SKINNER INSPIRED DI NOT A PROVEN WINNER FOR BLACKS 
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Date sent:      	Sun, 29 Aug 1999 19:45:10 -0400
From:           	anonymous
Subject:        	Race-Baiting Ignores The Real Issue of Freedom


You said:
"The liberal educrats running the public school, who are largely middle
class whites, embrace a reading methodology which empirical research
clearly shows cannot help the majority of poverty class low achievers of
color learn to read.


Question:
Does your "empirical research" distinguish between the effects of any
particular reading methodology on blacks vs. whites?  Are you suggesting
that blacks learn differently, with a different inherent capability than
whites?


You said:
"We are witnessing a widening bell curve gap between the literate middle
class and the illiterate poverty class people mostly of color."


Question:
Are you suggesting that the gap is between the literate and illiterate,
the middle class and poverty class, or all middle class and poor,
illiterate minorities?  Your equation as stated above brings many issues
into play that cannot be blamed on race.


You said:
"And almost inevitably these children are in classes where "whole
language" is used, and where little or almost no direct systematic

instruction in teaching phonics is present."


Question:
Does your definition of "direct systematic instruction" include
non-behavioral methods of direct instruction in teaching phonics, or do
you deny any distinction between behaviorism (as in Skinnerian DI) and
agency-based phonics instruction (as in Phyllis Schlafly's DI)?


You said:
"One central question is why universities and public school educators
would reject experimental evidence about reading instruction..."


Question:
Do you really believe that Project Follow Through was a valid research
experiment, given the unscientific advantages it awarded to certain groups
and methods at the express exclusion of others?  There has been no
"scientific research" of the comparison between behavioral and
agency-based direct instruction, because the government doesn't want to
admit that phonics can be taught without operant conditioning.  They
perpetuate the lie that we must choose between whole language or
Skinnerian-based Direct Instruction.  The research being presented to
educators is government-funded with an agenda to push, and that agenda has
been the deliberate creation of a whole language crisis to be followed by
the predetermined solution of behavioral methods.


The truth is that behavioral direct instruction has not improved minority
OR majority test scores beyond the first year, yet people are stubbornly
advocating Skinnerian-based direct instruction anyway.  There is no
transfer of knowledge when students are conditioned to give a response via
operant conditioning.  There are schools using "direct systematic phonics
instruction" that still have a 15-20% failure rate in the first year.  How
does the "scientific research data" explain that?  Your logic suggests
that 15% of blacks can't learn no matter what, or that there's a massive
conspiracy by white educators to keep one race down.  I would suggest that
both are ignorant views!


You said:
"We are rapidly becoming two nations: one black and underachieving; the
other middle class and mostly white."


Question:
What will you claim and who will you blame when operant conditioning fails
to teach phonics to the remaining 20% of ALL children, including
minorities?  Will you still see it as a massive white conspiracy when the
future workforce of all colors is dumbed down according to the needs of
the economy, when "skills" are granted according to workforce development
boards and 80% of all of society falls into the "worker drone" segment? 
When behavior is controlled by those wielding the most powerful incentives
and "rewards" at the expense of individual agency, will you still be
blinded by color alone?


This is not a race war at all, it is a class war that involves everyone of
every color.  The blacks do not have exclusive claim to slavery issues,
and that chip is serving as a major distraction to you.  Get rid of it and
treat everyone equally.


Literacy and freedom are about agency, not race!