Last week RealClearEducation columnist Dan Willingham took a look at the “balanced literacy” issue in NYC.  Now [former] New York teacher Alexander Nazaryan takes to the NYT op-ed page to discuss the same. Must-read.

…The fatal flaw of balanced literacy is that it is least able to help students who most need it. It plays well in brownstone Brooklyn, where children have enrichment coming out of their noses, and may be more “ready” for balanced literacy than children without such advantages.

My concern is for the nearly 40 percent of New York City schoolchildren who won’t graduate from high school, the majority of whom are black and brown and indigent. Their educations should never be a joyless grind. But asking them to become subjects in an experiment in progressive education is an injustice they don’t deserve.