Whole Language and the Great Plummet of 1987–92

THERE ARE a number of ways to define an urban legend. Here's one from the Urban Legends Research Centre: "An Urban Legend is usually a (good/captivating/titillating/engrossing/incredible/worrying) story that has had a wide audience, is circulated spontaneously, has been told in several forms, and which many have chosen to believe (whether actively or passively) despite the lack of actual evidence to substantiate the story. "1 I wish to add another urban legend to those that already exist, a legend that I believe ranks with the legend of the alligators living in the sewers of New York City.2 I will refer to it as the "Plummet Legend. " It goes like this. After whole language was introduced in California in 1987, test scores "plummeted" to the point where California's fourth-graders were last in the country in 1992. It makes a good story, if we can judge by the number of times it has been repeated. But this sudden plummet never happened. It is an urban legend, a captivating and worrisome story that has been told in several forms and that many people have chosen to believe despite the lack of actual evidence. The Plummet Legend has had serious consequences. It has led to the discrediting of the whole-language approach to literacy and has nurtured a strong movement promoting a "skill-building" approach.3 I will try to show here both that the evidence does not support this legend and that the legend is inconsistent with the results of studies of literacy development. DID TEST SCORES PLUMMET IN CALIFORNIA? Here is a more complete version of the Plummet Legend. In 1987 a group of whole-language advocates took over the California Language Arts Framework Committee and brought in whole language. Phonics instruction and other forms of direct teaching were banned, and language scores plummeted to the point where California's fourth-graders scored last in the country in reading in 1992. California is now recovering from this damage, thanks to a rational, sensible phonics-based approach to reading. This is not what happened. I served on the California Language Arts Framework Committee in 1987. Phonics teaching was not banned. We simply proposed that language arts should be "literature-based. " This is hardly controversial. In fact, I regarded it as part of the definition of language arts. Did teachers change their ways in California? Nobody really knows. There have been no empirical studies comparing methodology in language arts teaching before and after the 1987 committee met. Did test scores decline? It is certainly true that California fourth- graders scored last in the country in the fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading in 1992. But this was the first time NAEP scores had been presented by state. It was assumed that there had been a decline, but there was no evidence that this was so, for no comparison with earlier test scores was made. Jeff McQuillan examined CAP (California Achievement Program) reading comprehension scores from 1984 to 1990, which I present in Table 1. There is no clear pattern of increases or decreases during these years, which leads to the conclusion that California's reading problem existed well before "whole language" was introduced in 1987. There was no Great Plummet of 1987-92.4 McQuillan also provides a convincing explanation for the low scores. There is strong evidence that California's poor performance is related to its print-poor environment. California ranks last in the country in the quality of its school libraries and ranks near the bottom in the quality of its public libraries. In addition, many of its children have very little reading material at home. California ranked ninth in the country in the percentage of children between the ages of 5 and 17 who lived in poverty in 1995, and it ranked near the bottom in the percentage of homes with more than 25 books. …