My Views Are My Own
By Lisa Schonhoff, Ed.S.
2/11/2025
To gain an understanding of what is and isn’t working in our education system, it’s imperative to look at a timeline of major events throughout our history. These are the events that stand out to me as I write. Click on the following links to learn more.
1965 Launch of federal Head Start program
1979 U.S. Department of Education is established as cabinet-level agency (View spending here)
2002 Enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
2003 Adoption of the Whole Language Approach to Teaching Reading
2009 Launch of the Common Core State Standards Initiative
2015 Enactment of Every Student Succeeds (ESSA)
2020 Passage of Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (ESSER Funds)
3. With the advancement of technology in the past couple decades, our children are increasingly exposed to digital devices throughout their days. When schools shut down in 2020, the federal government disbursed emergency relief funds to schools across our nation for purchasing technology that would allow 1:1 devices in our schools. There are a great deal of studies that have come out on the detrimental impact that blue light has on the developing brain in children. Sleep, learning problems, mental health, eye health, and weight gain are listed in this article. There is significant evidence that children build reading stamina and comprehension when reading real books. There is very little downside to minimizing screen time within the school day.
2. Meeting the language needs in our classrooms is becoming increasingly difficult. We have a quickly growing demographic of students who speak a language other than English in the home. Our teachers must be equipped with strategies that help students acquire the listening, speaking, reading, and writing domains of the English language. On a positive note, ALL kids benefit from these strategies. Even native English speakers are struggling more with all four language domains as a result of being read to less by distracted parents, engaging less in personal interactions with increased technology, and increasingly coming from single parent households.
1. We need to get back to the basics of phonics. The good news is that it is coming back, but why did it go away in the first place? Proficiency scores were declining and education experts published articles like this: Whole Language Works: Sixty Years of Research, look familiar? There is a ton of great work coming out as a result of the Science of Reading, such as systematic phonics. This is a result of a body of research we have had access to all along so let’s make sure we learn from our mistakes. There are many successful educators who understand the continuum of literacy instruction. Let’s call on them to ensure systematic phonics is being taught within our school districts (K-3) instead of giving millions of tax dollars to curriculum makers while hoping they solve all of our problems for us.
Oh, and bring back cursive!
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