Thank you to the S.B. Independent for hosting the recent Santa Barbara Unified School District’s Candidate Forum. It was illuminating.
When Independent reporter Callie Fausey asked the candidates about literacy and the science of reading, board member and candidate Bill Banning dismissed it as “just a term.”
Perhaps Mr. Banning is unaware of the National Institutes of Health’s National Reading Panel Report. This peer-reviewed, large scale, five-decade study across multiple languages involving the fields of neuroscience, cognitive and educational psychology among others, which “culminated in a preponderance of evidence on how proficient reading and writing develop.”