LETTER: A light on Nevada’s dismal test scores

Rich Lowry’s Tuesday commentary shined the light on the pathetic ranking of Nevada’s public school system. Mississippi has risen to ninth from 49th in the nation in reading proficiency. He calls it something like a miracle. In truth it’s about a simple, tried and tested method called phonics.

I learned it in the 1950s, my kids learned it in the 1970s. And then somewhere along the way it fell out of use because of new “progressive” ways of learning. Cursive writing was kicked to the curb as archaic. I could find it humorous if it weren’t so sad that, when my grandchildren receive a greeting card written in cursive, they need an interpreter to decipher the words.

Back to Nevada: We, I assume, have now taken the inglorious position of 49th in the nation in reading proficiency since Mississippi has shown that adopting phonics enabled such a meteoric rise. The only thing showing a rocket-like rise here are the salaries of the Clark County School District administrators.

So what to do? Return to the old ways and watch the scores improve. Continuing down the current path of teaching so-called new and improved methods seems like a guarantee of failure. And a failure of our up-and-coming generations is a sad commentary on us.