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Why cant U teach me 2 read?: Three Students and a Mayor Put Our Schools to the Test

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I hope you have had the good fortune to be taught to read, unlike the subjects of this book, because this is a story that absolutely deserves your attention. New Yorkers probably know Fertig as the education reporter of WNYC, and here she delivers in book form an extension of the incisive, objective journalism we have come to expect (and that is vanishing, tragically) on the radio. Here she tracks three special-needs students, Yamilka, Alejandro, and Antonio, who have fallen through the cracks of NY's educational system. Their stories are told with a heartbreaking elegance. How does our system account for them? What obligations does it have, and what can be realistically expected? If you care about the future of New York and, really, of public education everywhere, this book is a must read.

When I sat down to read "why cant u teach me 2 read?" I knew that I'd find a well-written, informative account of the state of literacy education in the United States. I knew that I'd find the stories of three students who made it through the New York City school system without learning to read. I knew that I'd follow them as they tried to gain literacy as adults. But I did not know that I'd be turning the pages with eager anticipation, dying to know how the stories of the three protagonists unfolded. Although my inability to put this compelling book down led to a few sleepless nights, I am grateful to author Beth Fertig for this important work, and grateful too for all the wonderful teachers that made it possible for me to read and enjoy "why can't u teach me 2 read."

"Why cant u teach me 2 read?" is an unusually well-written and interesting look at the general state of literacy education in the United States today and at how it takes place in a particular set of schools: the New York City public schools. It chronicles in detail the efforts of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein to raise reading scores, but also sets this effort against a history of literacy education in the last hundred years, especially the tension between whole language and phonics-based approaches. Since Beth Fertig is a reporter, not an educator, her account is refreshingly devoid of education jargon. It is also balanced, offering a range of perspectives while careful not to endorse one teaching method over another.

Fertig also follows three young adults, Yamilka, Antonio, and Alejandro, in their quests to learn to read. Each has come through the public schools as a functional illiterate, and each now has the legal right to obtain remediation. Researchers estimate that one in five children has a language-based disorder (like dyslexia), as does each of these individuals. Add to this the influences of learning English as a second language; poverty; overcrowded classrooms, and teachers who do not know how to address such disorders, all problems that Fertig presents, and you will come away from the book with a sense of the complexity and difficulty of teaching not only children, but adults, to read. The stories of Yamilka, Antonio, and Alejandro are inspiring, but also sobering.

This book also contains a solid bibliography, useful is you are interested in this subject. "Why cant u teach me 2 read?" is an engaging book for both teachers and for the general public. If you are one of the lucky ones who learned to read quite effortlessly, this book will give you empathy for those whose acquisition of reading skills takes persistence and constant work.

M. Feldman

Why Cant u teach me 2 read? Three Students and a Mayor Put Our Schools to the Test
by Beth Fertig,
Copyright 2009, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

I am a veteran elementary school teacher with over 35 years of teaching experience in two states and four countries. I have hungered to discover why we teachers are often told to make, to us, inexplicable and questionable changes to our customary teaching practices learned in respectable teacher training institutions, informed by further in-service training and our own best observations. Beth Fertig's book offers a very welcome and lucid backward look at the theories and political realities that guided the shaping of public school policy from the days of John Dewey in the 50's to the late 80's when there was widespread perception of the crisis in public education.

Her book is very well-researched and I was very impressed with her evenhanded presentation of the many expert voices whom she consulted and who have weighed in to suggest changes that would result in more effective public education for all children, but especially those who have to date been least well served, immigrant children and children with learning disabilities.

Ms. Fertig has a rare ability to really listen and to allow the voices of her interviewees to speak their own thoughts unfiltered by any agenda of hers. She skillfully interlards her chapters on Bloomberg's reforms and the implementation of NCLB legislation with the personal histories of three teenagers who were functionally illiterate though they had spent many years in the NYC schools. She documents their agonizing efforts in their late teens and early twenties to learn to read in private tutoring programs paid for by the City in recompense for the City schools' failures.

As I read, it became clear that it is precisely because of Ms. Fertig's evenhandedness and ability to listen impartially that researchers, policy makers, politicians, educators and students trust her and allow her into their lives, classrooms and hearts. She had remarkable access to people in many seetors and they clearly felt at ease with her and were remarkably candid in offering her their innermost thoughts, reservations and fears. I was impressed too, with the sheer amount of time she spent in repeated visits to classrooms to see how teacher's were coping with the changes that were piping down to them. She also spoke at length to administrators to hear the chronicle of their efforts to comply with new policy and make learning successes an actuality for their students. This is the kind of first hand reportage that a teacher like me can really believe in and relate to.

Throughout the entire book, her passionate ooncern for the three individuals, whom she brings to life as painful witnesses to the failures of public education is very evident. It compels our sympathy and recognition of the profound cost of failure in public school education, not only to these individuals but to society as a whole.

Finally, in faithfully following and lucidly describing the data and research of her experts, the unrolling effects of the decisions made by politicians and policy makers, the observations and insights of educators and administrators, and the experiences of Yamilka, Alejandro and Antonio she does not propose any glib answers to the current crisis. When on June 23, 2008, Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference at PS 175 in Harlem to jubilantly announce the good news that math and reading scores were up in NYC schools as a result of his administration's dedicated efforts dating from 2002 when he entered office, she reports how "despite all the focus on accountability measures and data-driven instruction, there was simply not a clear answer to why one school went up (in test scores) while another went down."

Still, by reading this book, I gained access to the knowledge of many well-meaning and well-informed people who, like me, are passionately involved and concerned in making informed changes in best educational practices to better our schools so that youngsters like Yamilke, Alejandro and Antonio do not have to suffer as they have done.

A must read for anyone teaching reading. Specific methods are described that have been successful with older students in NYC's public schools. A chapter discribes the history of reading instruction in 20th century United States. All readers of this book would be enlightened by learning what method was used to help him/her learn to read. The stories of the 3 students are interspersed with other chapters regarding the takeover of NYC public schools by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002. Fertig devotes chapters to the drastic changes: the updated computer data on every student available to teachers,inservice provided for these classroom teachers to help them interpret the data of each of their students, parent involvement, court cases for private tutoring for qualified special ed. students,and explanation of where the money comes from for these expensive changes.Beth Fertig gives hope for the possibility of early intervention and success before the learning disabled student reaches high school.

Beth does a great job reviewing the context and complexities of the right to special education and the politics of the nyc public schools. She never takes an easy road of sentimentality or blame but rather presents a really balanced perspective showing respect for all the interviewees and the difficulties that drive their work and their lives. This book is so worth reading!

There's something wrong a system where people can graduate from high school unable to read. Beth Fertig looks at a few of these students and tells their story.

Her writing is always engrossing and Fertig, an ace investigative reporter, rises far above a subject that, at least at first glace (at least in hands of a lesser writer) could too easily lead to a heart-breaking works of staggering (liberal) platitudes.

Fertig brings real real people to life. She writes superbly and in a style that is always engrossing. And, not surprisingly given her journalistic background, cuts to the chase and tells it like it is!

As a special education teacher in the South Bronx, blocks away from where the students in the book went to school, this book hit home and explains the struggles of the students and teachers so well. It has helped with so many of my frustrations with adminstration and answering the question of "how do these middle schoolers/high schoolers not know how to read by the time they are in my classroom". Love love loved this book!