Oklahoma's Reading Crisis - It's Not A Red VS Blue Problem

Though we've had Dr. Pelham on several times before, an article she wrote that was published via David Arnett's Straight Up Substack recently, really needed time on the podcast.

Dr. Pelham argues that Oklahoma's problem increasing our reading scores - especially after 8th grade - has to do more with how we're teaching reading than who is sitting in the Head Superintendent seat.

Here's a paragraph from the article posted below. We need to wake up and start tackling the actual problem - how we're teaching reading - and stop throwing money at failing programs. Dr. Pelham will discuss her research with us Wednesday (11.5.25) and tell us what would work better than what we're doing now. You won't want to miss this!

Oklahoma adopted Common Core in 2010 under Republican Governor Mary Fallin but repealed it in 2014 via HB 3399, demanding rigorous, locally controlled standards (70 O.S. § 11-103.6a). Yet, the 2016 OAS ELA rewrite betrayed that promise. The OSDE’s ~18-member committee, skewed 60% toward secondary grades (6–12) with only four on PK-4 reading foundations, leaned toward Balanced Literacy, mixing phonics with cueing instead of mandating SoR’s explicit instruction, despite decades of brain-based reading research (OSDE, 2015b; National Reading Panel, 2000). The result? Vague standards like RF.K.3, allowing “context clues” alongside optional phonics, enabling a justification trap where educators misuse SoR’s Reading Rope to excuse guessing (Kilpatrick, 2015).

https://substack.com/home/post/p-176775917?selection=b3cb474c-ae8a-4d96-9968-c861d5075a10