Delay on State Reading Policy Provokes Anger

An expected key step in the yearlong effort to improve the state’s weak performance in teaching children to read blew up Thursday in a series of angry exchanges between state schools chief Delaine Eastin and members of the State Board of Education.

Board members, who had been set to vote on a new state reading policy, complained that they were not given time to study the 20-page document, which was being revised as late as Wednesday night.

Frustrated by the board’s reluctance, Eastin vowed to send the document out to schools over her own signature, without the board’s imprimatur, as soon as possible.

Eastin said the policy had to be sent out immediately so it could be used as the basis for dozens of teacher training institutes scheduled this summer. She said the delay in presenting it to the board was because of continuing disagreements among her staff and the outside researchers asked by the board to help draft the document.

“If you send this out in June . . . you are making a mistake,” Eastin told the board. “By God, something’s going out to the schools of California [and] if I have to send it out as the superintendent of public instruction, I will do so.”

Eastin’s legal advisor said she has the power to issue the document as an advisory to schools. A state Department of Education attorney said her power was not limited by a 1993 state appellate court decision that clarified the power of the board and said the superintendent is subject to the board’s direction.

After the threat, the board and Eastin agreed to take a last-minute stab at rewriting the document. The disagreement involves balancing the relationship between teaching children the importance of sounds and letters and helping them experience the joy of reading.

Today, the board will consider the rewritten document, which Eastin said had been through 11 drafts at the board’s behest since January.

Board member Kathryn Dronenburg said she was furious about the implication that it was board nit-picking that had kept the policy from being approved earlier. “It’s not little things,” she said. “The substance is important. It’s not just the words.”

“If this is ready to go tomorrow it will go, but if it’s not, there is no point in sending it if it’s not going to have the right stuff in it,” she said.

Eastin a year ago appointed a task force on reading in response to abysmal scores on state and national tests. The national test left California tied for last with Louisiana among 39 states that participated.

In September, the task force issued a report that said the state’s previous emphasis on exposing all youngsters to good children’s literature had underemphasized the essential importance of spelling, letter sounds and other basics in the first stages of reading.

In December, the department suggested writing a memorandum that would stress the findings of years of research on that point for teachers and parents across the state. Once voted on by the State Board of Education, it would guide how teachers are trained as well as how students are taught and tested, but would not be mandatory policy that schools must follow.

The board then deputized one of its members, San Francisco businessman Jerry Hume, to monitor the work on the document by Eastin’s staff and four nationally recognized reading experts agreed on by the board.

Hume pleaded with his fellow board members and Eastin to work together to make sure all the parties--including the researchers, the state board, professional reading teachers and the state department--agree.

“I think we’re awfully close, I really do,” Hume said. “We can have something California is really proud of, and we’re just about there.”