Part 1 of this article can be read at: Washington K–12 Education Needs a Return to Basics A 2026 Policy Proposal for Academic Mastery, Knowledge and Career Readiness THE PROBLEM Washington has adopted successive education reforms while academic performance remains a concern. The central question should be simple: Are students leaving school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed? A modern K–12 system should not choose between basic academic knowledge and 21st-century competencies. Students need both. THE PROPOSAL Establish a statewide K–12 Return to Basics and Core Competencies Initiative built on one principle: Knowledge → Skills → Competency → … [Read more...]
Mississippi ‘miracle’ catapults 4th-grade reading scores from bottom into top 10 by getting back to phonics
From The Blaze by Joseph MacKinnon Mississippi has a winning approach to childhood literacy that other jurisdictions might want to adopt. In 2013, Mississippi ranked 49th out of the 50 U.S. states in grade four reading achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the largest continuing national assessment of American students' knowledge and capability in math, reading, science, and writing. In what has repeatedly been dubbed a "miracle," the state made its way up the list — to 29th in 2019 and then 10 spots higher to ninth place nationally for reading scores last year. According to the NAEP, black students in Mississippi ranked third nationally … [Read more...]
Latest Oregon testing data shows schools continue to struggle in math, science and English
This article was published at OPB. Specific information by school district can be found by clicking the link: View the full results, including statewide and individual district or school data, online here. Oregon’s latest summative test data show incremental progress in some areas. But overall, the state is still behind pre-pandemic performance levels, and the percentages of students who are proficient in math, English and science remain staggeringly low. The Oregon Department of Education released its standardized assessment data on Thursday. The results, which reflect student testing this past spring, are a one-time snapshot of the state’s educational system. Students in grades 3-8 … [Read more...]
The Schools That Are No Longer Teaching Kids to Read Books
The Atlantic published the following piece on MSN. It's a 10-12 minute read Recently, an old friend of mine from elementary school ran a hand over my bookshelf, stopped, and said, “You stole this.” “I did not!” “Yes, you did. You totally stole it from school.” She pulled out my copy of The Once and Future King, and showed me the inside of the front cover. It was stamped: Board of Education, City of New York. Okay, so I stole it. But I had a good reason. I loved that book so much; I couldn’t bear to return it to the school library. My grade-school memories are full of books: bulletin boards that tracked the class read-a-thons, hand-written book reports, summer-reading lists. But a … [Read more...]
Mandatory ‘media literacy’ education for K-12 students will help children identify so-called ‘disinformation’ – New Jersey
As we are pushed to become "woke" in K-12 education we are delivered another nail in the proverbial coffin. In this article: Mandatory 'media literacy' education for K-12 students will help children identify so-called 'disinformation,' says New Jersey Gov. Murphy - TheBlaze. Last week, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) signed a first-of-its-kind bill into law requiring all K-12 students to receive an education in "media literacy," which the governor argued would allow children to identify so-called "misinformation." The state's Senate Bill 588 updates the New Jersey Student Learning Standards to include "information literacy" curriculum. According to the bill, K-12 students will be … [Read more...]
More screen time = lower IQ?
We've been sharing our concerns about the growth in screen time. We've pointed out that as screen time increases social problems increase; suicide risk increases and we lose personal interactions. Today we add to that list of concerns...dropping IQ. The following article from Intellectual Takeout walks us through a new study covering 700,000+ men from Norway over 29 years. Schools continue to push more and more screen time on top of what happens outside school. Perhaps schools should focus on handwritten and reading basics? Some of our articles on-screen time: https://swweducation.org?cat=947&paged=2 Jeff Minik shares his thoughts with us today... Are we getting … [Read more...]
Judge says there’s no fundamental right to learn to read and write
A group of students initiated a lawsuit in Detroit claiming they have been damaged because they were not taught to read and write. A judge said they were wrong. If this stands there are implications. This story comes to use from The Detroit Freepress. Lori Higgins authored the piece. Few could dispute the importance of literacy. But children have no fundamental right to learn to read and write, according to a federal judge whose ruling in a closely watched lawsuit Friday left some disheartened and others raising questions. "I'm shocked," said Ivy Bailey, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. "The message that it sends is that education is not important. And it sends the … [Read more...]
WHAT Students Read Matters More Than You Think
From Intellectual Takeout - Daniel Lattier In today’s standards-based education system, the main focus is on teaching skills rather than content. There’s a prevalent idea that it matters less what students read just so long as they are reading. But according to E.D. Hirsch, professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia, that’s bull. Some of you may know Hirsch through his famous advocacy of “cultural literacy”—the idea that some amount of “shared, canonical knowledge is inherently necessary to a literate democracy,” and that students in a particular culture should have common exposure to certain texts and concepts. But what you might not know is … [Read more...]
New Research Explains How The Pen Is Mightier Than The Keyboard
From The Literacy Site.com .............. In her graduate assistant days, psychological scientist Pam Mueller of Princeton University used to take notes just like everyone else in the modern age: with a computer. One day, Mueller forgot her laptop and had to take notes the old-fashioned way. Rather than being held back by pen and paper, Mueller left class feeling as if she'd retained far more information than usual on that day. She decided to create a case study that could prove her hunch that writing longhand was actually better for comprehension than typing. The study she created, published in Psychological Science, indicated that taking notes by hand is a more effective … [Read more...]
WHAT Students Read Matters More Than You Think
From an article at Intellectualtakeout.org .................. In today’s standards-based education system, the main focus is on teaching skills rather than content. There’s a prevalent idea that it matters less what students read just so long as they are reading. But according to E.D. Hirsch, professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia, that’s bull. Some of you may know Hirsch through his famous advocacy of “cultural literacy”—the idea that some amount of “shared, canonical knowledge is inherently necessary to a literate democracy,” and that students in a particular culture should have common exposure to certain texts and concepts. But what you … [Read more...]