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The False Choice We Keep Repeating

This post is part one of a two-part series. In it, I reflect on what the science of reading taught us about false choices in education. In the second post, I apply that lesson to New York’s current graduation reforms and the risks of getting the system-level balance wrong.


Hello,

I am part of the best book club ever.  To be fair, we call ourselves a “book club,” but that label is somewhat generous. Sometimes we read books. Other times we watch a series, listen to a podcast, or discuss a movie. What matters is not the format, but the habit we have developed together: spending time with ideas early, before they harden into policy or talking points, and trying to understand their implications before the rest of the world catches up.

Several years ago, that habit led us to the podcast Sold a Story shortly after it was released. At the time, conversations about the science of reading were just beginning to surface beyond literacy circles. What we heard felt unsettling but important because it challenged assumptions many of us had absorbed without ever naming.

What followed was not just a professional reckoning, but a national one. Conversations that began as waves of discussion turned into a tsunami of policy change at the state and federal levels, reshaping how reading instruction is approached across the country. I am convinced that this single podcast series catalyzed that shift.

Why the Science of Reading Still Matters

If you’re in education or listened to the podcast, you might be wondering why I’m writing about this now, many years later. You already know that, for decades, reading instruction was framed as a choice. Either children learned to read through rich exposure to texts and meaning-making, i.e., “whole language,” or they learned through explicit instruction in phonics and discrete skills. Whole language leaned heavily into meaning, assuming that if children were surrounded by books and encouraged to read, the mechanics would take care of themselves.

For some children, they did. For many others, they did not.

What the science of reading clarified was not that meaning does not matter, but that meaning alone is insufficient. Reading is not a natural process like speaking. Most students need explicit instruction in how sounds map to letters and how words work if they are to become skilled readers.

Strong reading instruction, then, is not phonics, instead of meaning. It is phonics in service of meaning. Decoding is not the goal; it is the mechanism that allows students to access meaning, knowledge, and joy in text.

The Lesson Beneath the Literacy Debate

If you are an educator, there is a good chance none of this is new to you. The science of reading has been widely discussed, debated, and, in many places, acted upon. I know I am revisiting a moment that is no longer breaking news. I appreciate your indulgence in going back anyway, because the point here is not to relitigate reading instruction. It is to use the example of the reading wars to name the lesson that moment taught us, a lesson that matters well beyond literacy.

What made the science of reading reckoning so painful was not simply that one instructional approach fell out of favor. It was the growing realization that an entire generation of students had been asked to compensate for a system-level failure.

Many children learned to read anyway. Others developed coping strategies that masked underlying difficulties. Too many internalized the belief that reading simply was not for them. The shift that followed was not about winning an argument, but about acknowledging that good intentions, even when widely shared, can still produce uneven outcomes when systems rely on approximation instead of precision.

This is the lesson beneath the literacy debate: when systems replace explicit structure with good intentions, the most advantaged students adapt and the least advantaged pay the price.

The shift that followed was not about winning an argument between whole language and phonics. It was about recognizing that meaning without structure is not equity, and that flexibility without shared guardrails does not produce fairness. The real mistake was not choosing the wrong side, but believing there were only two sides to choose from. We do not need less meaning to get more rigor, nor less rigor to preserve meaning. What we need is structure in service of purpose.

That lesson extends well beyond reading instruction, and it is shaping how I am thinking about another major educational shift taking place right now. In the next post, I explore how this same false choice is reappearing in New York’s graduation reforms, and why getting it wrong at the system level risks repeating a familiar mistake.

~Heather


P.S. This week’s Catch of the Week is The Female Framework: Redefining Feminine Leadership by Dr. Elizabeth Freas. Liz is a good friend and a powerful advocate for leaders, and I was truly honored when she asked me to write the foreword to this book.

What makes this work stand out is that Liz does not treat leadership as a personality trait or a title. She treats it as a set of intentional behaviors. Using the letters in FEMALE, she outlines what strong, inclusive leadership looks like in action: Find your voice. Establish meaningful connections. Model authenticity. Activate potential in others. Lead with legacy in mind. Eliminate internal and external barriers.

This framework reframes leadership in a way that is both deeply human and highly practical. It affirms that strength and empathy are not opposites. It reminds readers that identity is not something to minimize in leadership, but something to leverage with purpose.

Liz does not just write about these ideas. She lives them. She creates spaces where people feel seen, valued, and capable of more than they imagined.

I encourage everyone who cares about inclusive leadership and better outcomes for everyone to read this book and reflect on how these behaviors show up in their own leadership journey.


P.P.S. Please remember to...


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