First, I cheer Gallagher on when he argues against NCLB, especially when he itemizes the disaster that was called the "Texas Miracle." I also cheer him on when he challenges us all to "hard talk." I don't mind hard questions that demand from ourselves authentic educational endeavors, even if it's harder work than what we've been doing.
Gallagher also irritates me, though. I'm a math teacher, and my goal for my statistics students was that they be able to read a newspaper with the inevitable statistical information they would find there. Gallagher's use of statistical charts is frustrating because those charts are unclear to the reader. Examples of these unclear charts are on pages 3, 15-16, and 21-22. I actually looked carefully at all three of these sections, and I'm still not sure I know what he is talking about. On page 3, does the chart tell me that 54% of nonliterary readers read literary texts? If so, then 4% of avid readers read in the same category of "literary text." What is a "literary text" anyway? Part of statistics is learning how to present your data in a readable way, and Gallagher did not do that here.
On pages 15 and 16, Gallagher replicates two charts with such fine print that most people will not be able to read the most important labels--those he refers to in the text. In the third paragraph that Gallagher calls "The Paige Paradox," he attempted to point out some of the most appalling results of the data in the charts. First, he mentioned the thirteen states that have African-American students reading three years below grade level in fourth grade. As best I can figure out, he counted the states that fall between 20 and 30 points on the left of the chart. What about the state that is more than 30 points (therefore more than three years) behind grade level? I'm pretty sure we'd want to count them, too, in the way he summarizes the chart. What I still don't understand is his statement about the eighth grade group and the 36 states with students two or more years behind. The chart doesn't even show all of the states, and it certainly doesn't show 36 states with students 2+ years behind. Another problem with his two statements of summary for the chart is that he has compared fourth graders with eighth graders and which states are exactly three years behind and which are two or more years behind. That's no way to write about data.
The last section that bothers me is about the stagnant reading scores for eighth graders on pages 21 and 22. In particular, the last chart bothers me most, but I think I can figure out what he means. Gallagher says that the gap between poor and nonpoor eighth grade students in 2002 is 23 points. As best I can figure, he hasn't actually given us data for the nonpoor group specifically. He's mixed a lot of data, so I tried to subtract the scores from the first two charts to get the differences shown in the second chart. But, the numbers don't work. I think there's data that says nonpoor 8th graders in 2002 scored 272 points, but we don't have it here. Similarly, there must be data about the nonpoor 8th graders in the other years, too.
My point is this: Gallagher wants me (among others) to be convinced that reading is being killed by government and by schools as well as others, but his own writing only serves to confuse me not convince me.
I don't like to read. There, I said it. I never have liked to read.
The idea of this reading class made me roll my eyes when I heard about it from a colleague years ago. But, the longer I taught, the more I became convinced that reading has a place in mathematics classes. The problem with word problems is not the math usually, but the words themselves. The problem with tests in general is not the problems, but the directions many times. I've spent the last four years working with students who struggle to succeed in math, and I've concluded that their inability to read that has made a large contribution to their struggles.
So, I'm convinced that reading is important in math, and I'm convinced that students don't know how to read in math. But, Gallagher's poor use of math did not help me get convinced at all. It only made me ask, "What about mathicide?" I'm okay if we only talk about the killing of arithmetic and data interpretation skills. What makes reading so important and math not important enough for its own course? Why do we have EDRD but not EDMH? For that matter, what about a course to help us foster those skills that make "expert citizens" called EDEC? Even if citizenship is not tested or valued by the government, math skills are.
