Teacher advocates, while praising the district for attending to professional-development needs that are often ignored, say that some of the programs, when applied too strictly or in lieu of other strategies, fail to capitalize on the skill and experience of the teaching corps. Many teachers say they like the predictability of the structured programs. Programs like the one at Wesley Elementary School may add to the problem of teacher turnover, according to Gayle Fallon, the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, the local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. But Fallon says it is better to have more structure than not enough. A Balanced Approach to Reading' stabilized the reading program and put the focus on making sure it is research-tested.
Many teachers say they like the predictability of the structured programs.
Abdelsayed, who has been at Wesley for four of her nine years as a kindergarten teacher, says she prefers direct instruction to the whole-language approach she used elsewhere. When I got these kids at the beginning of the year, they couldn't read anything. Now, they are on the 2nd grade level. But she believes that any program would be effective with the same amount of training and resources that Houston is expending. Schools are not required to adopt a commercial program, Hunter, the district's reading manager, says.