October 20, 2015
Speechless.
That is the word reverberating through text messages, emails, and Facebook posts today, among those closely following the trajectory of Reading Horizons’ troubling spin through the Minneapolis Public Schools.
After months of teacher and community-led protest, the Minneapolis school board voted, on October 13, to cancel the district’s deal with Reading Horizons, purveyor of a shocking set of “Little Books,” and a phonics curriculum some find invaluable.
On October 20, just one week after watching Reading Horizons get shot down by school board members, Minneapolis Public Schools’ Director of Elementary Education, Amy Jones, sent this message to the district’s elementary ed literacy specialists:
Good morning,
We are moving forward with Reading Horizons implementation this year while we start the search for another foundational skills program. It is in the best interest of our students and at the direction of Interim Superintendent Goar that we continue with full implementation.
Every K-2 classroom teacher, plus gr 3 classroom teachers in priority sites should already be providing Reading Horizons instruction for 20-30 minutes daily as part of the literacy block.
Please check in with K-2 (3 priority) teachers to see what type of support they need in their implementation.
Given the Board’s resolution from Oct. 13 there will be a few changes as we move through this year.
#1 We will not be working with the RH implementation coaches in the future as we have discontinued our contract. However, we will continue to provide coaching through our literacy specialists and elementary T&L team. If you have implementation questions or require support, please reach out to them.
#2 We will be moving forward with a Reading A-Z subscription for each site which can be used for decodable texts aligned to Reading Horizons. Information on how to order the books from the copy center will be shared with literacy specialists.
#3 We will not be utilizing the online RH software.
#4 We will be replacing the white board markers, which were found to be defective. New sets will be sent out mid-November.
We will also talk about this in on Friday at PD, but feel free to send me any questions and I will do my best to answer them.
Thank you for your work and patience.
Amy Jones
Director of Elementary Education
Teaching and Learning Dept.
Minneapolis Public Schools
Confusing!
Was the board’s 7-2 vote to cancel the Reading Horizons contract a mere formality, and not a directive? Several board members–in particular Nelson Inz, who wrote the resolution that was passed, Siad Ali, Rebecca Gagnon, and Tracine Asberry–seemed to agree with the hoards of protesters that filled the meeting room that doing business with Reading Horizons actually was not in the “best interests of our students.”
Jones’ email is actually the third admin-level message to come out since the board’s decision.
The first came from Minneapolis Federation of Teachers president, Lynn Nordgren, on Wednesday, October 14–just after the board meeting. Here is a condensed version of Nordgren’s lengthy email:
Dear Colleagues,
While it is critical that we have high quality materials for teaching reading, and while there are those who are finding great results with Reading Horizons, we feel we must recommend that further business with Reading Horizons must be stopped. The moral high road has to come first in light of what families and community have expressed and because we cannot continue to marginalize those who have been marginalized throughout time – even if the materials have been “cleansed”. Our equity policy must be honored – we must walk our talk. However, we do not want to leave teachers high and dry. They have been without good materials/resources for too long. Therefore, this is the series of steps we believe the district should take:
1. Stop doing any further business with Reading Horizons. If possible, get a refund.
2. Allow teachers to choose to continue to use RH until a new literacy program is adopted. RH should not be mandatory, however. It should be a professional decision to use or not.
3. Immediately begin a transparent, thorough, and inclusive process for selecting a new literacy program. Use available research about which reading/literacy programs are deemed the best.
Vet every option deeply with the many teachers who will be using the new materials. Include community and parents throughout the process. Adopt a process that can be used for all materials, curriculum, and assessments now and in the future.
4. Ensure all classrooms have adequate materials/resources – no matter what the subject area. Ensure teachers have adequate time to plan the next day’s work with students. It does not matter how good the curriculum is if teachers do not have time to plan engaging lessons and gather needed resources.
5. Apologize and move forward knowing this will not ever happen again.
We understand some of you will not agree with these recommendations. It really came down to being able to move past the controversy and do the right thing ethically but also ensure you have what you need to be successful with students. In the end, it is up to school district leadership to determine the next steps following what happened at the school board on Tuesday night.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback. Once again, you have shown how incredibly knowledgeable, skilled and caring you are. I am honored to be your president.
Respectfully,
Lynn Nordgren
MFT 59
Nordgren’s email clearly leaves the door open for Reading Horizons to be used, but says it should not be mandatory.
Then, Goar sent a message to staff on Monday, October 19. While Goar’s email indicates a desire to push for more “foundational literacy skills,” it doesn’t say Reading Horizons will continue to be “fully implemented,” against the wishes of the school board and all of those who organized against the district’s relationship with the company:
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 11:25 AM
Subject: Update regarding contract with Reading HorizonsDear Principals and Teachers,
At the October 13th meeting, the Board of Education passed a resolution terminating the district’s contract with Reading Horizons, a vendor of literacy curricula. As you know, supplemental materials provided with a foundational skills curriculum we purchased proved to contain offensive and racist stereotypes and were returned.
At the meeting, I acknowledged it was a failure of people and process that brought us to this point. I take full responsibility for these failures and I sincerely apologize for the pain and challenges that have resulted. I am committed to fixing the way we select and purchase curriculum so this never happens again. Now it’s time to look to the future and determine next steps.
My priority going forward is to have as little impact as possible on our students’ learning. I know you all share my concern for the reading challenges too many of our children face. We need to have a transition strategy to avoid leaving classrooms without essential fundamental reading skills tools. Children need strong reading skills to be college and career ready.
The Board of Education decided that the contractual relationship with Reading Horizons needed to end based on policy violations during the selection of the curriculum. I fully respect this decision and will direct the selection of a replacement curriculum utilizing a vigorous process that will thoroughly evaluate effectiveness, cultural appropriateness and will include input from our community.
In the meantime, we will continue to utilize the foundational skills to support our core literacy curriculum, Good Habits, Great Readers. We will keep everyone posted on the search for a replacement curriculum. We will find and approve a replacement as quickly as possible while ensuring the integrity of the process.
Thank you for your patience as we go through this transition, and for your commitment to the students of MPS.
Thank you.
Michael Goar
Interim Superintendent
What happened, then, between October 19 and October 20 that caused MPS to again try to insist that all K-2 (and 3, in high priority schools) teachers use Reading Horizons’ materials, for the same amount of time and in the same manner? (This is an odd move for a district that keeps touting “autonomy” as one of its key gap-closing strategies.)
And just who is in charge here?
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