21 Comments

I suspect the reason Columbia University closed Lucy Calkins Reading and Writing Institute is because Columbia's lawyers realized they were legally liable for the damage done by her programs to millions of mostly poor minority students for decades. Seventy percent of prison inmates are illiterate. I am waiting for the Vioxx lawyers to file a class action suit against Columbia, Reading Recovery, and the states for not doing their due diligence on a shoddy product that harmed children. The lawyers are trying to keep the 12 billion endowment safe from the plaintiff's lawyers. You never hear anyone talk about providing remediation for the damaged children who never learned and who got stuck in the "Infinite loop" of three cueing, which caused their minimal brain dysfunction and inability to read.

Expand full comment

"But she’s able to frame her approach as an idealistic quest to unleash children’s natural abilities as readers and writers—and even as human beings—and many educators respond to her rhetoric with passionate devotion."

I can't begin to describe the grip she had on my district, and how I had to endure PD telling me to teach mini-lessons between 6-12 minutes before sending students off to work independently (I pushed back by saying that I needed to give maxi-lessons to guide the learning!). Here's how I wrote about it in this piece, "Do Our Literacy Heroes Fail Us, Or Do We Fail Ourselves?" (https://highfiveliteracy.com/2024/05/23/do-our-literacy-heroes-fail-us-or-do-we-fail-ourselves/):

But—how can we be certain that these expressed uncertainties wind their way down Mt. Olympus and cross paths with the average teacher? When a widely disseminated recommendation is stated as a certainty rather than a possibility, spreads quickly, gains momentum, and finally emerges fully-formed like Athena out of Zeus’s head and claims a seat in the staff room, this is worrisome. Isn’t this how the reading “stories” we were “sold” set up shop in our schools in the first place, forcing us decades later to disentangle the threads leading to the misdirection? As one local school board member told Emily Hanford about Lucy Calkins: “If Beyonce came and gave a private concert in my district, it would not have been a bigger deal for many of my teachers.”

Expand full comment

Lucy definitely was a "star" in the field for decades and likely made more than a few million along the way. Her program was the endorsed reading program for many of NYC schools. I happened to spend a decent amount of time working with Lucy and her team to create an online introductory component for the Units of Study (that was never completed for a myriad of reasons) back in '06 and '07.

That experience convinced me Lucy was incredibly sincere and dedicated in her desire to help all teachers and students master reading and writing with her approach and program. She (and her team) exerted an immense level of effort to help teachers teach and students to learn to love and excel at reading and writing well. I also know she was, as mentioned, very charismatic, in part due to how effective she truly believed her Units of Study were for teachers and students.

Ultimately, some concerns regarding its efficacy started to bubble up in some well-regarded publications. It got me to thinking more deeply. What I ultimately came to realize was Lucy's program probably did work wonderfully well...for students whose households had the money, time, vocabulary and access to rich experiences outside of school. Unfortunately, in this way, Lucy’s program didn’t align so well with the largest segment of the NYC urban student population. I find it a bit ironic that Teachers College, with its long-term commitment to supporting those less fortunate, didn’t recognize this fundamental "misalignment" sooner. If and when Lucy may have realized it, I certainly can't say.

I know a lot of folks jumped ship, including Teachers College (I understand she’s currently on a significant sabbatical). I hope things turn around for Lucy and her team as she continues to add some of the important missing pieces to her original curriculum, content and approach. I know Lucy to be a fierce warrior for the welfare of all children. And in our world, especially in these days, we can’t afford to lose even one.

Expand full comment

On the advantages that being from an affluent family can confer to a student: Not far from our home there’s a Linda Mood Bell private tutoring center literally a stone’s throw from the world famous Chez Panisse restaurant in the highly coveted gourmet ghetto district of Berkeley, Calif. The sign-in list is always full, the space is nice, and as of a couple years ago they charged over $170/hr for tutoring. It took a 2017 lawsuit settlement to find the Calkins literacy curriculum ineffective for students with dyslexia and fast forward to 7 years later we are just piloting a new curriculum now. Kinder students who started the year of the settlement are more than halfway through their k-12 journey; they and many cohorts behind them will never benefit.

The teachers union has been publicly absent in all the work on the new curriculum. Which is odd considering its influence on the public school board and all of local Berkeley politics. All the discussion and handwringing about closing the racial achievement gap, among the country’s widest, will sadly remain performative.

Thank you for the informative post.

Expand full comment

I interviewed Lucy when I was researching my book, and I don't see her as a villain--I think she's sincere. At the same time, I don't think she's been completely open about her own recognition of the limits of her approach when it comes to different demographic groups. When I asked her whether she thought her curriculum worked equally well for all SES levels, she demurred (off the record), essentially saying that no, it probably wouldn't.

Like Helen Lewis, I was taken to some "showcase" Units of Study schools to see the curriculum in action. But unlike Lewis, who apparently only visited schools in affluent districts, I specifically requested to be taken to schools in low-income areas (they were in NYC). The faculty and administrators I met there were enthusiastic about "Teachers College," as they called it (they didn't say they were "teaching Lucy"). But what I observed left me quite disturbed about what was actually going on in classrooms. I won't take the space here to go into what I saw, but it's described in Ch. 5 of my book, The Knowledge Gap.

Expand full comment

This is also my sense, based on Emily Hanford's reporting. In fact early on Hanford mentioned that Calkins seemed to have a specific perspective on how kids learn to read, that's very middle class white.

Altho' your book has been out a while, there's 1 other hold on it at our public library. :-) This is Berkeley...

Expand full comment

Sounds like a fair assessment. Thx.

Expand full comment

Imagine a freeway where 60% of the cars break down. Can you envision the chaos? The turmoil?

The outcome would be auto companies going out of business, suits for harm, etc. In other words, consequences and accountability.

Our own kids entering 4th grade are failing to read at 60%. Yet all we get is crickets. No consequences or accountability.

In our society you cannot survive without reading, writing, and speaking effectively. Public education creates a poverty cycle.

It is time we have real conversations about what works.

Perhaps start by turning the screens off.

Expand full comment

I'm old (73) and am, and have always been, a voratious reader. My father was a manufacturers' representative and was on the road five days a week in an era before cable TV. Alone in a hotel room most nights his refuge was popular fiction. Those Mickey Spillaines came home and as an elementary schooler I found them captivating. In retrospect I doubt they'd have gained the approval of my fourth grade teacher, Miss Palmore, but they were fun and exposed me to the culture of big cities and crime.

I mostly learned to read at home. Parents corrected my grammar and usage in speech. Throughout elementary school the curriculum on offer in my small town was always several steps behind where I was as a reader. I wasn't able to understand why my classmates struggled with parts of speech and diagramming sentences. A bit more sketchy content might help with motivation while broadening cultural awareness. But parents with language skill will always create a divide in the classroom. Maybe test the parents first.

Expand full comment

I’m 64, I learned to read using McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers. I homeschooled my kiddo and used McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers to teach him phonetics - he was confused by the word “Colonel” in a book he was reading. He was a highly gifted student, he started reading chapter books in kindergarten. I actually don’t know how he learned how to read, but the McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers helped him learn to decode words which helped him read even higher level books at a young age. He went to engineering school. He’s an Aerospace Engineer now.

Expand full comment

Its a travesty that so many are failing. I have been teaching for 25 years. How I wish I could go back in time with the knowledge that I not only now have but am striving to obtain as fast as I can. I'm dedicating myself to work towards reducing the percentage of reading failure for our nations kids. Hopefully, with more acquired knowledge, I can be in a position to encourage others in my profession to examine their reading instruction as well.

Expand full comment

Another great "warrior for children" it seems! All the best!

Expand full comment

I think a part of the big-picture conflict here is about how effective instruction works. Broadly, direct instruction (explicit, systematic, with an important role for teacher-led lessons) vs. Dewey-etc.-inspired progressive pedagogy that views the teacher as a facilitator responsible for unlocking students' innate abilities. In the latter understanding, the teacher also taps into their innate brilliance and thus needs to be given broad autonomy.

By contrast, direct instruction recognizes that a logical scope and sequence is essential, and that it is impossible to achieve this at scale if every teacher is operating autonomously. Natalie's arguments about the importance of knowledge-building are an extension of this model to, in 'science of reading' terminology, language comprehension.

Expand full comment

This piece reflects the complex and ongoing challenges of literacy reform, particularly in urban schools where reading outcomes directly impact equity and opportunity. As an urban administrator, I see firsthand how curriculum choices intersect with systemic inequities, teacher preparedness, and student needs.

While critiques of Lucy Calkins’ work may seem harsh, they underscore the necessity of evidence-based approaches that address the full spectrum of literacy: decoding, comprehension, and writing. For our students, especially those from underserved communities, this isn’t just an academic debate—it’s literally life and death. Balancing effective, knowledge-building curriculum with the realities of teacher capacity and student engagement is critical.

Expand full comment

excellent points, Natalie.

Expand full comment

I just read the Helen Lewis article and it has definite vibes of a Brit trying to get to grips with issues in US Education and not quite succeeding. However, one point which maybe is more obvious to an outsider are issues of cost in changing curriculum. As another Brit, I don’t how accurate that is so would be interested in your comments and whether she is right to imply that curriculum is dominated by commercial providers. (This isn’t really a major issue in the UK although there are, of course, a number of commercial providers of materials etc: the difference may be a national curriculum).

Expand full comment

Yes, curriculum in the US is dominated by commercial providers, although recently some nonprofit curriculum publishers have entered the market in reading and math, including some that provide their materials for free. And it's true that curriculum in the US can be really expensive. But creating and updating a good curriculum (and of course, they're not all good) is a tremendously labor-intensive, and therefore expensive, endeavor. The curriculum publishers that produce free "open educational resources" need to figure out an alternative revenue stream that enables them to maintain the quality of their materials (I think the usual formula is to give away the curriculum and charge for training grounded in its specifics).

So it's not necessarily a bad thing that curriculum publishers are making money. They need to do that to survive. However, it has led to a situation where decisions about what curriculum to adopt are often influenced by cozy relationships with publishers who wine and dine local education officials. That can be a problem.

As for the UK, I've been told by Brits who seem to know what they're talking about that the national curriculum is too vague to provide the kind of guidance that many educators need to do an effective job. The best American curricula (and I'm really talking about literacy curricula that build knowledge, because that's what I'm familiar with) do provide that kind of detailed guidance (lesson plans, etc.). Many US educators resist that guidance as an infringement on their professional autonomy. Others, however, are grateful to have it.

Expand full comment

Thanks for such a detailed reply! I have only just scratch the surface but the more I learn about it, the more I realise that the UK (which itself has more than one national educational system) and the US are fundamentally different in many ways. I wouldn’t say that the national curriculum in general is too vague to provide guidance but it’s very much a curriculum rather than a series of lesson plans, materials etc. We have commercial and non-profit providers of those materials which can be bought at school or teacher level. Other schools design their own. Either way, the costs are quite modest compared with the numbers quoted in the Helen Lewis article and it usually isn’t a major issue to change. That’s why the numbers really jumped out at me from the article!

Expand full comment

Other commenters have alluded to it but I want to add one important missing component of Lucy’s curriculum: the staff development apparatus. While it makes sense to focus on what is written in the units, much of her curriculum existed in the unwritten interpretation of the units of study by her cadre of staff developers who fanned out across schools to develop teachers into proper curriculum delivery mechanisms. This included more than the skills and texts and worksheets and assignments. These developers also worked to program teachers to follow set timings, speak with select intonation and word choice, and evaluate students’ reading and writing in ways that fit the units of study’s approach. There is a (formerly) TCRWP code base, so to speak, running the backend for how to have a conference with a student, how to run a small group, how to set up book clubs, how to arrange the books on your bookshelf, or how to give feedback to a reader. These continue to exist for good or bad even as the units of study leave schools. Lucy will be here for a long time. The ghost in the machine.

Expand full comment

her article would have made more sense.

Expand full comment

Thank you for your excellent response to a misleading and confusing article. It’s unbelievable that Lucy Calkins’ reading and writing curricula is still getting so much attention and still has acolytes. Helen Lewis clearly spent a great deal of time with her subject. Perhaps if she had spent more time with those of us who have tried to repair the damage Caulkins has done over decades,

Expand full comment