Milwaukee's Plans for a One Size Fits All Reading Curriculum

Alan Borsuk:

The textbooks and the workbooks and the teachers manuals and all the other materials were displayed attractively. There were mini-candy bars and cloth shopping bags for visitors to take.

America's biggest text book companies - Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt - each had large, handsome displays.

For three days last week, the third-floor library of the Juneau High School building was the center of looming big change in the way children in Milwaukee Public Schools are taught reading. MPS officials are selecting a new reading program.

A special committee will make a recommendation and the School Board will make the choice in the winner-takes-all curriculum selection process. The sunlit scene in the Juneau library was the part of the process where anyone could take a look and give input.

It was an amiable scene. The representatives of the publishers were friendly, talkative, knowledgeable, and quite willing to schmooze. "Great tie," one told me as I walked down the aisle. She appeared to know something about this tie that no one else had noticed in the 20 years I've owned it.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Psychology Professor Mark Seidenberg has written a number of articles on Madison's reading programs.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 18, 2010 2:03 AM
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