Small world
One person at the center of the pitched State Board of Education battle over the proposed English language arts and reading curriculum is a former teacher from my old high school.
From the Houston Chronicle:
Much of the debate focuses on grammar and reading comprehension. The controversy is being fanned, in part, by Donna Garner, a retired English and Spanish teacher in Hewitt. Garner writes education-related e-mails and contributes to My StudyHall.com.
Students must learn precise communication skills, and grammar requirements must be spelled out with explicit language, she argues.
"We have a disease in Texas — our students do not know how to write and speak English well," Garner said. "We need to treat the disease aggressively.
"The skills need to build upon each other as the student progresses from one grade level to the next. Learning the basics of the English language will provide students with a strong foundation upon which to write sophisticated papers and upon which to base clear communication," she said.
The integration of grammar with writing has been taught in Texas for the past 15 years without much success, Garner said, citing statistics showing half of Texas college freshmen are in need of remedial education, compared to only 28 percent nationally.
Teachers, parents and employers are appalled by the lack of speaking and writing skills, she said.
Opponents of this philosophy say that the TAKS and SAT don't test specifically on grammar and that teaching grammar in isolation has proved to be less effective than teaching it in conjunction with writing.
What do you think?
