Darvin Winick
Governor's Business Council, Austin, Texas, USA
Transcript from Critical Balances: Early Instruction for Lifelong Reading
MR. WINICK: I'm Darv Winick. You didn't hear Jack Christie, most
of you, but as I walked by him, he said "be nice." I don't
understand why he would say that to me. It's nice to see a large turnout. Your attendance to me signals an interest
in improving reading in Texas schools and that's good, and we're pleased
to have a big crowd. From the standpoint of the business council and the business community,
maybe more in general, we're really encouraged by the interest, by the
progress that we're making in this reading challenge, and we know also
we have a lot left to do. We sincerely welcome all of you who would like
to help. The Governor's Business Council, since I am noted on your program
as representing that organization today, is a non-partisan group of senior
business executives who informally agreed to associate to work on state
policy issues. It actually was set up by Governor Ann Richards and it has
continued with this governor. It is liberally sprinkled with people from
both sides of the aisle, as they say. If you are interested in public education in Texas, you need to understand
four important Texas public policy positions. First is that management
of the system is important. The citizens of Texas, through the governor
and the legislature, take responsibility for setting educational policies
and standards for our schools. That's the way we do it. Local school communities are responsible for managing the policies and
meeting the standards. Now, that's an important outcome, in that all instructional
programs are selected locally. That's the first thing. Second, we feel teachers are important. Students may not learn if teachers
do not know how to teach. Educators are accountable for that part of schooling
that they control. Our analyses show that teachers and administrators do
make a difference. In Texas, that difference is measured and reported annually. Third, the truth is important. The public has the right to know how
well students in their schools perform, how resources are used, and how
much value is added by the programs that are selected. The public also
has the right to know how the teachers in their schools are prepared and
how effective, how effective that preparation is in producing classroom
results. Similarly, the public has the right to know when unproven methods
are used. And the fourth position, recognition is important. It's fundamental
to accountability. Teachers must be praised and honored when their students
prosper from their efforts. The real measure of instructional success is the academic gains students
make from a measured starting point. In Texas, student gains are measured
annually and successes are publicized. Happily, there are a great many success stories. That's very encouraging.
If you, any of you, want to propose approaches to reading instruction in
Texas, these policy positions are critical. They're important. We welcome,
from our standpoint, any of you who can convince the local community that
you have an approach worth trying. In Texas, our ability to measure and
publicize results makes us, I think, a preferred venue for reading program
evaluation. We should encourage it. We are comfortable in trying different approaches simply because we're
able to -- able and willing to monitor and publicize results. However,
the rules of engagement are stated and clear. Full public disclosure of
the scientific bases for program development and well-defined experimental
procedures are expected. We will measure and report the results. Now, I know you're sensitive, as we are, to the charges that educators
jump from one unproven fad to another, so we will be especially vigilant
to see that programs that do not produce gains in student test scores are
promptly identified. Last year we spent considerable time and energy reviewing the scientific
literature on reading. We searched the country for good researchers. Fortunately
we had resources available to do this, and we are very comfortable in our
ability to discriminate. As a professional psychologist and a long-time research manager, I was
frankly surprised at the wide range of quality that we found. We're going
to emphasize, as we go forward, research, evaluation on programs. I think
that's a well-founded need. Our search identified a group of highly competent
researchers and teachers, including those associated with the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We were pleasantly surprised and especially proud that the identified
group included Houstonians: Barbara Foorman, David Francis, and Jack
Fletcher. We plan to direct public and private funds to programs that introduce
teachers to the work of these outstanding scientists. We are also fortunate
to have the Neuhaus Center in Houston to work with us, and I think Neuhaus
can expect growing public support for their efforts. Fundraising is growing very well. Just this month, just so far in May,
$3,400,000 in private funds have been pledged to support teacher retraining
efforts. To expedite the retraining effort, plans are underway to emphasize
programs outside of the traditional teacher preparation institutions. We are very intrigued, for example, with a recent proposal to start
an independent state chartered school for teacher preparation. Overall,
the public response to all phases of the Texas Reading Challenge has been
very generous, very positive. Perhaps to an outsider, the most attractive result from our efforts
to date is the possibility that we can shift resources, shift them from
the terribly expensive and inefficient one-to-one tutorial programs, remediation
efforts, and special education treatments to good, empirically validated
reading instruction in the early grades. Research is suggesting to us that most children can be taught to read
within the regular classroom. What a wonderful prospect for kids. Think about it. What a wonderful return on investment in research. Wouldn't
it be great to free up large amounts of funds for other classroom needs? The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
shows Texas elementary schools' students scoring well above those in most
other states in mathematics. For those of you who haven't seen the NAEP
results, Texas white students and African American students score
at the top of the national charts. Educators have a great deal to be proud
of in those results. We wish for the same result in reading. We believe that our success in mathematics comes from an emphasis on
data on what produces real results in the classroom. In reading -- and this
is stern, and I know that, and I mean it to be, and I understand this is
not the most popular kind of talk -- but in reading, too many people seem
to ignore what works and to stress dogma rather than data. Frankly, and honestly, we find the ongoing debate over reading ideologies
unproductive. We are much less interested in the dogma. We do intend to
follow the empirical data on what is effective. You shake your head no, but that's the policy in Texas. Our challenge
is to make Texas students, despite background or family condition, competitive
with those from any school system anywhere. We want our young children
to read at grade level or better by the end of the third grade and we welcome
the participation of everybody and anybody who accepts our terms of engagement. It is a stern talk. Thank you for having me and I appreciate your attention. A contrasting viewpoint from Mr. Stevens Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted October 1997
© 1997-2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232