Reading in NYC schools

Big news in The New York Times: reading instruction will be changing in New York City schools:

Hundreds of public schools have been teaching reading the wrong way for the last two decades, leaving an untold number of children struggling to acquire a crucial life skill, according to New York City’s schools chancellor.

Now, David C. Banks, the chancellor, wants to “sound the alarm” and is planning to force the nation’s largest school system to take a new approach.

On Tuesday, Mr. Banks will announce major changes to reading instruction in an aim to tackle a persistent problem: About half of city children in grades three through eight are not proficient in reading. Black, Latino and low-income children fare even worse.

In a recent interview, Mr. Banks said that the city’s approach had been “fundamentally flawed,” and had failed to follow the science of how students learn to read.

“It’s not your fault. It’s not your child’s fault. It was our fault,” Mr. Banks said. “This is the beginning of a massive turnaround.”

Over the next two years, the city’s 32 local school districts will adopt one of three curriculums selected by their superintendents. The curriculums use evidence-supported practices, including phonics — which teaches children how to decode letter sounds — and avoid strategies many reading experts say are flawed, like teaching children to use picture clues to guess words.

The recent podcast series Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong is a great introduction to the theory and practice of reading instruction in the United States. Though it’s not mentioned in the Times article, I think it must have something to do with the changes in New York City.

Related reading
A few OCA Sold a Story posts

[The Times link is a gift link. No subscription needed.]

Benny would not be amused

From a list of “the ten best Duke Ellington songs of all time,” from a website that cranks out ten-, fifty-, and hundred-best lists:

Duke Ellington, known as the “King of Swing,” was one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century.

A human intelligence failure? Or is that AI at work?

Related reading
All OCA Ellington posts (Pinboard)

Heather Cox Richardson on the Second Amendment

From the May 6 installment of Letters from an American:

For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.

I’m sending a copy of the article to my representative in Congress, Mary Miller, who made her Washington debut by announcing that “Hitler was right on one thing.” I doubt that she’ll read what Richardson has to say. But perhaps some bored young aide tasked with opening the mail will read Richardson and find something to think about.

Money and gossip

Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgård) to Siobhan Roy (Sarah Snook), in “Tailgate Party,” last night’s episode of Succession:

“You know, I thought these people would be very complicated, but it’s . . . they’re not. It’s basically just, like, money and gossip.”

For me, that observation sums up Succession.

La casa dei Roventini

[1444 76th Street, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Not a beautiful photograph, though the spots do blend nicely with the snow. The arrow on the identification sign points to 1444. On the first floor lived John Roventini (1910–1998), as in Johnny Roventini, as in “Call for Philip Morris!” Roventini was a bellhop who found a new career in 1933 as a spokesman for Philip Morris cigarettes. In the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, he was everywhere — so much so that Philip Morris hired understudies, or what the Associated Press called “traveling ‘Johnnies,’ ” to fill in for personal appearances. But here’s Johnny himself:

[Life, September 18, 1939. Click for a larger view.]

A brief biography:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 30, 1936. Click for a larger view.]

And look — Johnny Roventini turns up in Gilbert Sorrentino’s novel Aberration of Starlight (1980). The setting is Bensonhurst:

Uncle Tom always took him to a park to have a catch with a hardball and once showed him the guy who said “Call for Philip Morris!” playing softball.

The Roventini family lived at 1444 76th Street for many years. A 1930 photograph has John Roventini at this address. The 1940 Brooklyn telephone directory has a listing in Fred’s name at this address. Here’s Johnny Roventini in the 1950 census, living at this address with his father and mother. His occupation: “Advertising Cigarettes”:

[Click for a larger view.]

A 1940 telephone listing in Fred’s name was still active in 1960 at the 76th Street address. An Associated Press obituary notes that Johnny Roventini lived with his mother until her death. She died in 1961. I think it’s safe to say that Johnny Roventini was living at this address at least as late as 1961.

What I haven’t mentioned: my mom and dad’s first residence was on 76th Street. I recall my dad mentioning at some much later date that Johnny Roventini had lived in the neighborhood. I think my dad once saw him playing handball. And I can now say that in my infant days I lived on the same street as Johnny Roventini. And not only on the same street but on the same block, and on the same side of the street.

Here is a great repository of information about Johnny Roventini, with a recording of his celebrated call: “Little Johnny.” There’s even a placard with safe-smoking guidelines for hospital patients. (Yeesh.) Here are Desi Arnaz (who died of lung cancer), Lucille Ball, and Johnny all doing the call. Here’s Johnny speaking to a movie audience (“Bettah taste, finah flavah”: what a glorious accent.) And here’s a Wikipedia article. And a New York Times obituary. That’s enough.

Thanks to the librarian who helped me navigate the 1950 census. I found my way to the Roventini address by reading the descriptions of Enumeration Districts, the chunks of city that census takers were meant to complete in two weeks. The districts given for 1444 76th Street are wrong. The place to find the Roventinis: 24-1183, page 14 in the Population Schedules.

In the word of 1-D in yesterday’s Saturday Stumper: PHEW.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Steve Mossberg, is the toughest Stumper since March 25. That Stumper too was by Steve Mossberg. I doubted I would be able to complete this one, but I did. Forty-eight minutes’ worth of solving.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, nine letters, “Creation for a trade show.” And so it begins. I was thinking of a display or demo of some sort.

2-D, four letters, “Indian name at Woodstock.” I know only Sri Swami Satchidananda. But it’s easy to guess the answer, and it’s a reminder of how many musicians are missing from the movie and the triple-album.

8-D, four letters, “Watches for money.” My first though was the perhaps over-Stumpery SWAP.

14-A, nine letters, “What a wedding band might do.” Have I mentioned this puzzle’s difficulty?

17-A, ten letters, “Enters a new phase.” Do you see what I mean about this puzzle?

20-A, seven letters, “You’d expect it to catch a mouse.” Pretty misdirective.

26-A, six letters, “Musical ‘one more time.’” I knew it right away, but the weirdness of 27-D had me thinking that I must have been misspelling it.

27-D, ten letters, “Veil-wearing activity.” Did I mention the weirdness of 27-D?

28-D, ten letters, “Word in the news expected today (5/6/23).” Who cares? Not me.

36-D, eight letters, "Half of a dance duo." Hoo boy.

41-D, four letters, “Cosmo or Tiki beverage.” My tastes are simpler.

48-A, four letters, “One way to get your things together.” I wanted PAIR.

53-D, four letters, “Digital editing.” More than slightly strained.

54-D, letters, “Stayed.” More than more than slightly strained.

55-A, four letters, “Whom Emerson met in Yosemite.” Easy to guess, but surprising to learn.

61-A, four letters, “What Asian bread isn’t.” I think this clue is a tad bonkers.

My favorite in this puzzle: 56-D, three letters, "Shortened studies." A lot of wit to expend on a three-letter answer.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Medieval Nancy

[Hagar the Horrible, May, 5, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

Geo-B spotted Nancy in today’s Hagar. Thanks, George.

There’s a happy tradition of one comic strip referencing another, as in this Hi and Lois traffic jam, or many others, as in this Hi and Lois crowd scene. But neither George nor I know what a medieval Nancy might signify. Do the words “my husband” portend an appearance by a medieval Sluggo?

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

A Gershwin and a Mongol

January 1, 1930: a photograph of George Gershwin, composing with a Mongol pencil.

Embed from Getty Images[Click for a much larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Mongol posts (Pinboard)

[It’s a Getty Images photograph, not for sharing. I learned today from Fresca that Getty photographs can be embedded. But you have to click on the photograph and scroll down to see the </> Embed button.]

Look to the tip

I charged my Apple Pencil, paired it (once again) with my iPad, and was all set to draw something for some kiddos.

Nothing.

I turned Bluetooth off. I turned Bluetooth on. I asked the iPad to forget the pencil. I re-paired the devices. Nothing. I restarted the iPad. Nothing. I turned Bluetooth off. And so on.

I finally discovered that the problem had nothing to do with pairing devices: the pencil’s tip needed tightening.

I found the solution not at Apple Support but at iMore, where tightening the tip is the first suggested fix for a non-working Apple Pencil.

Foot and feet

[Nancy, May 12, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy : five-foot shelf, two-feet Sluggo.

See also 12ft.io.

[Context: Aunt Fritzi has said that Nancy must earn what she wants by standing on her own two feet. Sluggo: “How about you standing on my own two feet?”]