Talk out of School: concerns with NYC's mandated reading curriculum, plus student comments below

Check out the latest Talk out of School featuring a discussion of NYC's most widely used reading program, HMH Into Reading, with NYU researcher Flor Khan, Brooklyn parent Alina Lewis and teacher Martina Meijer.  Below is a short summary of Alina's concerns, along with some comments from fifth and 6th grade students at the Brooklyn School of Inquiry. Below that are some newsclips related to the reading curriculum as well as other news items mentioned on the show.

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In May of 2023 we were informed that our school, the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, would need to replace our existing literacy curriculum with HMH’s Into Reading for grades K-5, and that our middle school would need to adopt HMH’s Into Literature for grades 6-8.

The Brooklyn School of Inquiry is founded upon progressive education principles, and has a long standing tradition of student centered, inquiry driven pedagogy. Our literacy curriculum, honed by teachers over many years, was developed with our specific students in mind and embodied the spirit of inquiry and progressive education embedded in our mission. It is this tradition of inquiry that draws parents from all over Brooklyn to our school, and the curriculum has served our community extremely well.

Students are highly engaged in meaningful learning, well prepared to succeed in rigorous high school classrooms, and 91% of our students are at or above proficient (ELA state test, 2022-2023). We have been forced to abandon our curriculum and adopt HMH, a scripted, test prep style literacy curriculum that does not include real books, only excerpts from passages.

Instead of engaging deeply with the themes embedded in rich literature such as A Raisin in the Sun, our kids now read three and a half page articles about Instagrammers. Instead of reading the Diary of Ann Frank at BSI, our students read bland two page excerpts such as “Challenges for Space Exploration,” from the HMH workbook. There is simply no way that such a curriculum will prepare our students to be the thinkers, change makers, and citizens that we want them to be.

It's unconscionable that HMH is being pushed onto students, teachers and families in the name of “literacy” when it contains no substantive literature. It's unconscionable that HMH is being billed as “research backed” with no extant, rigorous data to support its effectiveness and quality (Wexler, 2024). Below, please see some qualitative data about Into Reading and Into Literature, gleaned from students direct experiences. Please consider if this is the type of literacy education we dream of for our public school kids in New York City.

I have always loved reading. You can ask anyone in my family, and they will tell you that. And I can also tell you that this curriculum has no real reading.

-       Will, 5th grade

 

Overall, the Into Literature book has you repeat what it just stated, feeding you words to the answers and saps your writing of creativity and self expression. This is why I don’t think I am learning very much.

-       Penelope, 6th grade

 

In years past, ELA was fun! We would read real books and short stories. Now we read mostly excerpts in our HMH workbooks or online…Next year I will be in 7th grade. I was so excited to hear about Ms. Mia and some of the things that she does in her ELA classes, such as a unit where students put Christopher Columbus on trial. I am a Native American/Puerto Rican girl with Taino ancestry - what a  unique and personal experience this could be! I would be so disappointed to have this learning opportunity with my classmates taken away and replaced with excerpts and assessments from HMH.

-       Kira, 6th grade

 

In the fifth Harry Potter book, the Ministry of Magic installs a mundane curriculum for the students of Hogwarts in Defense against the Dark Arts. In this curriculum, you study defensive spells, think about defensive spells, and write papers on defensive spells, but you do not actually get to do defensive spells. In my opinion, this curriculum is not unlike the HMH curriculum. We are thinking about books, and we are reading excerpts, but are we are not actually reading books.

-       Isabel Carlos, 5th grade

 

So, to sum it all up, it's just not challenging, fun or exciting. It feels like I’m getting half of the ELA sixth grade experience. Half of a story, half of a piece of writing, only half of a curriculum. I really hope you will let my school keep teaching me and my classmates in a way that is both educational, exciting and fun.

- Carlo, 6th grade

 

I miss reading whole novels and discussing them in class like we did in elementary school. Now in middle school we read excerpts from the books and are asked simplistic questions about them…You can't get to the point and the idea of the book through reading just a part of it. You need to read books in their entirety and if you have a teacher to guide you and your friends to discuss the book with, it makes you want to read more.

-       Ethan, 6th grade

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Episode Notes

Chalkbeat, NYC chancellor said he’d resign without mayoral control. His threat could add fuel to critics.

Daily News, Keep Mayor Adams’ control of NYC schools, Chancellor David Banks urges Albany lawmakers 

Sign up to testify at Council education budget hearings on March 18, 2024

Info on Panel for Education Policy meeting March 20, 2024 

NYU Metro Center,   Lessons in (In)Equity: An Evaluation of Cultural Responsiveness in Elementary ELA Curriculum https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/ejroc/lessons-inequity-evaluation-cultural-responsiveness-elementary-ela-curriculum

NYU Metro scorecard

NY State Education Department, Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education 

Comments by NYC students on HMH Into Reading 

Chalkbeat, See which curriculum is dominating NYC's reading mandate 

NY1, Some parents are skeptical of new reading curriculum 

Contact info for guests (with their permission): Alina Lewis at alinajlewis@gmail.com; MORE at MORE@morecaucusnyc.org; Flor Khan at fk725@nyu.edu

Amazing hearing in Brooklyn last night on Mayoral control; here are a few excerpts

Last night,  hearings were held in Brooklyn on Mayoral control.  About 70 people spoke, most of them extremely eloquently, passionately, and on point about how this essentially autocratic system of governance has seriously damaged our schools and NYC children. More than 90% said they opposed the current system, and the few that said they supported it mostly worked for DOE, including three Superintendents whose main argument seemed to be that this was a good system because they might not have been appointed otherwise.  One member of the Citywide Council for High Schools said Mayoral control had allowed for more "parent choice", while failing to mention that she works for the largest charter school chain in the city.

Most surprising were the number of parents, teachers, and literacy experts who blasted the new mandated Literacy curriculum, especially HMH Into Reading, which they described as  composed of scripted lessons, excerpts from texts, and repeated tests with multiple choice questions, with no time for students to read entire books or engage in any sort of independent reading.  They said this had led to many students becoming bored and disengaged.  And yet this Mayor has gotten credit in the media for imposing this curriculum, because it is ostensibly focused on phonics.  

Many other speakers decried the rising class sizes, the wasteful contracts, the expansion of charter schools which has taken billions from the DOE budget and a increasing precious space from public schools, and of course, the repeated budget cuts imposed on  schools. But so many important points were made over the four hours by so many speakers that they are hard to summarize. A video is posted here, and I encourage everyone to watch it.  Meanwhile, I have collected a few of the most eloquent statements, from four parents and a teacher and have posted them below, with the permission of the speakers.

Two more hearings remain.  First in Manhattan on Jan.18 at the High School of Fashion Industries, and though the sign up list is full, the hearing is still is worth attending, as last night in Brooklyn they extended the speaking time to anyone who showed up, whether they had were on the sign up list or not.  

The final public hearing is in Staten Island  on January 29. You can also submit written comments by January 31, and I urge everyone -- even those who have already spoken at these meetings -- to do so.  The consensus is now overwhelming that, as one person said, Mayoral control is a failed experiment.  Time to put the public back into public education.