TCRWP LC? LLC!

Teachers College, Columbia University is dissolving the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project:

Moving forward, TC wants to foster more conversations and collaboration among different evidence-based approaches to literacy, and ensure our programs are aligned with the needs of teachers and school districts looking to partner.

To support this objective, the work of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) and its staff will transition to an Advancing Literacy unit within TC’s Continuing Professional Studies (CPS) division for the 2023-2024 year, a return to its original professional development roots. The entity TCRWP, founded in 1981, will be dissolved as part of this shift. TC is working to align the work of TC staff with the needs of school districts and changes in reading curriculum locally and nationwide.

For many years, TCRWP’s founding director Lucy Calkins led efforts to support teachers as they develop students as readers and writers. Dr. Calkins has stepped down as Director of the Reading and Writing Project. She is Robinson Professor in Children's Literature at Teachers College, a tenured faculty member in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, on sabbatical during the 2023-2024 academic year.

“Many teachers credit TCRWP for creating communities of practice where teachers gain valuable resources and support,” says KerryAnn O’Meara, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College. “TC is grateful to Dr. Calkins for her service.”

Dr. Calkins shares her expertise as a consultant through her own LLC. Teachers College is not involved in the operations or provision of services provided by Dr. Calkins in her LLC.

Notice some of the language of this statement:

~ “Evidence-based approaches”: that sounds, no pun intended, like phonics.

~ “Aligned with the needs of teachers and school districts”: because so many have dropped Lucy Calkins’s Units of Study curriculum.

~ “The needs of school districts and changes in reading curriculum locally and nationwide”: the New York City school system is one of many that have abandoned Calkins’s Units of Study curriculum.

~ “‘TC is grateful to Dr. Calkins for her service’”: my, that’s perfunctory. Yes, thank you for your service. I think we’re done here.

And what is Lucy Calkins doing on sabbatical? She’s doubling down and striking back against what she calls “fake reading wars” with an LLC, Rebalancing Literacy. In one of the videos on her website, she claims that podcasts and newspaper articles are scaring the public into thinking that teachers aren’t teaching children “their ABCs.” That’s not an accurate claim. Of course it’s not the alphabet that’s missing; it’s phonics.

One has to wonder why Calkins has created an LLC to do this work. Might she developing a new curriculum to market?

The best way to learn about what’s at stake in the so-called reading wars: listen to Emily Hanford’s podcast series Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong (American Public Media). It’s the most consequential podcast I’ve ever heard.

Last year I wrote an e-mail to Lucy Calkins and two other prominent advocates of so-called “balanced literacy,” sharing my thoughts after listening to Sold a Story. No replies, of course.

Related reading
A handful of OCA Sold a Story posts (Pinboard)

[The post title: TCRWP is no more. What’s Lucy Calkins going to do? Create an LLC.]