They shouldn’t decide how children learn to read.
The “science of reading” is all the rage right now, as the pendulum of the incessant “reading wars” swings back toward phonics and away from “whole language” instruction—two opposing approaches to reading instruction that focus on either sounding out words phonetically or identifying words in written context. While the science may seem settled, don’t hold your breath. There is still passionate debate around the best way to teach children to read, and I share some of the different viewpoints in my book Unschooled. This war has been going on for decades and, I suspect, will continue for decades to come.
As in years past, state legislatures are responding to the current moment and are enacting phonics-heavy curriculum policies. Indeed, more than 40 states have enacted phonics-related legislation in recent years, prompted in large part by the popular “Sold A Story” podcast series that premiered in 2022 and blamed lagging student reading skills on the “balanced literacy” curriculum approach that many schools adopted as a blend of phonics and whole language instruction.
It is fully within a state legislature’s purview to enact new curriculum policies for public schools in response to constituents’ concerns. It is, however, not within the purview of the federal government.
The federal government has no constitutional role in education. Education is not listed among the enumerated powers granted to the federal government by the US Constitution. Any authority around education policy belongs with the states. That is why current efforts to close the US Department of Education, which opened in 1980, or to diminish its role are commendable.
What isn’t commendable is the current bipartisan push by federal lawmakers to expand the federal government’s role in education by getting into the reading wars. The READ Act, moved forward in Congress last week, would provide more power to the federal government to intervene on reading instruction and curriculum decisions in public schools across the country.
Congressman Josh Harder, a Democrat from California and one of the proponents of the READ Act, stated on the Education Gadfly podcast this week that his “goal is nothing less than to resurrect the federal education reform movement.”
Even if you believe that the science is settled and that phonics instruction is the clear victor, you should recoil at the federal government’s expanded role in curriculum matters, and “education reform” more generally. When the political winds inevitably shift, and some future curriculum concept that you dislike gains traction, the groundwork for a larger federal role in curriculum decisions will already be laid. That is why, even if you are a diehard phonics fan, you should oppose the current bill and related efforts to enlarge the federal government’s role in curriculum and instruction.
As supporters of a free society, our goal should be to reduce the size and scope of government and to limit its involvement in our lives and in our learning. This is especially true for the federal government. James Madison reminds us of this in Federalist No. 45: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Keep curriculum decisions with the states, not the feds, or else the wars over reading and everything else will become even more brutal.
This article was adapted from Kerry McDonald’s weekly email newsletter. Subscribe here.
