Louisa Moats is a former disciple of Reid Lyon and now a fellow high priest (ess) within the
Crackpots of the Code movement, the primitive reading pseudo-science that has taken over literacy instruction in most of the country. Louisa is also one of the insider cronies to receive sole-source contracts from ED, one of the architects of Reading First, and now one of the leading
propaganda artists paid by the right-wing Fordham Institute (pdf) to try to smother any challenge to the supremacy of the chain-gang literacy materials that are raking in the billion dollars a year in Reading First grants from ED.
Here is a bio from a research study done last summer by Success for All and reported by
Susan Ohanian:
Louisa Moats. Louisa Moats is an employee of Sopris West, a for-profit publishing company that publishes her LETRS training program as well as DIBELS and programs often used as supplementary texts under Reading First, especially one called Read Well. Although Reading First has been careful to keep vendors out of all national Reading First events, Moats, a vendor herself, has been central to planning and execution of Reading First trainings. Michigan listed Moats as the only person capable of providing the specific expertise required by the U.S. Department of Education, and offered her a sole-source contract. State officials typically preferred trainers from their own states but were usually forced to choose either LETRS, or training from Kame�enui and Simmons or the Texas Reading Academy.
Louisa, then, has penned a new attack piece for Fordham,
Whole Language High Jinks, trying always to crush any re-emergence of the humanistic scourge, whole language. You see, as a Sopris West author, she has a
great deal to protect. From the
catalog:
 | LETRS | Author: Louisa Moats EdD | ISBN: n/a | Grade: All |
|
 | Spellography | Author: Louisa C. Moats EdD and Bruce Rosow MA | ISBN: n/a | Grade: 4-5 and Intervention 5-7+ |
|
Louisa Moats is a former disciple of Reid Lyon and now a fellow high priest (ess) within the Crackpots of the Code movement, the primitive reading pseudo-science that has taken over literacy instruction in most of the country. Louisa is also one of the insider cronies to receive sole-source contracts from ED, one of the architects of Reading First, and now one of the leading propaganda artists paid by the right-wing Fordham Institute (pdf) to try to smother any challenge to the supremacy of the chain-gang literacy materials that are raking in the billion dollars a year in Reading First grants from ED.
Nice to come across your post about Louisa Moats. If only all who question current education reform could unite and take a stand!
ReplyDeleteI am appalled that kids in No Child Left Behind kindergartens do no longer get to play, and are subjected instead to 90 minutes each day of Reading First conditioning!
And yet, parents believe that whatever is happening in schools must be for the better!
I am appalled that folks actually believe that Moats knows what the research literature says. Her view of the reading world is much like those college-age disciples who come knocking on my door wanting to give me a Bible! I have a bible but if I tell them that then they want to know what church I attend and have I considered alternatives, like their church, the true church! Now when they knock I ignore them. If only folks could be convinced to ignore this woman and her snake oil sales pitches.
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