Tim White—award-winning author, editor, and former English tutor—offers a devastating inside look at how American schools have quietly produced a generation of students who can’t read, can’t write, and can’t think. And he makes one thing clear: only parents can fix it. This guest post doesn’t pull punches, and after reading it, you may not either.
I had this realization two years ago. My son was in a public elementary school and the level of supposed teaching was atrocious. He spent more time getting yelled at for snapping a rubber band (he has ADHD and sensory issues) than being taught how to read. We tried a private school which was just as bad or maybe worse. As a second semester 3rd grader, he could barely read the sunday nfl recap (which his teacher was allowing him to read for his free-reading assignments). I pulled him out of school and have been homeschooling him ever since.
We'll never go back to public schools. I pulled my daughter out of school for different reasons, and we'll be homeschooling for the rest of their educational careers.
This piece is heartbreaking, honest, and a serious wake up call— and frankly, in my opinion, shows criminal neglect of duties by government schools and their administrators. I can personally validate what you talk about here insofar as teachers who can’t write or speak with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Frightening.
Love your positive attitude and energy Deb, we may not be able to “save the world” but perhaps change the course for one student at a time. Beautiful piece.
Count me among those who believe "burn it all down" is the only valid strategy. It's obvious that public schools are systematic child abuse, and no caring parent would allow their child to go near one. Those parents that feel they have no alternative should consider moving heaven and earth. Learning incorrectly is worse than not learning at all.
When I was a young college student attending a conservatory of music at a university of missouri school, I was repeatedly struck by the divorce between those focused on "music education" and performance. I frequently bumped heads with the educational types, because I was there for the music itself, not to put my stamp on children that weren't mine, and certainly not to climb the disgusting hierarchy of doing what I was told.
Just like medical error is the third leading cause of death, it seems quite perverse that the people who dedicate their entire lives to teaching produce these results. I know that not everyone can learn from everyone, but God damn.
Just like how people who want power should never be given any, it seems the people who want to teach children should be kept far, far away from them. Again, learning incorrectly is far worse than not learning at all.
And this is about *language,* for Christ's sake--something babies pick up automatically. If we're screwed for language, we don't have a word for how screwed we are for mathematics.
In educator speak, people who actually know what they are talking about and who don't teach children are called "Subject Matter Experts." There had to be a separate word created in their profession for people who actually know something, because teachers are that incompetent. SMEs typically teach teachers nowadays. In the science world, SMEs run teacher training workshops for things such as evolution and astronomy because so many SCIENCE teachers don't know how to teach those topics properly and end up passing on loads of misconceptions that people carry with them forever.
Interesting. This may be tangential but you know what really bakes my muffin? Straight up lying to students.
For example, particles of light (photons) have mass. Apparently they don't teach this until graduate school physics. It makes perfect sense; how else could light get pulled into a black hole by gravity, unless it had something to pull on?
What possible reason could anyone invent for why we teach kids that light doesn't have mass?
I brought this up to a bunch of lefties on Quora once. I cannot believe how much they attacked me. It was unreal. And it was all word play. They use their own definitions for everything, and then it makes sense internally to them. You can't argue with someone who has argued themselves into a box that has no connection with reality.
Photons do not have mass (it's the reason they travel at the speed of light). I don't know where you got the idea that photons have mass from, but I can assure you this is not correct.
I'm a retired theoretical physicist and one of my areas of research expertise is the quantum theory of light.
So whilst I totally agree with you that lies should not be on the agenda for kids (uncertainties are fine - our current best 'guesses' at the 'truth' are fine) the example you've given is not a lie.
Not to be a dick but I'm familiar enough and would point out that bonded photons have mass. I realize this is on the brink of physics but zero mass + zero mass = mass makes no sense. Then again, in theoretical physics, making sense is not required.
I'm not sure why this particular example is bugging you enough to bring it up. I looked it up. Photons kind of have mass it seems, but it's not in the same way as other matter. The math behind defining photons and how they interact with fields etc is pretty advanced, beyond the (typical) high school student. (Emphasis on typical) It's sometimes simpler to teach that photons have no mass and then they find out the details later. That's not really a federal crime, IMHO.
What's worse is what Deb says below...the teaching that male and female is a mental state instead of something that came from evolution.
Interesting that both cases (I'm not inclined to argue the physics or physiology at this time) deal with the concept of mutual exclusivity. That's an important concept, right up there with transitive logic.
I had an Airbnb host from hell back in December; she was a freshman high school teacher, and she was always asking me these leading questions with false dichotomies… “What's your favorite soda, Coke or Pepsi?”
It made for some very weird conversations where I had to politely duck questions that never should have been asked. She did it a lot, and I'm sure it was part of her teaching strategy.
I was referring to language; perhaps I was overgeneralizing.
And actually (sorry) it's not literacy; the students we're talking about can read, they can't think their way out of a cardboard box.
I asked the author a few days ago if these kids could reason out loud, and *then* write it down, as a way to spark a few dormant neurons... I do not understand the mental divorce between "Writing" and just making a point out loud.
I wonder about Japan. They didn't write down Japanese until 4th century AD. I bet their memories were outstanding.
I feel as if this statement is obvious, but perhaps it is not. Kids are in public school to begin with because parents believe it is the job of the school and teachers to educate their child, not the parents job. Parents are not going to follow these suggestions and that is why only 10% took up the offer for tutoring.
Kids in public school will Never learn well because the system is broken beyond repair. And the people in the system Know this, but do not want to change anything because that would mean giving up money and control.
So you're saying the teachers themselves are illiterate, even those educated before 1990? How does something like that happen?
I have worked with college seniors and recent grads (science majors) who are supposed to be the smart kids doing a summer internship in a research lab, and I thought I could ask them to read a journal article and tell me what it was about. They could not. They would copy and paste the words from the article, or just skim the abstract, or say something that was completely wrong. I wonder if they couldn't read as well as I thought they could?
There are many reasons why we're in this position today, but one of the biggest by far is the widespread adoption across America of John Dewey's ideas about education. Dewey started spreading his ideas in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and to say that they are horrifically destructive nonsense would be an understatement. Dewey himself explicitly stated that the purpose of education is not to foster intelligence and understanding but to mold children into "servants of society" who get along with and agree with everyone else. He even went so far as to claim that educating children with the goal of teaching them knowledge and preparing them for adult life is immoral and destructive to society. Dewey's ideas are still the foundation of government school curricula in most places across America and he is still almost universally praised today. His Wikipedia page doesn't even have a "Criticism" section, and any criticism of Dewey posted to that page is immediately deleted.
I am somewhat familiar with Dewey, not to the depth you are, for a totally different reason, and this squares with what I suspected about his other views. I wrote an online course for college students about how to write a research paper. It spelled out a lot of things I did not ever learn in my college writing courses because half or more of the course was actually teaching scientific THINKING, of which the writing is a natural extension. One of the lessons was on "critical thinking." I wrote this lesson specifically because students would often say that people are "stupid" because "they don't teach critical thinking in schools." I realized I did not know what critical thinking actually meant or how it ended up in education and that is how I found Dewey and also the history of the Progressive Education Association. I now believe that the teaching of critical thinking is the reason people ARE stupid, rather than not. We need to stop teaching critical thinking in schools, and teach Popperian critical rationality instead. I'm not shocked in the slightest that his ideas have poisoned other subjects besides science.
I taught an intro level humanities course at a public university at the beginning of my parenting journey. Prior to that, I had taught high school freshmen at an elite private school. The difference in writing and reading comprehension was astounding, and it showed me firsthand the differences in quality of education in the US. It also ultimately influenced my decision to classically homeschool my own children.
My kids (currently 10 and under) attended a classical Catholic school and a “regular” Catholic school. They hate reading, they hate school, they get in huge trouble for the most bizarre things that would have merited a session clapping erasers in my day; now it’s a call home or a parent meeting with the principal. Personally, I hate school at this point and I was the girl who LOVED school, was in gifted and talented, on the honor roll, even though I was a social outcast for 80% of it.
The classical school assigned projects that no young child could possibly accomplish…I have three kids, so this was extremely stressful, staying up until 1 am or calling off work to make costumes, research and type papers; the amount of poetry memorization was mind-boggling. I even had a nanny at that point to help. My daughter’s executive function is not really up to snuff, but the last year we were there, we didn’t make it through the year.
We switched schools and now they’re bored and my boys get in trouble constantly and my daughter is always in some kind of argument with somebody.
We’re primarily dependent on my income, so it’s not like I can just quit and homeschool, but this is untenable.
Hi Jen, I'm sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, it's a story I hear a lot. If you haven't yet seriously considered microschooling, I would suggest looking into it. Like anything, the quality of microschooling programs varies widely, but good ones can be excellent. One common model is: Ten or twelve families in the same area get together and pool their resources to hire one or a few private teachers. At its best, microschooling can offer high-quality education at a fraction of the cost of a private school—sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars per month.
If Richard Mitchell is to be believed (in his book Less than Words Can Say, published in 1979), it is not only American kids that are illiterate, it is American *parents* and American *grandparents.* He observed indications of widespread illiteracy amongst teachers, deans, college students (and graduates!), government officials, (all categories of people who *should* be literate), in the 1970s. If that was true over 50 years ago...it certainly is much worse today.
If today's parents aren't even literate, it seems to me that it would be extremely difficult for those parents to help remedy their children's (lack of) literacy.
I didn't want to get into this in the essay for various reasons, but there is some truth to it. I know many illiterate adults, but most don't know they're illiterate and adamantly reject any suggestion that their reading ability is underdeveloped. They think their reading ability is normal and that anything they can't understand is simply too complicated to be necessary for everyday life, when in reality, much of what they can't read absolutely is stuff that adults should be able to read.
I do agree that this is probably the single best thing parents can do for their kids. My adult relationship with my mother is very poor, and she had a lot of room for improvement as a parent, but I will always be grateful to her for encouraging me to read. I can clearly see that learning to love reading as a kid is *the* #1 reason I was able to survive the government school system and continue (repair) my own education after that.
In the 1960s my mother thought about changing careers, took a course at night with NYU. It was on teaching mathematics and most of the class were NYC public school teachers, apparently it was remedial. She almost quit when a professor asked a working school teacher to do a proof on the board. The teacher arrived at the wrong answer and when the professor pointed that out, the teacher argued. Next week she did drop the class because the teachers were so rude the frustrated professor announced to the class, “If you don’t cut it out right now I will fulfill my obligation to teach however I will do it in Irish (Gaelic) and none of you will get anything from this class but I will have met my commitment”.
My child has been fortunate with her ELA teachers. Her problem is that in 6th grade, her Lexile score was 1600. She is in 7th grade now. Luckily, her teacher is letting her pick her books, and she read Perks of a Wallflower, Diary of Young Girl, and now To Kill a Mockingbird. Her challenge isn’t writing, but speaking- social anxiety. I would be curious to know your advice for this situation.
I wish teachers used direct instruction. People think it means lecturing at the students but it doesn’t--it can include Socratic method that give students ample opportunity to speak in class without being on the hot seat. Instead, it’s all self-directed silent work or group work. The blind leading the blind, especially in terms of social interactions. It's no surprise most kids have some social anxiety at this point.
As you stated, direct instruction done well gives students lots of chances to speak. I do-we do- you do. The stages that require the most time are we do and you do--where the student is actively participating.
As a teacher trying to fight against the nonsense everywhere, I get so exasperated at the mental blocks so many have to direct instruction.
It's inexplicable. They buried the research on it ages ago and made millions believe it was "harmful" when in fact it WORKS for the vast majority of students.
The wild thing is that not only does it work so well, but it also takes less time, the kids are much more active in their learning, there are fewer behavior problems, and the kids are actually much happier because they know they are competent.
Thank you for this article. I will be reading this to my mother this afternoon for the reason that she is a former early childhood educator and one of the best that I’ve ever seen, and she will have something to say about this. Being raised by her I was in the library every single week and she also read to my sister and I damn near every night for a decade. While I agree with much of your sentiment here, I also want to suggest to the parents that the hubris is and has always been on you. The amount of effort you spend reading to your children, reading with them, talking to them about what they’ve read and helping them with their learning is imperative. You cannot just depend on teachers as the pool of teachers who can teach well is not large. You may not be able to simply replace one bad teacher with a better one.
I couldn’t agree more with this well-written and thoughtfully argued essay. I noticed many of these issues years ago, even before I had children, shortly after moving to Canada. I was genuinely shocked to learn that children often have little to no homework or testing—supposedly to prevent anxiety and avoid making less ambitious students feel left behind.
While I understand the well-meaning intention behind this philosophy—“no child left behind”—unfortunately, its cost is far too great. It deprives children of the opportunity to learn from failure and to confront the reality that we are all different, with unique strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone excels at math or reading, and that’s okay—but pretending otherwise does more harm than good.
One of the cruelest things we can do is lie to a child who has done poorly on a test by telling them they did great. Children deserve honesty, compassion, and support. They deserve to be shown where they went wrong, encouraged to improve, and taught that success is earned through effort and resilience.
It saddens and frustrates me to see how many children have been let down by an education system that has, in some ways, stopped believing in them. As someone who came from a middle-class family, was the first to earn a university degree, and am now a physician, I know firsthand what is possible with the right guidance. I was fortunate to have teachers who cared deeply enough, who challenged me, and who believed in my potential, and were not shy to give me a poor mark when i deserved, out of fear that they will hurt my feelings.
Today, too many teachers are constrained by a system that emphasizes ideology over basic literacy and numeracy. This is not a criticism of all teachers—far from it. I know many educators who are passionate, skilled, and incredibly devoted to their students. But they are often hamstrung by policies and environments that make it difficult for them to do their best work. And they are not adequately supported or rewarded for their efforts.
Teaching is a noble and essential profession. But until parents begin demanding meaningful reform from governments—or take more active roles in their children’s education—I fear we will continue to see a growing divide. Those who can afford private schools and tutors will give their children an advantage, while others will fall further behind.
I had to teach my grandson to read when he was in the 6th grade because he was doing very poorly in reading and was embarrassed when the teacher called on him to read in front of the class. English and reading were always my favorite subject in school so I told his mom to have him check out a book he thought he might like at the school library and have him come to my house every day after school. I live right behind the middle school. No wonder he hated reading, he could only read small words. He wasn't keen on letting me help him but I told him he needed reading if he every intended to get a good job, and we could read for 30 min or we could fight about it for 30 min and then he could read 30 min (of course snacks afterwards helps :P). I had him look at the words as I read the 1st paragraph so he could see the words and how they were supposed to sound (seeing and hearing, worked best for me as well), then I had him read the next sentence, it was slow and tedious as I taught him how to sound out the words, and the rules for reading, ie: when two vowels go walking the 1st one does the talking, e's tend to be silent at the end of words and make a vowel inside the word long, and that there were always an exception to most rules however they were weren't very often.
I know he didn't get much from the story as he worked hard to figure out the words but I didn't worry about that that year, there is time for comprehension as he gets the hang of reading. By the end of his 6th grade year he was reading a paragraph by him self with occasional corrections. We took the summer off. In his 7th grade year as we began the reading ritual after school, he decided what kind of books he enjoyed, Historical fiction. By the end of that year, he was reading chapters by himself and his comprehension was much better and he even liked doing his book reports for school. That summer he was reading on his own and even spent his own money on books by an author he enjoyed. He is a Jr in high school and still reads on his own. We have to be consistent and not let them wiggle out of learning. I'm very proud of the effort he eventually put into reading and how well he's doing now. They will get it as long as we don't give up on them, they are just used to everything "right now" (I blame social media and tech, instant everything). If parents are working and can't put the time in I know it happens, no judgement here), let the grandparents help, our schooling was better than what is available now. I don't blame most of the teachers, they are doing their best with what the school system allows.
I highly suggest the APM Reports podcast, “Sold a Story.” The way children have been taught to read the last 25 years has definitely been a huge contributor to the issue. I am a former teacher and have always been astounded at the lack of basic skills many teachers possess. The inability to spell, in and of itself cringeworthy, was sadly just one of many problems. Luckily my children went to a Catholic school and received a quality education while there. However, I pulled them out three years ago and have been homeschooling ever since. It was the best decision we ever made. It’s not easy, and it’s certainly not without sacrifice, but it is doable for nearly any family. I have decided to focus on reading and writing so my kids do a very intensive writing program and they read the classics. They are 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th graders and I still read aloud to them. (Especially books I don’t think they’d ever choose from my list, but I think they will enjoy- My oldest and I are reading Les Misérables right now).
I like to keep tabs on what the kids are learning across the local schools and it makes me sad. These kids read hardly anything and write very little even in the context of a high school English class. I hesitate to send my oldest for dual enrollment at the local college because I fear it won’t be much better there.
Anyone considering homeschooling should also look into the Institute for Excellence in Writing and their Structure and Style curriculum.
We’re homeschooling our daughter. She’s the kind of child that today’s public school system would leave behind: quiet, shy, nerdy, always inside her own head. Might be on the spectrum, so there’s a risk of ROGD also.
Thankfully she has always been a reader, but her writing, when we pulled her out of school, was at least two grade levels behind. Thankfully my wife caught her up, but it took a year and a half of intentional evidence-based instruction—you know, the kind we received growing up in the 80s from the same public school system that is so manifestly failing our students now.
I had this realization two years ago. My son was in a public elementary school and the level of supposed teaching was atrocious. He spent more time getting yelled at for snapping a rubber band (he has ADHD and sensory issues) than being taught how to read. We tried a private school which was just as bad or maybe worse. As a second semester 3rd grader, he could barely read the sunday nfl recap (which his teacher was allowing him to read for his free-reading assignments). I pulled him out of school and have been homeschooling him ever since.
We'll never go back to public schools. I pulled my daughter out of school for different reasons, and we'll be homeschooling for the rest of their educational careers.
I'm so sorry this happened to you, but tragically it is all too common a story. I am glad you're homeschooling too!
This piece is heartbreaking, honest, and a serious wake up call— and frankly, in my opinion, shows criminal neglect of duties by government schools and their administrators. I can personally validate what you talk about here insofar as teachers who can’t write or speak with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Frightening.
Love your positive attitude and energy Deb, we may not be able to “save the world” but perhaps change the course for one student at a time. Beautiful piece.
So glad you liked it! I'm grateful to Tim for sharing this with us.
Count me among those who believe "burn it all down" is the only valid strategy. It's obvious that public schools are systematic child abuse, and no caring parent would allow their child to go near one. Those parents that feel they have no alternative should consider moving heaven and earth. Learning incorrectly is worse than not learning at all.
When I was a young college student attending a conservatory of music at a university of missouri school, I was repeatedly struck by the divorce between those focused on "music education" and performance. I frequently bumped heads with the educational types, because I was there for the music itself, not to put my stamp on children that weren't mine, and certainly not to climb the disgusting hierarchy of doing what I was told.
Just like medical error is the third leading cause of death, it seems quite perverse that the people who dedicate their entire lives to teaching produce these results. I know that not everyone can learn from everyone, but God damn.
Just like how people who want power should never be given any, it seems the people who want to teach children should be kept far, far away from them. Again, learning incorrectly is far worse than not learning at all.
And this is about *language,* for Christ's sake--something babies pick up automatically. If we're screwed for language, we don't have a word for how screwed we are for mathematics.
I endorse your comment.
In educator speak, people who actually know what they are talking about and who don't teach children are called "Subject Matter Experts." There had to be a separate word created in their profession for people who actually know something, because teachers are that incompetent. SMEs typically teach teachers nowadays. In the science world, SMEs run teacher training workshops for things such as evolution and astronomy because so many SCIENCE teachers don't know how to teach those topics properly and end up passing on loads of misconceptions that people carry with them forever.
Interesting. This may be tangential but you know what really bakes my muffin? Straight up lying to students.
For example, particles of light (photons) have mass. Apparently they don't teach this until graduate school physics. It makes perfect sense; how else could light get pulled into a black hole by gravity, unless it had something to pull on?
What possible reason could anyone invent for why we teach kids that light doesn't have mass?
We teach students as young as SIX that men can become women simply by believing they can. I wish I were making that up.
I brought this up to a bunch of lefties on Quora once. I cannot believe how much they attacked me. It was unreal. And it was all word play. They use their own definitions for everything, and then it makes sense internally to them. You can't argue with someone who has argued themselves into a box that has no connection with reality.
Photons do not have mass (it's the reason they travel at the speed of light). I don't know where you got the idea that photons have mass from, but I can assure you this is not correct.
I'm a retired theoretical physicist and one of my areas of research expertise is the quantum theory of light.
So whilst I totally agree with you that lies should not be on the agenda for kids (uncertainties are fine - our current best 'guesses' at the 'truth' are fine) the example you've given is not a lie.
Not to be a dick but I'm familiar enough and would point out that bonded photons have mass. I realize this is on the brink of physics but zero mass + zero mass = mass makes no sense. Then again, in theoretical physics, making sense is not required.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/physicists-create-new-form-light-0215
I'm not sure why this particular example is bugging you enough to bring it up. I looked it up. Photons kind of have mass it seems, but it's not in the same way as other matter. The math behind defining photons and how they interact with fields etc is pretty advanced, beyond the (typical) high school student. (Emphasis on typical) It's sometimes simpler to teach that photons have no mass and then they find out the details later. That's not really a federal crime, IMHO.
What's worse is what Deb says below...the teaching that male and female is a mental state instead of something that came from evolution.
Interesting that both cases (I'm not inclined to argue the physics or physiology at this time) deal with the concept of mutual exclusivity. That's an important concept, right up there with transitive logic.
I had an Airbnb host from hell back in December; she was a freshman high school teacher, and she was always asking me these leading questions with false dichotomies… “What's your favorite soda, Coke or Pepsi?”
It made for some very weird conversations where I had to politely duck questions that never should have been asked. She did it a lot, and I'm sure it was part of her teaching strategy.
Ha that is an amusing anecdote and yeah that would have driven me crazy, too. I feel very sad for kids today.
This is about literacy. Babies don’t pick up literacy.
Not sure I follow. Who said they did?
I was referring to language; perhaps I was overgeneralizing.
And actually (sorry) it's not literacy; the students we're talking about can read, they can't think their way out of a cardboard box.
I asked the author a few days ago if these kids could reason out loud, and *then* write it down, as a way to spark a few dormant neurons... I do not understand the mental divorce between "Writing" and just making a point out loud.
I wonder about Japan. They didn't write down Japanese until 4th century AD. I bet their memories were outstanding.
I feel as if this statement is obvious, but perhaps it is not. Kids are in public school to begin with because parents believe it is the job of the school and teachers to educate their child, not the parents job. Parents are not going to follow these suggestions and that is why only 10% took up the offer for tutoring.
Kids in public school will Never learn well because the system is broken beyond repair. And the people in the system Know this, but do not want to change anything because that would mean giving up money and control.
I have so many questions from reading this.
So you're saying the teachers themselves are illiterate, even those educated before 1990? How does something like that happen?
I have worked with college seniors and recent grads (science majors) who are supposed to be the smart kids doing a summer internship in a research lab, and I thought I could ask them to read a journal article and tell me what it was about. They could not. They would copy and paste the words from the article, or just skim the abstract, or say something that was completely wrong. I wonder if they couldn't read as well as I thought they could?
There are many reasons why we're in this position today, but one of the biggest by far is the widespread adoption across America of John Dewey's ideas about education. Dewey started spreading his ideas in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and to say that they are horrifically destructive nonsense would be an understatement. Dewey himself explicitly stated that the purpose of education is not to foster intelligence and understanding but to mold children into "servants of society" who get along with and agree with everyone else. He even went so far as to claim that educating children with the goal of teaching them knowledge and preparing them for adult life is immoral and destructive to society. Dewey's ideas are still the foundation of government school curricula in most places across America and he is still almost universally praised today. His Wikipedia page doesn't even have a "Criticism" section, and any criticism of Dewey posted to that page is immediately deleted.
I am somewhat familiar with Dewey, not to the depth you are, for a totally different reason, and this squares with what I suspected about his other views. I wrote an online course for college students about how to write a research paper. It spelled out a lot of things I did not ever learn in my college writing courses because half or more of the course was actually teaching scientific THINKING, of which the writing is a natural extension. One of the lessons was on "critical thinking." I wrote this lesson specifically because students would often say that people are "stupid" because "they don't teach critical thinking in schools." I realized I did not know what critical thinking actually meant or how it ended up in education and that is how I found Dewey and also the history of the Progressive Education Association. I now believe that the teaching of critical thinking is the reason people ARE stupid, rather than not. We need to stop teaching critical thinking in schools, and teach Popperian critical rationality instead. I'm not shocked in the slightest that his ideas have poisoned other subjects besides science.
Great post. I'd be curious to know your take on The Marxification of Education by James Lindsay, if you had one.
I taught an intro level humanities course at a public university at the beginning of my parenting journey. Prior to that, I had taught high school freshmen at an elite private school. The difference in writing and reading comprehension was astounding, and it showed me firsthand the differences in quality of education in the US. It also ultimately influenced my decision to classically homeschool my own children.
My kids (currently 10 and under) attended a classical Catholic school and a “regular” Catholic school. They hate reading, they hate school, they get in huge trouble for the most bizarre things that would have merited a session clapping erasers in my day; now it’s a call home or a parent meeting with the principal. Personally, I hate school at this point and I was the girl who LOVED school, was in gifted and talented, on the honor roll, even though I was a social outcast for 80% of it.
The classical school assigned projects that no young child could possibly accomplish…I have three kids, so this was extremely stressful, staying up until 1 am or calling off work to make costumes, research and type papers; the amount of poetry memorization was mind-boggling. I even had a nanny at that point to help. My daughter’s executive function is not really up to snuff, but the last year we were there, we didn’t make it through the year.
We switched schools and now they’re bored and my boys get in trouble constantly and my daughter is always in some kind of argument with somebody.
We’re primarily dependent on my income, so it’s not like I can just quit and homeschool, but this is untenable.
Hi Jen, I'm sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, it's a story I hear a lot. If you haven't yet seriously considered microschooling, I would suggest looking into it. Like anything, the quality of microschooling programs varies widely, but good ones can be excellent. One common model is: Ten or twelve families in the same area get together and pool their resources to hire one or a few private teachers. At its best, microschooling can offer high-quality education at a fraction of the cost of a private school—sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars per month.
If Richard Mitchell is to be believed (in his book Less than Words Can Say, published in 1979), it is not only American kids that are illiterate, it is American *parents* and American *grandparents.* He observed indications of widespread illiteracy amongst teachers, deans, college students (and graduates!), government officials, (all categories of people who *should* be literate), in the 1970s. If that was true over 50 years ago...it certainly is much worse today.
If today's parents aren't even literate, it seems to me that it would be extremely difficult for those parents to help remedy their children's (lack of) literacy.
I didn't want to get into this in the essay for various reasons, but there is some truth to it. I know many illiterate adults, but most don't know they're illiterate and adamantly reject any suggestion that their reading ability is underdeveloped. They think their reading ability is normal and that anything they can't understand is simply too complicated to be necessary for everyday life, when in reality, much of what they can't read absolutely is stuff that adults should be able to read.
Reading and learning to read ever more challenging books is a critical skill to learn very early on.
I do agree that this is probably the single best thing parents can do for their kids. My adult relationship with my mother is very poor, and she had a lot of room for improvement as a parent, but I will always be grateful to her for encouraging me to read. I can clearly see that learning to love reading as a kid is *the* #1 reason I was able to survive the government school system and continue (repair) my own education after that.
In the 1960s my mother thought about changing careers, took a course at night with NYU. It was on teaching mathematics and most of the class were NYC public school teachers, apparently it was remedial. She almost quit when a professor asked a working school teacher to do a proof on the board. The teacher arrived at the wrong answer and when the professor pointed that out, the teacher argued. Next week she did drop the class because the teachers were so rude the frustrated professor announced to the class, “If you don’t cut it out right now I will fulfill my obligation to teach however I will do it in Irish (Gaelic) and none of you will get anything from this class but I will have met my commitment”.
My child has been fortunate with her ELA teachers. Her problem is that in 6th grade, her Lexile score was 1600. She is in 7th grade now. Luckily, her teacher is letting her pick her books, and she read Perks of a Wallflower, Diary of Young Girl, and now To Kill a Mockingbird. Her challenge isn’t writing, but speaking- social anxiety. I would be curious to know your advice for this situation.
I wish teachers used direct instruction. People think it means lecturing at the students but it doesn’t--it can include Socratic method that give students ample opportunity to speak in class without being on the hot seat. Instead, it’s all self-directed silent work or group work. The blind leading the blind, especially in terms of social interactions. It's no surprise most kids have some social anxiety at this point.
As you stated, direct instruction done well gives students lots of chances to speak. I do-we do- you do. The stages that require the most time are we do and you do--where the student is actively participating.
As a teacher trying to fight against the nonsense everywhere, I get so exasperated at the mental blocks so many have to direct instruction.
It's inexplicable. They buried the research on it ages ago and made millions believe it was "harmful" when in fact it WORKS for the vast majority of students.
I know.
The wild thing is that not only does it work so well, but it also takes less time, the kids are much more active in their learning, there are fewer behavior problems, and the kids are actually much happier because they know they are competent.
Thank you for this article. I will be reading this to my mother this afternoon for the reason that she is a former early childhood educator and one of the best that I’ve ever seen, and she will have something to say about this. Being raised by her I was in the library every single week and she also read to my sister and I damn near every night for a decade. While I agree with much of your sentiment here, I also want to suggest to the parents that the hubris is and has always been on you. The amount of effort you spend reading to your children, reading with them, talking to them about what they’ve read and helping them with their learning is imperative. You cannot just depend on teachers as the pool of teachers who can teach well is not large. You may not be able to simply replace one bad teacher with a better one.
I couldn’t agree more with this well-written and thoughtfully argued essay. I noticed many of these issues years ago, even before I had children, shortly after moving to Canada. I was genuinely shocked to learn that children often have little to no homework or testing—supposedly to prevent anxiety and avoid making less ambitious students feel left behind.
While I understand the well-meaning intention behind this philosophy—“no child left behind”—unfortunately, its cost is far too great. It deprives children of the opportunity to learn from failure and to confront the reality that we are all different, with unique strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone excels at math or reading, and that’s okay—but pretending otherwise does more harm than good.
One of the cruelest things we can do is lie to a child who has done poorly on a test by telling them they did great. Children deserve honesty, compassion, and support. They deserve to be shown where they went wrong, encouraged to improve, and taught that success is earned through effort and resilience.
It saddens and frustrates me to see how many children have been let down by an education system that has, in some ways, stopped believing in them. As someone who came from a middle-class family, was the first to earn a university degree, and am now a physician, I know firsthand what is possible with the right guidance. I was fortunate to have teachers who cared deeply enough, who challenged me, and who believed in my potential, and were not shy to give me a poor mark when i deserved, out of fear that they will hurt my feelings.
Today, too many teachers are constrained by a system that emphasizes ideology over basic literacy and numeracy. This is not a criticism of all teachers—far from it. I know many educators who are passionate, skilled, and incredibly devoted to their students. But they are often hamstrung by policies and environments that make it difficult for them to do their best work. And they are not adequately supported or rewarded for their efforts.
Teaching is a noble and essential profession. But until parents begin demanding meaningful reform from governments—or take more active roles in their children’s education—I fear we will continue to see a growing divide. Those who can afford private schools and tutors will give their children an advantage, while others will fall further behind.
All children deserve better than this!
I had to teach my grandson to read when he was in the 6th grade because he was doing very poorly in reading and was embarrassed when the teacher called on him to read in front of the class. English and reading were always my favorite subject in school so I told his mom to have him check out a book he thought he might like at the school library and have him come to my house every day after school. I live right behind the middle school. No wonder he hated reading, he could only read small words. He wasn't keen on letting me help him but I told him he needed reading if he every intended to get a good job, and we could read for 30 min or we could fight about it for 30 min and then he could read 30 min (of course snacks afterwards helps :P). I had him look at the words as I read the 1st paragraph so he could see the words and how they were supposed to sound (seeing and hearing, worked best for me as well), then I had him read the next sentence, it was slow and tedious as I taught him how to sound out the words, and the rules for reading, ie: when two vowels go walking the 1st one does the talking, e's tend to be silent at the end of words and make a vowel inside the word long, and that there were always an exception to most rules however they were weren't very often.
I know he didn't get much from the story as he worked hard to figure out the words but I didn't worry about that that year, there is time for comprehension as he gets the hang of reading. By the end of his 6th grade year he was reading a paragraph by him self with occasional corrections. We took the summer off. In his 7th grade year as we began the reading ritual after school, he decided what kind of books he enjoyed, Historical fiction. By the end of that year, he was reading chapters by himself and his comprehension was much better and he even liked doing his book reports for school. That summer he was reading on his own and even spent his own money on books by an author he enjoyed. He is a Jr in high school and still reads on his own. We have to be consistent and not let them wiggle out of learning. I'm very proud of the effort he eventually put into reading and how well he's doing now. They will get it as long as we don't give up on them, they are just used to everything "right now" (I blame social media and tech, instant everything). If parents are working and can't put the time in I know it happens, no judgement here), let the grandparents help, our schooling was better than what is available now. I don't blame most of the teachers, they are doing their best with what the school system allows.
I highly suggest the APM Reports podcast, “Sold a Story.” The way children have been taught to read the last 25 years has definitely been a huge contributor to the issue. I am a former teacher and have always been astounded at the lack of basic skills many teachers possess. The inability to spell, in and of itself cringeworthy, was sadly just one of many problems. Luckily my children went to a Catholic school and received a quality education while there. However, I pulled them out three years ago and have been homeschooling ever since. It was the best decision we ever made. It’s not easy, and it’s certainly not without sacrifice, but it is doable for nearly any family. I have decided to focus on reading and writing so my kids do a very intensive writing program and they read the classics. They are 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th graders and I still read aloud to them. (Especially books I don’t think they’d ever choose from my list, but I think they will enjoy- My oldest and I are reading Les Misérables right now).
I like to keep tabs on what the kids are learning across the local schools and it makes me sad. These kids read hardly anything and write very little even in the context of a high school English class. I hesitate to send my oldest for dual enrollment at the local college because I fear it won’t be much better there.
Anyone considering homeschooling should also look into the Institute for Excellence in Writing and their Structure and Style curriculum.
We’re homeschooling our daughter. She’s the kind of child that today’s public school system would leave behind: quiet, shy, nerdy, always inside her own head. Might be on the spectrum, so there’s a risk of ROGD also.
Thankfully she has always been a reader, but her writing, when we pulled her out of school, was at least two grade levels behind. Thankfully my wife caught her up, but it took a year and a half of intentional evidence-based instruction—you know, the kind we received growing up in the 80s from the same public school system that is so manifestly failing our students now.