NEW SCOTLAND — In a recent and rare 4-to-3 vote, the Voorheesville School Board approved a new literacy program for the district’s youngest students. 

The board’s June 5 vote adopting McGraw-Hill’s Wonders Reading Curriculum was notable for its lack of unanimity; motion requests are rarely met with anything other than a universal green light. 

The issue for some board members was that the new curriculum didn’t align with district policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, “a conceptual framework that promotes the fair treatment and full participation of all people,” in particular populations that “have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination because of their background, identity, [or] disability…” 

The Wonders Curriculum has been described as an amalgam of literacy philosophies. 

“The bottom-up theory,” according Dr. Windy Dorsey-Carr of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, “is behaviorist driven.”

Dorsey-Carr writes in her 2015 Journal of Organizational and Educational Leadership article examining Wonders that the bottom-up theory is “sometimes called the phonics approach. The focus of the instruction is on decoding and practicing skills in isolation.”

The top-down theory, Dorsey-Carr writes, is cognitive based. 

“The theory focuses on what the student brings to the process,” she writes, “the knowledge is constructed through meaning.” 

The top-down theory is also referred to as the whole-language approach, and was a literacy method employed in Voorheesville for a number of years. 

The Enterprise reported in 1992 that whole-language learning had gradually found its way into elementary school classrooms six years prior, based on the idea that “the way kids learn to speak is the way they should learn to read and write,” according to Janice White, who was assistant principal of Voorheesville Elementary at the time. 

Rather than the traditional model of first learning letters, then sounds, and finally words, The Enterprise reported in 1992, students were exposed to literature right out of the gate with the thought being it would entice them to want to learn to read and write, so that their learning would be “purposeful.”

The district now says it has a literacy model, which it started to revamp about four years ago, that is a “locally developed Balanced Literacy program that is grounded in the NYS Common Core Standards” with a curriculum that “includes time for differentiated small-group guided reading instruction, independent reading, daily writing, and word study.”

 In 2019, kindergarten through grade five teachers at Voorheesville began to use Units of Study in Writing, which was followed a year later with the utilization of Units of Study in Phonics by kindergarten and first-grade teachers.

The Units of Study method has come under criticism for its balanced literacy theory of learning, “where teachers read aloud from children’s literature,” the New York Times reported in 2022, and where “students then chose ‘just right’ books, which fit their interests and ability.”

Recently, proponents of the “science of reading” have criticized Lucy Calkins, the Columbia University professor who The Times described as the pre-eminent leader of balanced literacy by pointing to 50 years of research they say has shown phonics is the most effective way to teach reading, in addition to books that “build vocabulary and depth.”

And with “brain science steadily adding to that evidence, there is a sense — at least for many in the education establishment — that the debate over early reading instruction may be ebbing,” according to The Times. “Phonics is ascendant.”

The Wonders program, an “interactive theory, also named the balanced approach,” is constructivist based, the idea being that learners construct knowledge instead of passively taking in information. 

The interactive theory, according to Dorsey-Carr, “is a blend between the bottom-up and top-down theory. Students develop the skills and strategies necessary in meaningful contexts and use word identification to help build understanding.”

Board debate

At the June 5 Voorheesville meeting, board members Robert Samson, Argi O’Leary, Timothy Kremer, and Barbara Owens voted in favor of adopting the new Wonders curriculum, while President Rachel Gilker, Patricia Putman, and Robyn Willoughby dissented.

Putman said she didn’t want her “comments in any way to undermine any of our work. I tried to do my own research after all the DEI issues were brought up.”

She said she decided to compartmentalize the issue, to think about it in terms of policy only. “And I went through our policies, like we have policy 0105: Equity, Inclusivity, and Diversity [in Education]. I see sections that I don’t see how this can fit.”

Putman pointed to the district’s instructional policies, which contain “sections where I don’t see how this can fit knowing the problems that are in the DEI.” She then said she looked at Policy 4511, Textbook Selection and Adoption, and there’s tons of [instances] there where I just can’t feel good about how this fits.”

Gilker told Putman she wasn’t the only board member with reservations. 

“I served on a policy committee when we adopted” the Equity, Inclusivity, and Diversity policy, with which the Wonders curriculum is not aligned, Gilker said, adding that she “can’t vote for something that goes against a policy that we’ve worked so hard to add to our district.”

Putman asked how she could vote “to spend money on a program that doesn’t seem to fit our own policies.”

She referred to an earlier committee meeting where it was said that the DEI shortcomings would be addressed with supplements to the original Wonders curriculum. “They’ll add supplements, but they’re not going to fix the core problem. I don't know how I can support the program,” Putman said. “Albany City schools admitted … problems with their supplement.”

At Voorheesville’s April curriculum committee meeting, board members referenced a report from New York University’s Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative that three “English Language Arts curricula for elementary school students fails to reflect the diversity of public school’s student population.”

The NYU study found that 55 percent of American public school students are BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] but 81 percent of Wonders authors were white — however, just 51 percent of their characters are white. 

“When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part,” the study stated. 

The latest state data shows that 12 percent of Voorheesville’s student population is non-white: 4 percent Hispanic; 4 percent multi-racial; 3 percent Asian; and 1 percent Black. Other underrepresented groups also fall into the same general population range as their non-white peers: 11 percent of Voorheesville students have disabilities and 12 percent are economically disadvantaged. Just 1 percent of Voorheesville students are English language learners. 

Tim Kremer sought to offer a retort to Gilker and Putman’s views.

“I think we’re missing the point. We’re not buying a social studies program; we’re buying a reading program, and this is appropriate,” Kremer said. “We have to teach kids how to read. These are kids who are 4, 5, 6, [and] 7 [years old].”

Kremer, who led the New York State School Boards Association for two decades, said he realized “DEI is really important for us and for them to understand that. But learning how to read, to me, is more critical than their awareness of DEI in their world today. I want them to get there, [but] I think it’s got to be age appropriate and all that stuff.”

Kremer said the Wonders curriculum is a “really high-quality reading program that is predictable, consistent, one that it tracks well with what we want our kids to know, to be able to do.”

Kremer said he wanted “to focus on reading — not on DEI  — on reading. And I do believe that this program has an excellent track record in what it can provide in reading results for kids at a younger age. So I believe we should support this.”

The other three board members who voted with Kremer offered similar opinions: Effectively, Wonders is what was presented to the board for adoption.

“So I’m not an expert,” said Argi O’Leary. “But I’m inclined to trust the process.”

O’Leary said teachers and administrators put “countless hours into evaluating programs. I think it would be incredibly difficult if not impossible to find a perfect program that pleases everybody. But I trust the process that’s been set up to evaluate the program and to make a recommendation to the board.”

A 12-person literacy committee composed of teachers, reading specialists, and school psychologists was set up to vet potential programs.

During a previous curriculum meeting, Superintendent Frank Macri said that the recommendation was made by the majority of the literacy committee; one of the 12 members voted against the program.

Barbara Owens on June 5 said, “This has been a process that has taken a long time; there’s been a lot of hard work into this process. I don’t know if there is a program that is going to meet all the needs. Nothing is perfect, unfortunately.”

Rob Samson said, “I agree with everything that we’ve already said. I mean, we have a process put before us to make these sorts of decisions, a framework to make these sorts of decisions, and folks worked very hard to help us arrive at a decision. And I certainly don’t see myself overturning that process.”