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Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

economist.com

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Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#81

Post by blargthorwars »

bluGill wrote: post #70
prodigycorp wrote: post #24

Can someone steel man the reason for not teaching phonics? Among the different trends in teaching, de-emphasizing/abandoning phonics is counterintuitive, bordering moronic. But I do not claim to be more than a pea brain myself.

English is not really a phonic language. The is some, but the rules are not clear - why is phone not fone? Many letters can have more than one sound, and it is arbitrary which is chosen. Different English speakers even have different sounds / ways to pronounce a word. Not that phonics is useless, but it isn't as helpful as it should be. We need spelling reform first - which probably needs to start with a more general…

For me, phonics was a lifesaver. Sure, you have to learn a corpus of typically common words that don't follow the pattern, but that's ok. I went from functionally illiterate to loving language.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#82

Post by [deleted] »

ch4s3 wrote: post #73
justin66 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not teaching phonics Teachers use phonics all the time. “Teachers don’t use phonics anymore” is just a thing people say. It’s odd.

This is not really accurate. There was a vary long running debate about phonics which is 1 piece of a larger system (alphabetic coding, phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and comprehension) vs Whole language which became popular int he UK and US in the 1980s and 1990s. Whole language is junk pedagogy and doesn't work but was the preferred method taught to teachers for nearly 30 years in the US. The NYT Daily podc…

[deleted]

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#83

Post by the_sleaze_ »

bmacho wrote: post #53
the_sleaze_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm here in Alabama, I'm teaching my kids reading through phonics at home about 2 years ahead of them starting in school. They're learning what they call "sight words" in class. My kids are so far ahead of the others that our specific teacher has now moved to teaching the rest of the class phonics and almost abandoning sight words altogether. I think the rubber on the road reason for not teaching phonics is that it's…

That's weird because 2 years of one-to-one study with their parent should matter more than whatever method, also teachers don't just go and give up their method, even for good reasons. And 2 years of one-to-one study with their parent being effective is not a legit reason to change methods.

Ok

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#84

Post by justin66 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #73
justin66 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not teaching phonics Teachers use phonics all the time. “Teachers don’t use phonics anymore” is just a thing people say. It’s odd.

This is not really accurate. There was a vary long running debate about phonics which is 1 piece of a larger system (alphabetic coding, phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and comprehension) vs Whole language which became popular int he UK and US in the 1980s and 1990s. Whole language is junk pedagogy and doesn't work but was the preferred method taught to teachers for nearly 30 years in the US. The NYT Daily podc…

I'll certainly review the podcast when I have time. Thanks!

I read Pournelle's column in Byte in the late eighties and at times he bemoaned the lack of phonics in modern reading curriculum while also pumping his wife's expensive phonics-based reading software. I ran this by teachers I knew and the general response I got was a confirmation that teachers use phonics all the time, along with some frustration about the rather common misunderstanding, which is at times promoted by people with their own agendas.

As someone who knows teachers but doesn't have kids and has not been motivated to learn a lot about this stuff, I've found that the above pattern often holds. Teachers baffled and annoyed by the misunderstanding of what they're doing with regard to phonics, a somewhat political origin of the critique of reading education from people who are inclined to criticize public education more broadly, sometimes there's a product to sell...

Dealing with "phonics parents" who have bought into this is probably a bit surreal and frustrating. "You've spent time working with your child on lessons outside the classroom and they've displayed improvement? What an important and forgotten education principle you've discovered."

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#85

Post by TimorousBestie »

ch4s3 wrote: post #78
TimorousBestie wrote: post #28

I’m very against financial incentives for perfect attendance. American schools by and large still do not have adequate ventilation and space to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. Combine that with a state like Alabama with low childhood vaccine rates and it’s a recipe for epidemics like measles.

This might be the dumbest take I've read online in months. Alabama has had 1 case of measles in 24 years. Alabama requires MMR for entry to public k-12 schools and has a 95.3% vaccination rate which meets the accepted threshold of 95% for heard immunity. One minute of searching could have turned this up for you. But you're making up some stupid bullshit about "ow childhood vaccine rates". Seriously, I can't fathom wh…

> Alabama requires MMR for entry to public k-12 schools

For now. Your state legislature has multiple bills in progress to increase vaccine exemptions and reduce requirements, following the national trend.

> and has a 95.3% vaccination rate

93.8% the year prior, see below. We’ll see if it’s an upward trend or an outlier soon enough.

> But you're making up some stupid bullshit about "ow [sic] childhood vaccine rates".

Here’s a weighting of various vaccination metrics by state: https://www.newsweek.com/states-that-vaccinate-most-map-2127... (2025)

And a local report from a couple months ago: https://alabamareflector.com/2025/12/08/alabama-sees-lower-v...

> The vaccination rate for children aged 13-17 nationwide remained high in 2024, but it drops significantly in Alabama as children age. Where about 70% of 4-10-year-olds are up to date on vaccines statewide, only 25% of children 11-18 years old are up to date.

And as I said to the sibling commenter, I’m not advocating doing nothing about absenteeism. It’s perfectly reasonable to criticize a specific method while endorsing its intended effect.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#86

Post by sidewndr46 »

smileysteve wrote: post #55
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the idea behind NCLB is to lower the standards until everyone passes?

It's metric chasing; If the metric is everyone passes, then you either taught really well or lowered the standard.

There is more than 2 ways to get to the required goal, but your analogy generally holds.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#87

Post by ch4s3 »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #85
ch4s3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the dumbest take I've read online in months. Alabama has had 1 case of measles in 24 years. Alabama requires MMR for entry to public k-12 schools and has a 95.3% vaccination rate which meets the accepted threshold of 95% for heard immunity. One minute of searching could have turned this up for you. But you're making up some stupid bullshit about "ow childhood vaccine rates". Seriously, I can't fathom wh…

> Alabama requires MMR for entry to public k-12 schools For now. Your state legislature has multiple bills in progress to increase vaccine exemptions and reduce requirements, following the national trend. > and has a 95.3% vaccination rate 93.8% the year prior, see below. We’ll see if it’s an upward trend or an outlier soon enough. > But you're making up some stupid bullshit about "ow [sic] childhood vaccine rates".…

You are advocating precisely nothing. You're criticizing a policy that is helping the poorest children learn to read which unlocks ever subsequent learning opportunity. There is no substitute for in person reading instruction. Your criticism is useless and misplaced. Again, Alabama has had 1 measles case in nearly a quarter century, while they have had a real problem teaching poor kids to read due to absenteeism.

Honestly you take is disastrously stupid. It's this sort of illness safety maximalism that lead to COVID learning loss to begin with.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#88

Post by ch4s3 »

justin66 wrote: post #84
ch4s3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not really accurate. There was a vary long running debate about phonics which is 1 piece of a larger system (alphabetic coding, phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and comprehension) vs Whole language which became popular int he UK and US in the 1980s and 1990s. Whole language is junk pedagogy and doesn't work but was the preferred method taught to teachers for nearly 30 years in the US. The NYT Daily podc…

I'll certainly review the podcast when I have time. Thanks! I read Pournelle's column in Byte in the late eighties and at times he bemoaned the lack of phonics in modern reading curriculum while also pumping his wife's expensive phonics-based reading software. I ran this by teachers I knew and the general response I got was a confirmation that teachers use phonics all the time, along with some frustration about the r…

I went through school in the 90s and was 100% not taught any method involving phonics or sounding out words. None of the kids whose parents didn't read to them could read well by 3rd or 4th grade.

Moreover it is factual that universities instructing teachers were for decades only teaching the whole language approach. Implementation varied state to state, but you can literally look at curriculum material used in various states over time and see the shift.

The problem was in fact the reverse of what you're claiming, whole language was brought in by consultants selling a curriculum. This is also easily confirmed.

I also know some teachers, but that's just anecdote and fairly parochial.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#89

Post by j_w »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #72
wildzzz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birmingham had a chronic absentee rate of 29% prior to this program which is defined as missing at least 10% of school days. They brought it down to 14%. Missing class is a major detriment to learning and causes kids to fall behind faster than they can keep up. Doing nothing to combat chronic absenteeism is not really the solution to preventing the spread of childhood diseases.

> Doing nothing to combat chronic absenteeism Not something I was advocating, thanks.

"I'm against the solution which has been shown to work for [unsubstantiated reason]." Without providing any other proven-to-work solutions is basically advocating for the problem.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#90

Post by mikkupikku »

cestith wrote: post #76
mikkupikku wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter will probably work much better. Good teachers get embittered and burned out through exposure to bad students (who are mostly bad because their parents are trash, and feeding the kids breakfast partially mitigates this.) Of course the teachers will tell you that paying the teachers more is the solution, but that doesn't seem to track with the evidence. Good schools, which are good because the students are g…

But you get the best teachers by requiring a Masters and paying $40k a year while your school has three assistant principals and your district pays six figures apiece to multiple assistant superintendents, right?

The administrative busybodies soaking up so much of society's money is a problem, but not the reason bad schools are bad.
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