Columbia quietly walks away from Teachers College project that ruined countless lives

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://nypost.com/2023/09/17/columbia-quietly-closes-down-teachers-
college-project-that-ruined-countless-lives/

Columbia University is trying to quietly walk away from a disaster it
imposed on generations of American children.

The least we can do is call out the damage done.

Just before the Labor Day weekend, Columbia announced that it’s
“dissolving” the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and sending
its creator, Lucy Calkins, off on indefinite sabbatical.

For decades, Calkins and her colleagues pushed “literacy” programs based
on ideology, not science, programs that failed the children who most
needed help.

Her “balanced literacy” approach gave short shrift to phonics — by
teaching children to look at pictures and guess words, for example,
instead of sounding them out — and failed to foster the building of
knowledge and vocabulary vital to learning the love of reading.

Columbia’s decision comes months after Chancellor David Banks pulled the
plug on the Calkins-friendly approach once used by nearly half of NYC
public schools.

Indeed, the drive toward “evidence-based” instruction has seen districts
across the nation reject the Teachers College approach.

So Columbia’s move is essentially just recognizing reality.

But it doesn’t recognize the school’s guilt.

If Columbia University could be held liable for the harm done to
generations of American kids, it would lose its entire $13 billion
endowment and more. The least it could do is offer an abject apology.

Update: Since this editorial posted, Columbia’s press office has contacted
us to note that Lucy Callkins is not a Columbia prof, but rather a
Teachers College one, and to insist that closing the Reading and Writing
Project was entirely the decision of Teachers College, a separate
institution from Columbia — just like Barnard.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/17/columbia-quietly-closes-down-teachers-
college-project-that-ruined-countless-lives/


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