I'm all for casting aside ideology and following the leaders. Yet I don't honestly feel that LDH has done her homework. Every time someone says "Louisiana followed Mississippi," it's a tell, letting us know they didn't look deeply into the reforms. As I have written in my piece on the Southern Surge, their reforms started at approximately the same time (2012-13), and with VERY different initial efforts. Only in very recent years did Louisiana "follow" some of MS's key reforms (ex. 3rd grade retention, teacher training), and vice-versa (MS has taken baby steps towards use of knowledge-building curricula). More here: https://www.karenvaites.org/publish/posts/detail/156118827?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fpublished
Also, Wisconsin is in an absolutely awful state, with the biggest black-white reaching achievement gap in the nation and weak demographically-adjusted performance, as well a politically-elected superintendent whose DPI has actively dragged its feet on implementing key aspects of the new Act 20 reading law, especially curriculum upgrades. Again, I have written about WI multiple times, most recently here: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/wisconsins-woeful-education-track?r=wsgsa
And Massachusetts has flat outcomes that have earned regular headlines in the Boston Globe (google "Northern Nosedive"), as well as districts so stuck in their ways that the legislature just unanimously approved measures to restrict local control on curriculum selection. I am not cheering the move in most states, but I am in MA. More on all of this here: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/congress-holds-hearings-as-massachusetts
We all need to get into these details— and accuracy is incredibly important. Her piece fails the "paying close attention" test.
I am optimistic that we will see blue states take more of the actions in the Southern Surge states, and I am cheering Democrats like Rahm Emanuel for making this a Dem platform. Center for American Progress just reported on the Southern Surge reforms, much more accurately than LDH, as I noted in my 3/7 "Latest in Literacy" update: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/the-latest-in-literacy-3726
Fair points, Karen. Appreciate your comment. I would just reiterate that red/blue cleavages and ideological proclivities when it comes to reading policies and practices are worse than unhelpful. I've been hearing, eg, phonics and right wing politics/fascism confounded for 50 years (no exaggeration), and some folks are still at it! Not too long ago I tried to engage a presumed leader in the the bilingual education/English learner sphere who rebuffed me with "Definitely not in support of ALEC, Heritage Foundation and the other organizations that support a conservative agenda that The Reading League follows." No chance for any discussion. Punto. Period. The end.
If nothing else, we must call out and purge this utter nonsense from the discussion. But, as you rightly point out, we must sweat these non-trivial details. By all means point out what you think is missing or wrong in LDH's analysis or the facts she cites. My point was, to quote myself, the need for "casting aside political ideologies and other biases and instead making honest efforts to understand what states around the country are doing that can help guide the rest of us toward better outcomes for all students."
If I am being honest, I think the "phonics = conservative" trope largely died during the Emily Hanford era. The Reading Wars as we knew them are over. You can still find Paul Thomas blogs trying to cast doubt as well as some voices outside education who haven't received the memo. But I think it serves us to operate in the world where *educators* have stopped resisting phonics "because politics," but sometimes resist the SOR era "because books have left my classroom" or "because I am being asked to waste classroom time on oral-only phonemic awareness" or "because Im asked to use a curriculum that takes 60 min/day for foundational skills only." (My writing has been touching on all of those issues, for anyone wanting to dig in.) Those are the conversations that will meet educators where they are.
Otherwise... my piece on the Southern Surge closes this way: "Lastly, a word about politics. In the mean streets of social media, folks are bound to point out that these four states currently have Republican leadership, because it’s America in 2025, and we can’t help ourselves. I’d like to note a counterpoint: most of Louisiana’s work occurred under a Democrat, Governor Jon Bel Edwards (2016-24). I don’t deny that red states are generally showing more state leadership on literacy issues; personally, as a resident of New York – arguably the most laggard state in the country on literacy – it’s a point of chagrin. This is simply your daily reminder that the Science of Reading community is fundamentally bipartisan, and simple political rules can’t be applied."
I think this is a fair take, and I have been honored to carry this important story into coverage by Nick Kristof, Kelsey Piper, and the Boston Globe itself, by showing the truly-replicable details at play.
AMEN KAREN!!!! You truly understand!! In the multilingual literacy community, the central disagreement in today’s debate is not whether foundational skills matter. Most researchers and educators agree that explicit instruction in phonics and other foundational skills is essential. The concern is that current reforms often concentrate heavily on these elements while giving far less attention to other equally important aspects of literacy development—such as oral language development, vocabulary growth, writing, and knowledge building. The question is therefore not whether phonics should be taught, but how literacy systems ensure that foundational skills instruction is integrated with the broader language and knowledge development that supports reading comprehension. Decoding is necessary for comprehension, but it is not sufficient.
Preach! The Reading Wars are over. The Implementation Wars live on… and we need a new set of approaches to get this right for kids and educators.
Jargony, politically-framed blogs from LDH isn’t it. Because really, her column is an act of political reframing. And I’m over politics being the lens through which we have these conversations.
Correct! But some portray multilingual education advocates as rejecting foundational skills instruction. This claim does not reflect the position of most researchers in the field. In terms of the how much and the how, there are many pushing for structured literacy for all. The International Dyslexia Association defines Structured Literacy as “highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy,” including phonology, sound–symbol association, syllable instruction, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The organization further notes that this approach “is the most effective approach for students who experience unusual difficulty learning to read and spell printed words,” including students with dyslexia (International Dyslexia Association, 2019).
However, the evidence supporting explicit and systematic foundational skills instruction does not necessarily imply that a single instructional framework must serve as the universal model for all classrooms and student populations. I really think people need to pay attention to what Mark Seidenberg is saying regarding overteaching.
In any case, I agree with this, but I think you’re wrong that the political angle ended with Emily Hanford. There’s the quote I provided in my first reply to you, which is representative of a lot of the EL advocacy community (here I think “ community” applies) and even if not explicitly political in a red vs blue way, the idea that teaching reading must be done in a way that accords with someone’s view of “liberal or progressive pedagogy,” whatever that means and regardless of whether it helps kids learn to read, is alive and well and in many guises. Maybe that sentiment is receding and increasingly limited to “thought leaders” with vested interests, intellectual or other. But it still has a pulse, and it would be helpful to quash it. Plenty of other obstacles to overcome, implementation among the most critical, as you suggest.
As for LDH’s statement, while you might find it irritating and “political reframing”, her acknowledgments about MS and LA are huge. And a big potential step forward in moving to a more productive place for students. We should build on that. Forget the political reframing. Don’t make it yet another distraction. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize… turning 51 monster tankers (some more monstrous than others) in a much more productive direction. If Linda’s on board, I’ll welcome her.
I heatedly agree that there are still *pedagogical misconceptions* that very much need to be addressed, and some of these represent camps in the K-12 space. There is a vocal camp that is hesitant about knowledge-building curriculum and a heavily-overlapping camp that promotes comprehension strategies instruction as the answer to comprehension. There is confusion among EL advocates about the nature of the instruction sought, partly because advocates of knowledge-building instruction don't use the same language as others in the SOR camp ("oral language-building" and "knowledge-building" curriculum want the same things, but use different nomenclature). There has been advocacy in some "SOR" spaces for types and volumes of phonics instruction that do use more instructional time than all children need, and vigorous debates about how to structure the ELA block (primarily whole groups vs small group/walk-to-read). There's a Linguistic Phonics vs Print to Speech phonics skirmish underway. I could go on. I call these the Implementation Wars, because they are real debates. The rancor in these debates has taught me why the Reading Wars existed in the first place.
But these look nothing like the Reading Wars of the last 60 years. First of all, every side in those debates acknowledges the need for phonics. There is no meaningful anti-phonics Whole Language camp. This is the breakthrough achieved by Hanford.
Importantly, the groups don't break on red vs blue lines (even in a country where everything breaks on red vs blue lines these days). One might even say LDH's piece is evidence (as is Weingarten's support, CAP and Rahm Emanuel's positions, and the broad media embrace of the story).
I hope that helps clarify my own sense of this moment. I adore your work in helping to take the heat out of the Implementation Wars for ELs. My best work is helping to advance the smartest models (including curricula) for schools trying to get this right, in the trenches.
The implementation gap is the greatest issue, not reading or phonics wars and again Karen nails it. In the UK educators also learn both in pre-service and inservice the science of learning, thus reducing many pedagogical misconceptions because they better understand how people learn and therefore how to teach. Where we see too much phonics or too many comprehension strategies, it is reflective usually of misunderstandings. Why make it a war or a political issue?
I wish people were less sharp-elbowed about these things, but I don’t make the rules. If you see loud (or Laud) voices in the “Science of Reading” community engaging in smear campaigns against individuals for promoting evidence-based practices, by all means call people out or call them in to ask for better. I do think I am fairly noting the heat in some of these debates (as is @Claude Goldenberg when he talks about the concerns in the California EL community)… and to beat a dead horse, I’ll say it again: those debates dramatically outpace anyting in the ‘political’ arena.
I’m not sure that my earlier comment clearly links to your reply, Karen. Your work is phenomenal. While it’s great that someone as stuck as LDH can come around to even admitting the Southern Surge progress, that she still finds it necessary to ‘turn the discussion purple’ speaks volumes.
Karen Vaites has addressed this topic really well. The CAP analysis, a progressive think tank, does a very good job of elevating the Southern states. Karen does a good job of pointing out some of the flaws in LDH's report.
What makes the most sense, from what you report Claude, is taking an approach that is multi-organizational in an effort to be systematic. It's not just doing better in math or reading. Improvement is about creating new structures and connections and making the parts and the whole work better.
Center for American Progress is home to a multitude of policy departments dedicated to researching and developing progressive policies that will improve the country and fulfill the organization’s strong commitment to facilitating change.
I'm all for casting aside ideology and following the leaders. Yet I don't honestly feel that LDH has done her homework. Every time someone says "Louisiana followed Mississippi," it's a tell, letting us know they didn't look deeply into the reforms. As I have written in my piece on the Southern Surge, their reforms started at approximately the same time (2012-13), and with VERY different initial efforts. Only in very recent years did Louisiana "follow" some of MS's key reforms (ex. 3rd grade retention, teacher training), and vice-versa (MS has taken baby steps towards use of knowledge-building curricula). More here: https://www.karenvaites.org/publish/posts/detail/156118827?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fpublished
Also, Wisconsin is in an absolutely awful state, with the biggest black-white reaching achievement gap in the nation and weak demographically-adjusted performance, as well a politically-elected superintendent whose DPI has actively dragged its feet on implementing key aspects of the new Act 20 reading law, especially curriculum upgrades. Again, I have written about WI multiple times, most recently here: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/wisconsins-woeful-education-track?r=wsgsa
And Massachusetts has flat outcomes that have earned regular headlines in the Boston Globe (google "Northern Nosedive"), as well as districts so stuck in their ways that the legislature just unanimously approved measures to restrict local control on curriculum selection. I am not cheering the move in most states, but I am in MA. More on all of this here: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/congress-holds-hearings-as-massachusetts
We all need to get into these details— and accuracy is incredibly important. Her piece fails the "paying close attention" test.
I am optimistic that we will see blue states take more of the actions in the Southern Surge states, and I am cheering Democrats like Rahm Emanuel for making this a Dem platform. Center for American Progress just reported on the Southern Surge reforms, much more accurately than LDH, as I noted in my 3/7 "Latest in Literacy" update: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/the-latest-in-literacy-3726
And no less than Randi Weingarten has been spotted cheering Mississippi (reported here: https://www.karenvaites.org/p/the-southern-surge-watershed
In other words, we can find certainly find bipartisan paths. But again, accurate reads of the landscape are essential.
Fair points, Karen. Appreciate your comment. I would just reiterate that red/blue cleavages and ideological proclivities when it comes to reading policies and practices are worse than unhelpful. I've been hearing, eg, phonics and right wing politics/fascism confounded for 50 years (no exaggeration), and some folks are still at it! Not too long ago I tried to engage a presumed leader in the the bilingual education/English learner sphere who rebuffed me with "Definitely not in support of ALEC, Heritage Foundation and the other organizations that support a conservative agenda that The Reading League follows." No chance for any discussion. Punto. Period. The end.
If nothing else, we must call out and purge this utter nonsense from the discussion. But, as you rightly point out, we must sweat these non-trivial details. By all means point out what you think is missing or wrong in LDH's analysis or the facts she cites. My point was, to quote myself, the need for "casting aside political ideologies and other biases and instead making honest efforts to understand what states around the country are doing that can help guide the rest of us toward better outcomes for all students."
If I am being honest, I think the "phonics = conservative" trope largely died during the Emily Hanford era. The Reading Wars as we knew them are over. You can still find Paul Thomas blogs trying to cast doubt as well as some voices outside education who haven't received the memo. But I think it serves us to operate in the world where *educators* have stopped resisting phonics "because politics," but sometimes resist the SOR era "because books have left my classroom" or "because I am being asked to waste classroom time on oral-only phonemic awareness" or "because Im asked to use a curriculum that takes 60 min/day for foundational skills only." (My writing has been touching on all of those issues, for anyone wanting to dig in.) Those are the conversations that will meet educators where they are.
Otherwise... my piece on the Southern Surge closes this way: "Lastly, a word about politics. In the mean streets of social media, folks are bound to point out that these four states currently have Republican leadership, because it’s America in 2025, and we can’t help ourselves. I’d like to note a counterpoint: most of Louisiana’s work occurred under a Democrat, Governor Jon Bel Edwards (2016-24). I don’t deny that red states are generally showing more state leadership on literacy issues; personally, as a resident of New York – arguably the most laggard state in the country on literacy – it’s a point of chagrin. This is simply your daily reminder that the Science of Reading community is fundamentally bipartisan, and simple political rules can’t be applied."
I think this is a fair take, and I have been honored to carry this important story into coverage by Nick Kristof, Kelsey Piper, and the Boston Globe itself, by showing the truly-replicable details at play.
AMEN KAREN!!!! You truly understand!! In the multilingual literacy community, the central disagreement in today’s debate is not whether foundational skills matter. Most researchers and educators agree that explicit instruction in phonics and other foundational skills is essential. The concern is that current reforms often concentrate heavily on these elements while giving far less attention to other equally important aspects of literacy development—such as oral language development, vocabulary growth, writing, and knowledge building. The question is therefore not whether phonics should be taught, but how literacy systems ensure that foundational skills instruction is integrated with the broader language and knowledge development that supports reading comprehension. Decoding is necessary for comprehension, but it is not sufficient.
Preach! The Reading Wars are over. The Implementation Wars live on… and we need a new set of approaches to get this right for kids and educators.
Jargony, politically-framed blogs from LDH isn’t it. Because really, her column is an act of political reframing. And I’m over politics being the lens through which we have these conversations.
I say that as readily to R’s and D’s, FWIW.
Correct! But some portray multilingual education advocates as rejecting foundational skills instruction. This claim does not reflect the position of most researchers in the field. In terms of the how much and the how, there are many pushing for structured literacy for all. The International Dyslexia Association defines Structured Literacy as “highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy,” including phonology, sound–symbol association, syllable instruction, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The organization further notes that this approach “is the most effective approach for students who experience unusual difficulty learning to read and spell printed words,” including students with dyslexia (International Dyslexia Association, 2019).
However, the evidence supporting explicit and systematic foundational skills instruction does not necessarily imply that a single instructional framework must serve as the universal model for all classrooms and student populations. I really think people need to pay attention to what Mark Seidenberg is saying regarding overteaching.
“Science of Reading [I’d leave out “community”, but won’t quibble] is fundamentally bipartisan, and simple political rules can’t be applied."
Darn, sorry. Don’t know how to comment properly.
In any case, I agree with this, but I think you’re wrong that the political angle ended with Emily Hanford. There’s the quote I provided in my first reply to you, which is representative of a lot of the EL advocacy community (here I think “ community” applies) and even if not explicitly political in a red vs blue way, the idea that teaching reading must be done in a way that accords with someone’s view of “liberal or progressive pedagogy,” whatever that means and regardless of whether it helps kids learn to read, is alive and well and in many guises. Maybe that sentiment is receding and increasingly limited to “thought leaders” with vested interests, intellectual or other. But it still has a pulse, and it would be helpful to quash it. Plenty of other obstacles to overcome, implementation among the most critical, as you suggest.
As for LDH’s statement, while you might find it irritating and “political reframing”, her acknowledgments about MS and LA are huge. And a big potential step forward in moving to a more productive place for students. We should build on that. Forget the political reframing. Don’t make it yet another distraction. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize… turning 51 monster tankers (some more monstrous than others) in a much more productive direction. If Linda’s on board, I’ll welcome her.
I heatedly agree that there are still *pedagogical misconceptions* that very much need to be addressed, and some of these represent camps in the K-12 space. There is a vocal camp that is hesitant about knowledge-building curriculum and a heavily-overlapping camp that promotes comprehension strategies instruction as the answer to comprehension. There is confusion among EL advocates about the nature of the instruction sought, partly because advocates of knowledge-building instruction don't use the same language as others in the SOR camp ("oral language-building" and "knowledge-building" curriculum want the same things, but use different nomenclature). There has been advocacy in some "SOR" spaces for types and volumes of phonics instruction that do use more instructional time than all children need, and vigorous debates about how to structure the ELA block (primarily whole groups vs small group/walk-to-read). There's a Linguistic Phonics vs Print to Speech phonics skirmish underway. I could go on. I call these the Implementation Wars, because they are real debates. The rancor in these debates has taught me why the Reading Wars existed in the first place.
But these look nothing like the Reading Wars of the last 60 years. First of all, every side in those debates acknowledges the need for phonics. There is no meaningful anti-phonics Whole Language camp. This is the breakthrough achieved by Hanford.
Importantly, the groups don't break on red vs blue lines (even in a country where everything breaks on red vs blue lines these days). One might even say LDH's piece is evidence (as is Weingarten's support, CAP and Rahm Emanuel's positions, and the broad media embrace of the story).
I hope that helps clarify my own sense of this moment. I adore your work in helping to take the heat out of the Implementation Wars for ELs. My best work is helping to advance the smartest models (including curricula) for schools trying to get this right, in the trenches.
Absolutely! Genuine, active and productive bipartisanship is the true way forward.
The implementation gap is the greatest issue, not reading or phonics wars and again Karen nails it. In the UK educators also learn both in pre-service and inservice the science of learning, thus reducing many pedagogical misconceptions because they better understand how people learn and therefore how to teach. Where we see too much phonics or too many comprehension strategies, it is reflective usually of misunderstandings. Why make it a war or a political issue?
I wish people were less sharp-elbowed about these things, but I don’t make the rules. If you see loud (or Laud) voices in the “Science of Reading” community engaging in smear campaigns against individuals for promoting evidence-based practices, by all means call people out or call them in to ask for better. I do think I am fairly noting the heat in some of these debates (as is @Claude Goldenberg when he talks about the concerns in the California EL community)… and to beat a dead horse, I’ll say it again: those debates dramatically outpace anyting in the ‘political’ arena.
I’m not sure that my earlier comment clearly links to your reply, Karen. Your work is phenomenal. While it’s great that someone as stuck as LDH can come around to even admitting the Southern Surge progress, that she still finds it necessary to ‘turn the discussion purple’ speaks volumes.
Thank you for the kind words, Susan! And thank you to Claude for this post, which gives us a space to have this conversation (unlike LDH's blog).
Yes, thanks Claude!
Karen Vaites is often the voice for sanity in many of the reading-related discussions. Can we stop politicizing reading instruction? Shouldn't we be celebrating wherever students are learning? Read my substack about Rahm Emanuel https://lindadiamondeducator76.substack.com/p/the-moral-imperative?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18plrf
Well said.
Regardless of what Rahm Emanuel did or didn't do, his message that reading should not be a red or blue issue is important.
Good to have you back, Dr. G.! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Thank you 😁. I know it's been a while. And *you* know... life happens.
Karen Vaites has addressed this topic really well. The CAP analysis, a progressive think tank, does a very good job of elevating the Southern states. Karen does a good job of pointing out some of the flaws in LDH's report.
What makes the most sense, from what you report Claude, is taking an approach that is multi-organizational in an effort to be systematic. It's not just doing better in math or reading. Improvement is about creating new structures and connections and making the parts and the whole work better.
Center for American Progress is home to a multitude of policy departments dedicated to researching and developing progressive policies that will improve the country and fulfill the organization’s strong commitment to facilitating change.