The Question Remains: Will CA Teacher Prep Programs Be Held Accountable for Meeting the New Literacy Standards?

On April 19th, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing voted unanimously to reaffirm Mills College at Northeastern’s (MC:NU) accreditation despite a complaint filed jointly by Decoding Dyslexia CA, Families in Schools, and the California Reading Coalition. 

Our complaint found the college’s new educator preparation program failed to meet the literacy teaching requirements mandated by Senate Bill 488.

This Complaint Matters
As a result of SB 488, which passed in 2022, California has new and improved literacy standards and expectations for teacher candidates and their preparation programs. DDCA fought very hard over several years for these standards because we know the solution to children’s struggles with reading are teachers who are knowledgeable about the science of reading and evidence-based teaching methods. Our educators deserve to be prepared for the critical job of teaching kids to read. CA kids’ futures depend on it.

The new literacy standards under SB 488 demand that pre-service teachers learn how to screen students for reading difficulties, including risk of dyslexia, as well as implement structured literacy in the classroom. The new literacy standards also require that teacher preparation programs incorporate the California Dyslexia Guidelines so that new teachers are better prepared to meet the needs of students with, or at risk for, dyslexia. 

The above components were not found in the MC:NU course syllabi. Furthermore, their coursework paid insufficient attention to the five components identified by the National Reading Panel as necessary for reading. The MC:NU coursework emphasized typical balanced literacy practices such as guided reading, leveled texts, and running records and also included required course readings by controversial curriculum authors Fountas & Pinnell. The three-cueing method of reading instruction, which was debunked by cognitive science decades ago, was embedded throughout their coursework. Finally, the program didn’t mention how to provide additional help for struggling and multilingual students.

Failing to follow science fails kids!

The MC:NU program is one of the first new teacher preparation programs to apply for accreditation under the new literacy standards. If MC:NU’s program is accredited, this will set a dangerous precedent. The door will be wide open for what is deemed “acceptable” coursework and literacy instructional practices for all other California teacher prep programs. 

The 4/19 Meeting
In addition to nine written public comments, the meeting had many call-in commenters who brought passion and expertise to the topic. We urge you to listen to the voices of those who care deeply about this issue. (To listen to the public comments, please click on the images below.)

The first two audio clips are from Maryanne Wolf and Sue Sears who were two of the literacy experts appointed by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to develop the new standards. In their public comments, they each expressed significant concern that MC:NU’s teacher prep program has fallen short of meeting the standard requirements.


“[The new literacy standards] seem to be misunderstood at Mills College at Northeastern. It is unfortunate, but from my opinion after 30 years of intervention work, this fails to meet the standards that you [the Commission] asked us to bring to every teacher so that every teacher could be prepared to teach every child.”

 

“In the case of Mills College, we have three concerns [insufficient coverage of foundational skills, very little attention to reading assessment practices, and the omission of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, which are integral to meeting the needs of all California students]. We think the syllabi deserve further examination as does the program.”

 

“We sincerely hope the Committee on Accreditation and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing take into consideration the rigorous requirements institutions of higher ed must meet in order to adequately comply with [the literacy standards].”

 

“My team of analysts reviewed the syllabi provided by Mills College. Based on these documents, had Mills College been part of the sample of programs we reviewed for our [June 2023] report, it would have earned a grade of F for failing to provide adequate coverage of the five core components of reading instruction.”

 

“We are at a critical juncture as the literacy standards will not make a difference if the Commission does not hold our teacher prep programs accountable for complying with them… The [Commission] is required, under law, to ensure that the programs satisfy these new literacy teaching standards.”

 

“Most families simply trust. They trust that people in power, like you, will uphold the law to ensure that their children will have educators equipped to teach their children to read and to help them succeed in school. They trust the system, and so because you are the system, I am here today to ask you to investigate our complaint and ensure the law is followed so that every new teacher can effectively teach every student to read.”

 

“I urge the Commission to take appropriate and immediate action to investigate the complaint filed on the Mills College at Northeastern’s teacher preparation programs. There are fundamental issues at stake here. 2022’s SB 488 put into law specific key requirements for preparing new teachers to teach reading aligned with the best current evidence. Our young students deserve this evidence-based instruction and our new teachers deserve to be prepared. [Mills College at Northeastern] falls well short on meeting those requirements.”

 

“Running records, guided reading and three-cueing failed me as a teacher and failed my students who deserved instruction grounded in science… My story is not at all unique. Thousands of teachers are currently seeking knowledge counter to the balanced literacy methods they learned in their teacher prep [programs]. Please use your authority to enforce California’s standards for teacher preparation.”

Next Steps
The Commission voted unanimously to send the complaint back to the Committee on Accreditation (COA) for reconsideration. The COA is the body established in state statute to review programs and make final program accreditation decisions.

At the June 6-7 COA meeting, they will vote on whether to reconsider their previous approval of the MC:NU Multiple Subject program based on the complaint. 

While DDCA was disappointed the 4/19 meeting did not result in an investigation of the complaint or provide technical assistance, we are heartened that there is a next step. It is now in the hands of the COA to review and determine whether the MC:NU program upholds the new literacy standards. 

The evidence is clear to us that MC:NU is out of compliance with SB 488. We hope the COA uses their authority to uphold the law. 

For the future of 6 million public school children in California, DDCA stands on the side of science.

Read more about the complaint here: Sharp divisions over how California’s aspiring teachers will be taught to teach reading | EdSource

And, please encourage family, friends, and colleagues to sign up for DDCA emails to stay informed on all literacy-related efforts in California.

A California Perspective on Calkins’ Teachers College Reading & Writing Project Upheaval

A lot has transpired since our most recent blog was published on September 14, Columbia Dissolves TCRWP & Lucy Calkins Steps Down.” Several other media sources have published articles, including:

What will the impact be, if any, in California?

Well, that remains to be seen. Even before the latest round of news from Columbia Teachers College, Decoding Dyslexia CA was seeing some movement away from Calkins’ popular curriculum, the Units of Study in Reading, as some districts began aligning with the Science of Reading amid a statewide literacy crisis that has California lagging the nation in fourth-grade reading proficiency.

Units of Study in Reading refers to the wildly popular instructional materials authored by Lucy Calkins and Teachers College Reading Writing Project (TCRWP). For decades Lucy Calkins and TCRWP hosted professional development on the Ivy League campus of Columbia Teachers College that aligned with the commercial curriculum products. While the affiliation between TCRWP and the university is ending, the Units of Study curriculum will continue to be published by Heinemann. This blog focuses on districts’ movement away from using the Heinemann-published Units of Study in Reading curriculum.

Palo Alto Unified School District

One example is the Palo Alto Unified School District. PAUSD has undertaken several district changes as part of its Every Students Reads Initiative. One of these was to abandon Calkins’ Units of Study in Reading and adopt a new core ELA/ELD curriculum in addition to implementing universal screening, teacher training, and coaching, among other things.

Source: EdSource “How our district moved the needle on early literacy (and you can too)

You can learn more about Palo Alto Unified School District’s initiative here:

Palo Alto’s investment in structured literacy is showing results with significant gains in the CAASPP results for their Low-income Latino 3rd Graders, as shown below.

Source: EdSource “How our district moved the needle on early literacy (and you can too)

Berkeley Unified School District

Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), another Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study district, has had to implement a districtwide literacy improvement plan that includes screening all K-5 students for reading difficulties and implementing evidence-based literacy interventions as the result of a federal class action lawsuit settlement in 2021. 

The district must also evaluate the effectiveness of its Tier 1 curriculum. In March of 2023, BUSD began its own curriculum audit. According to the Berkeley Unified School District Literacy Action Plan 2022-2023 – Fourth Quarter Report (dated August 23, 2023), the “results of the review indicate gaps in key areas of literacy instruction in the TCRWP – Units of Study curriculum.” The details of the BUSD review can be found in Appendix B, pages 20-22, and the deficiencies are wide-ranging. What remains to be seen is if BUSD will abandon Units of Study instead of continuing to try and prop it up with “band-aid phonics patches”…but more about that later.

San Francisco Unified School District

San Francisco Unified is not as far along but has already made significant commitments to changing its reading instruction. Based on findings of an external curriculum and instruction audit, the district will replace Lucy Calkins’ curriculum. The audit of SFUSD’s literacy program found that over 90% of observed instruction in SFUSD classrooms did not incorporate sufficient opportunities for students to practice foundational reading skills. This comes as no surprise as the consensus from reviews and ratings is clear: Units of Study in Reading fails to provide the systematic and explicit instruction in foundational skills necessary for the majority of children to learn to read. Reviewers have also noted weaknesses in areas of vocabulary and knowledge building and other things, but poor guidance on foundational skills is the most glaring.

Source: K-5 Literacy Program Review: San Francisco Unified School District

West Contra Costa Unified School District

In West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), despite reading scores being “stagnant for over a decade” and a less-than-ambitious district reading goal to “improve by 5% each year,” WCCUSD will shockingly stick with Calkins’ Units of Study in Reading according to EdSource articleWest Contra Costa superintendent seeks to raise reading scores.”

Source: EdSource “How our district moved the needle on early literacy (and you can too)

In our last blog, DDCA referenced a 2020 report done by nationally-renowned experts entitled Comparing Reading Research to Program Design: An Examination of Teachers College Units of Study” which found, in addition to overall flaws in Calkins program, specifically noted that English Learners “will not have access to best practices in literacy instruction, particularly in the beginning and early stages of literacy development. Claims made in the Units about practices that are “especially powerful” or “incredibly supportive” for English language learners are not consistent with existing research.”

According to the EdSource article, WCCUSD is planning on adding a “band-aid” patch to shore up its failing Units of Study curricula.

How Widespread is the Calkins TCRWP curriculum?

It is very difficult to find out how pervasive the use of Calkins’ curriculum is in our California school districts. Are Calkins’ Units of Study on the state-adopted list of approved English Language Arts curriculum? No. Are school districts able to adopt curricula not on the state-adopted list? Yes.

Two interesting reports were issued by the California Reading Coalition. One (the California Reading Report Card 2022 ranked districts by the percent of economically disadvantaged Hispanic/Latino (Latino) students who “meet or exceed” grade level for the CAASPP 3rd grade ELA test in 2022. In California, economically disadvantaged Latino students make up 43% of California K-12 enrollment. The other report, the California Reading Curriculum Report, found that districts using Units of Study were disproportionately among the lowest-performing in the state overall.

Source: CA Reading Coalition’s Curriculum Report

Despite the fact that Calkins’ Units of Study are not on the state-adopted curriculum list, the CA State Board of Education (SBE) held out this curriculum as an exemplary program in a federal literacy grant application. In an EdWeek article entitled “Advocates for Science-Based Reading Instruction Worry California Plan Sends the Wrong Message,” advocates, including Decoding Dyslexia CA, called out SBE for naming Calkins’ curriculum as an exemplary program “proven to improve student outcomes,” when in fact there is minimal evidence of its effectiveness. SBE also added a footnote with a website link to the commercial Units of Study program in its federal grant application. 

Interested in Learning More?

If you are interested in learning more about California’s long history of failed whole language and “balanced literacy” programs, such as Calkins’ Units of Study in Reading, take the time to listen to or read:

Stay tuned for our next blog on why adding “band-aid phonics patches” to Calkins’ Units of Study does more harm than good.

And as always, please encourage family, friends, and colleagues to sign up for DDCA emails to stay informed on dyslexia-related efforts in California.