Some, apparently including Hammond, see deliberate racism at work. No doubt the American education system has long been riddled with racism, but much of the current damage is being done by well-meaning educators who care deeply about social justice. They’ve just been misled by their training. As Hammond herself has said, “Many social justice educators push back on the teaching of phonics and word study as oppressive when in fact, those elements of reading development are liberatory.”

That is the hard part. Post this article to your social media feed and then standby for loads of educators to tell you how they do 'balanced literacy' which combines phonics, content, and leveled reading (studies have shown that balanced approach in fact undoes the needed phonics instruction). These are good people, but they've invested years in a failed system, it's hard to admit you're wrong - especially when so many students could've been helped if you had known sooner.

My wife and I both went through this. When we started using a phonics based curriculum backed up with heavy content instruction and saw the difference in results we cried. We were heartbroken, "why didn't anyone teach us this years ago?" So many kids could've benefited.