The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Especially in America.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, set in the 1920s, centers the story on a few rich characters—Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who have “old” money, as well as Jay Gatsby, representing the nouveau riche.

At the cusp of 2024 and 2025, a century later, one page from the novel seems disturbingly relevant:

In this scene, Fitzgerald uses Buchanan to portray the rise of scientific racism in the US. The scientific racism era in the early 20th century is but one of many examples of how “science” can be used by bad faith actors to promote an ideological agenda.

It isn’t his fault, Buchanan seems to suggest, that he is among the superior white Western civilization: “‘It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.'”

In recent years in the US, navigating science, proof, and science skepticism has reach a level of complexity that defies postmodern thought. Simultaneously, we may be living in the most advanced era of scientific knowledge along side a rising and powerful science-skepticism era.

Vaccination deniers, flat Earthers, and Covid conspiracy theorists have increasingly prominent voices and policy influence due to social media, and the Trump era certainly has eroded how most people understand and what counts as “proven” science.

“Science” as Bad Faith Bullying: Education Edition

Concurrent to the larger political and cultural problems with “science” and science-denial, the education reform movement grounded in the early 1980s accountability movement has adopted “science” as a bad faith bullying approach to reform.

The “science of reading” (SOR) movement [1], essentially driven by conservative ideology, exploded around 2018 under the first Trump administration, and now, SOR has spawned a series of “science of” companion movements—the “science of math,” “the science of learning,” etc.

We may have reached peak “science” as bad faith bullying, however, with a law suit against Heinemann and a few reading programs [2] disproportionately attacked and scapegoated by Emily Hanford and much of mainstream media: “The suit alleges ‘deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of products and services which are undermining a fundamental social good: literacy.'”

If this weren’t yet another personal attack on a few literacy leaders and potentially significant waste of time and money to navigate the nonsense of this legal move, it would be funny since the SOR movement itself is practicing exactly what the suit accuses Heinemann of doing, “fraudulent marketing and sale of products.”

Let’s start with the foundational argument among SOR advocates that teaching practices must be grounded only in practices supported by experimental/quasi-experimental research published in peer review publications, as argued by The Reading League:

While I think these standards are too narrow for real-world practice, this is in fact the basis upon which SOR advocates (and the substance of the law suit) rest sweeping and misleading claims about a range of discounted practices labeled as either whole language or balanced literacy (SOR advocates both interchange and mischaracterize these terms repeatedly along with misrepresenting other terminology such as “three cueing”).

Further, the SOR movement has adopted an old and inaccurate assertion about “science,” echoing Tom’s “‘it’s been proved.'”

Similar to the reading crisis rhetoric from 1961—when Walcutt announces: “We have said that no further ‘research’ into methods of reading instruction is necessary” (p. 141)—Hanford and Moates proclaimed SOR “settled science” in 2018 (and we must note Moates has a huge market interest in these claims as author of LETRS, see below):

However, the “science” in reading research is not settled, and the SOR movement, as I stated above, is committed to a “deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of products and services”; as I have shown repeatedly, the SOR movement is itself grounded in a plan from 2014 to brand “structure literacy” to “help us sell what we do so well.”

That plan has included exaggerated attacks on some reading programs, some literacy leaders, and some literacy practices while simultaneously endorsing different programs and some practices that are also not supported by SOR’s mandate for a narrow type of “science.”

For example, in a literature review of the current status of SOR from 2022, note that practices either ineffective or lacking scientific support include those rejected by SOR and those embraced by SOR; while this lit review identified “three cueing” as not supported by science as SOR advocates claims, it also lists decodable texts and multisensory approaches (such as Orton-Gillingham), practices and programs aggressively supported by SOR advocates and legislation:

That pattern is standard practice in the SOR movement, including the false attack on teacher education and teacher knowledge being used as “science” as bad faith bullying to sell LETRS.

LETRS falls into the “ineffective and currently unsupported” category as well since only a few studies exist, showing no improvement in student reading.

The SOR movement has also adopted slogans not supported by science (95% of students can be proficient readers) and practices that inflate test scores, target and harm marginalized groups of students, but are not supported by research (grade retention, which seems to be the sole SOR policy impacting test scores).

The “science of” era of education reform is not about improving instruction or student learning. The movement uses “science” as a Trojan horse for de-professionalizing teaching and teachers (selling scripted curriculum) while clearing market space for a new round of “fraudulent marketing and sale of products.”

The law suit is another example showing this “science of” education reform movement is more bad faith bullying than a credible avenue to better supporting teachers and better serving students as readers and learners.

Once again, don’t buy it.

[1] See We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis: Selling a Story of Reading (and Literacy) [Webinar Companion Post]: “Also when I address the SOR movement, I am not contesting reading science or valid concerns about reading instruction or reading proficiency by students. I am challenging the media story being sold.”

[2] I reject adopting any reading programs and maintain that the reading-program-merry-go-round is the problem, not the solution to reading achievement.

Recommended

How Media Misinformation Became “Holy Text”: The Anatomy of the SOR Movement

English Journal Series: We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis

Recommended: Elena Aydarova on Science of Reading Reform

Recommended: Dr. Elana Aydarova. Science of Reading Mythologies