5: The “Science of Reading” in 2022, and Beyond: Not Simple, Not Settled

This chapter is a new section for this revised and expanded 2nd edition, and in the first months of 2022, the news for K–16 education in the United States, notably public K–16 education, is incredibly dismal. The building storm I am referring to is the anti-critical race theory (CRT) movement along with a wildfire of book banning across the United States.

Matt Hawn, a former teacher in Tennessee, was fired for teaching Ta-Nehisi Coates—because officials claimed that text defied the state’s antiCRT law (Green, 2021). And according to a report from UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access:

While this impact is stunning, with over a third of the students affected, the real consequences of this curriculum and text banning likely is much larger—especially if we include self-censorship occurring among educators afraid of losing their jobs.