Exclusive Spending Data: Schools Still Pouring Money Into Reading Materials That Teach Kids to Guess
-
Loading... - Lucas Moreau
- 03 Mar 2023
- 66 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
The “three-cueing” approach has come under fire, but actually ridding classrooms of the lessons may prove challenging, purchase orders reveal
School districts across the country are continuing to pour money into expensive reading materials criticized for leaving many children without the basic ability to sound out words, an investigation by The 74 reveals.
The approach, known as “balanced” literacy, has been dominant in U.S. classrooms for decades, but has come under fire recently amid research and reporting exposing its shortcomings. Criticism crescendoed this fall after the release of the influential Sold a Story podcast, which linked America’s “reading crisis” to schools’ use of literacy materials that teach children to guess words they don’t know based first on pictures and sentence structure — a method called “three cueing.”
But actually ridding classrooms of these approaches may prove challenging. Since Oct. 20 when the podcast launched, districts have continued to make large purchases of materials that include the problematic three-cueing tactics.
Over that time span, at least 225 districts have spent over $1.5 million on new books, trainings and curriculums linked to three cueing, according to The 74’s review of their purchase orders accessed through the data service GovSpend. Two districts — Palatine, Illinois and Conroe, Texas — each spent over $170,000 on the materials and four others spent more than $50,000.
Previous analyses have highlighted sales going to the reading materials’ primary publisher, finding some large school systems had spent $10 million or more over the last decade. But this report is the first known to zero in on individual districts’ purchasing of the key authors in question, spending decisions made during a national re-examination of literacy instruction.
Along with books and worksheets, at least nine districts indicated that they had paid for new professional development in the flawed literacy approaches and schools made at least 85 purchases of an assessment system for early readers rife with inconsistencies.
The numbers likely understate the total because school districts in many cases have not yet submitted their more recent purchase orders to the GovSpend database, a process which can take several months, GovSpend staff said. From Oct. 21 to Nov. 31, the database shows over $1.2 million in total spending on the curricular materials, and from Dec. 1 through Feb. 27, the date The 74 pulled the figures, under $350,000.
Matthew Mugo Fields, president of New Hampshire-based Heinemann, the publisher at the center of Sold a Story, said none of his company’s literacy programs are designed to prioritize guessing. Read More…
