next was even harder to swallow: The disaster was rolled out nationwide without even testing, as textbook publishers all rushed to align their materials with the flawed Common Core. “I thought oh my goodness, this is really bad,” she explained. “You have to test it out first, see if you get better results, see whether it translates into higher rates of achievement, and the world is not that sensible.”
Indeed, when Dr. Moats was invited to work on the foundational section of Common Core, she had no idea that what ensued would take place. “I was imagining out of my naivete that this document would be floated out by [U.S.] Department of Education or the National Governors Association as a kind of north star or guideline for states wanting to improve their own standards,” she explained, adding that traditionally, states had wanted to preserve their own standards.
So, assuming it were well done, Dr. Moats thought there was room for something like Common Core — an aspirational document that could be “floated out” for people to refer to and use. “But I had no idea that what they were going to do was direct publishers to change everything and to appropriate money,” she explained, noting that she assumed testing would also be done to see whether it made sense and actually improved outcomes.
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