Calling it a disaster seems like an exaggeration, the article literally says UK's PISA scores for reading have not changed. In fact, the experts cited in the article don't even seem to suggest moving away from phonics, but to give teachers more leeway adapt to what their students seem to respond to.
Well, it's an old article. Comparable countries Canada and Ireland with more holistic approaches (including phonics) have way better PISA scores.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/656dc3321104c...
Isn't Canada multilingual?
Do you think that makes reading pedagogy harder or easier?
I think it makes learning to read easier because not 100% of their grade is based on how well they learned to read English, which is a terrible language for reading.
Grades have nothing to do with PISA scores.
PISA score is a form of grading, is it not?
I'm sure it doesn't just compare English proficiency between countries because some countries don't speak English at all and still get PISA score.
> PISA score is a form of grading, is it not?
No, it's an independent test. You can completely "fail" the PISA and it'll have no impact on your matriculation.
> I'm sure it doesn't just compare English proficiency between countries because some countries don't speak English at all and still get PISA score.
Correct. Students take the PISA in their native language. Only the most sparsely populated provinces in Canada did worse [0] than the UK [1] in 2018.
[0]: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/what-int...
[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f20293fd3bf7...
> > PISA score is a form of grading, is it not? > No, it's an independent test.
I'm sorry. I'm not a native speaker. Does the word "grading" pertain to only tests that are a part of school curriculum? I thought it could mean assigning a score to any test, even independent, even not related to education at all.
> Correct. Students take the PISA in their native language.
Right. So assuming that scores of the students are averaged out together across all test takers in the country and some of them learned to read French rather than English they might skew the average. So comparing scores of Canada and UK for the purposes of comparing how well English learning goes in those two countries might not be valid approach.
We should be comparing UK with sub-population of Canadian students that took the test in English. Not sure if PISA provides such data.
I probably can't object to comparing UK and Ireland on that grounds. Or do some students take PISA tests in Irish there?
The first link I posted does what you're asking; the only non English province is Quebec.
> give teachers more leeway adapt to what their students seem to respond to.
This always feels like one of those “of course, duh” things when the concept of adapting curriculum to students comes up, because it works so well. It’s a bummer that in the US at least, priority for funding that kind of education across public schools is a non-starter. If teachers are buying their own supplies and cramming 20-30 kids in a class, everyone gets the same educational slop and a masters in rote memorization.
The Department of Education and standardized testing are to thank for a lot of that.
It seems like the idea has gotten more controversial since a certain administration has considered getting rid of it but, since it's inception, it's not like US education has improved.