The once-revered Columbia University program behind a flawed literacy curriculum used in New York City schools will be “dissolved,” the university announced.
The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project’s founder, literacy scholar Lucy Calkins, will also go on sabbatical for the coming academic year. Teachers College quietly released the news last Friday, ahead of Labor Day weekend.
Moving forward, the university said, Teachers College “will ensure that its professional development programs are informed by the latest research and evidence.”
The curriculum, called Units of Study, came under fierce criticism in recent years for glossing over the fundamental building blocks of reading while teaching students’ problematic strategies like guessing at words. Research found the techniques could make learning to read more difficult and frustrating for many students, especially those with dyslexia or other learning challenges.
This week, Schools Chancellor David Banks said the Teachers College curriculum “has failed our students.” He’s ordered all schools phase out use of the curriculum in favor of other methods he says follow the science of reading.
In an email to Gothamist, Calkins acknowledged her sabbatical “was certainly influenced by NYC’s decision to mandate that schools abandon all the good work that teachers have learned to do – and all the questions they want to pursue — in order to implement a one-size-fits-all basal reading program.”
The embattled academic defended her work.
“I stand by what I have said often: In every corner of the city, some of the highest achieving schools are those using the Units of Study and have been partnering with the Reading and Writing Project,” she said.
Banks often invokes city students’ poor reading test scores as proof that the previous approach was not working. Citywide, he says, just over half of students are not reading at grade level, including 64% of Black students and 63% of Latino…
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