Bruce Deitrick Price on educational quackery in the public schools

Quackery in the public schools

If he only taught in my Rhode Island recently shocked by a bad report card on the Providence public schools , Bruce Deitrick Price would be my candidate for Teacher of the Year. I recall two books by the same author, Rudolph Flesch : " Why Johnny Can't Read " in the 1950s. Years later in the 1980s : " Why Johnny Still Can't Read ". Yet any American high school student learning a foreign language learns its ABCs, its alphabet system, at the very beginning. Of course, these languages, Italian , French, Spanish, are more pleasingly phonetic than English. But still written English too is very much a sound symbol system . It is idiocy to teach English like Chinese - that notorious LOOK and SAY quackery. How DENSE can the public school establishment be ? So sane phonetics was a right-wing CONSERVATIVE plot ? They also say that so is " cultural literacy " - the intellectual glue that holds a society together. An excellent short lecture, Mr. Price. I just read a disturbing article titled : " Why Teachers Don't Read ? "