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Why do American students' reading and writing test scores continue to decline? Why does the achievement gap between minority and other students keep growing? Poor teacher training, large class size, small budgets and other such answers have been proposed for these vexing questions. But Sandra Stotsky argues that the real problem is more basic, and more disturbing. It is the incorporation of a multicultural agenda into basal readers, the primary tool for teaching reading in elementary schools. In the past, these readers featured excerpts from classic stories like Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe, with a complex vocabulary and sentence structure able to challenge the imagination and build reading skills. Today, they present students with politically and ethnically correct stories whose language is virtually foreign--including Swahili; Spanish and other trendy dialects--and unable to engage them. This book features interviews with teacher, an in-depth look at reading texts over the past thirty years, and an analysis of the impact of pressure groups on educational publishers. Speaking equally to the concerned educator and the concerned parent, Dr. Stotsky reminds us that how successfully we teach reading is no mere academic matter. Literacy--cultural and verbal--gives all students, but particularly those from poor or minority backgrounds, the opportunity for educational success and the ability to participate fully in our civic life.
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