New Zealand - Reading Recovery - literacy rates 'flatline'

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New Zealand - Reading Recovery - literacy rates 'flatline'

Post by debbie »

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/ne ... o-flatline


Prof Chapman and colleague Professor Bill Tunmer have been researching literacy for 25 years and said their professional advice had been ignored.

In the early 1990s, they were funded by the ministry to examine falling literacy rates.

Their advice was that the reading recovery programme, which has been in place for 30 years, was not working.

The same advice was given to a literacy taskforce established by the Government in the late 1990s.

No surprises here then. :?
Last edited by debbie on Sun Jan 12, 2014 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by debbie »

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5754

Also flagged up on the UK Reading Reform Foundation message forum.

Reading Recovery still has a strong foothold in the UK too! :?

It is simply entrenched as an 'establishment' programme.

Reading Recovery is part of the fabric of the Institute of Education in London - how does one ever get beyond these 'establishment' state of affairs?

They are 'established' rightly or wrongly. :shock:
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Post by debbie »

The Report...

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Mass ... y-2013.pdf

WHY THE NEW ZEALAND NATIONAL LITERACY STRATEGY HAS
FAILED AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT

Evidence from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011 and Reading Recovery Monitoring Reports

William E. Tunmer
James W. Chapman
Keith T. Greaney
Jane E. Prochnow
Alison W. Arrow

Massey University Institute of Education
July 2013

Reading Recovery

From our previous examination of data from the latest RR annual monitoring reports, we
concluded that RR has had little or no impact on reducing New Zealand’s relatively large
literacy achievement gap. There are serious shortcomings and much needed improvements in
several aspects of RR, including the theoretical underpinnings of the program, the assessment
battery used in the program, the specific procedures and instructional strategies emphasized
in the program, the manner of programme delivery (one-to-one instruction versus instruction
in pairs), and congruence between classroom curriculum and the RR program. Fundamental
changes in all of these areas would very likely improve the effectiveness of the program, both
in terms of outcomes and cost (Church, 2005; Reynolds & Wheldall, 2007; Tunmer &
Chapman, 2003, 2004).
The most serious shortcoming of RR, however, concerns the differential effectiveness of the
program. As noted previously, the programme is beneficial for some struggling readers but
not others, especially those struggling readers who need help the most. For these children,
more intensive and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemically-based
decoding skills is likely to be required than what is normally provided in RR lessons (Iversen,
Tunmer, & Chapman, 2005; Tunmer & Greaney, 2008, 2010). Given these considerations,
the Literacy Experts Group (Ministry of Education, 1999a) that advised the Literacy
Taskforce (Ministry of Education, 1999b) described previously included in its report the
following unanimously agreed upon recommendation: “We recommend that Reading
33
Recovery places greater emphasis on explicit instruction in phonological awareness and the
use of spelling-to-sound patterns in identifying unfamiliar words in text” (p. 6).
Although the Literacy Taskforce did not adopt this recommendation, it did recommend a
review of the RR programme (p. 23). However, as indicated in an article by Rivers (2001,
February 16), who interviewed the developer of RR, making significant changes to RR based
on the review would be difficult:
If any changes were made to Reading Recovery, they could be made to its
administration only, or they would risk being in breach of the program’s
trademark. Its developer, Marie Clay, said she held a trademark on the name
Reading Recovery to protect the program’s integrity. (p. 1)
The RR programme is currently overseen by the Marie Clay Literacy Trust
(http://irrto.us/index.php/marie-clay-literacy-trust), which is responsible for the copyright of
all RR materials and the RR trademark. No changes in the materials or procedures of RR can
therefore be made without the approval of the trustees. This makes it virtually impossible for
school systems or countries to make changes to the RR programme based on recent research
or to conduct independent studies investigating ways of modifying the programme to improve
outcomes and/or cost effectiveness.
In a study of the effectiveness of RR, McDowall et al. (2005) found that RR was less
beneficial to Māori and Pasifika students than to other students. Problems associated with the
benefits of RR for Māori and Pasifika were generally attributed to implementation,
resourcing, family/cultural factors, and inappropriate textual materials but not to the
programme itself. McDowall et al. overlooked the fundamental problem with RR, which is
that it is based on the multiple cues theory of reading, a model of reading that was rejected by
the scientific community over three decades ago (e.g., Stanovich, 1980). Church (2005) made
a similar point, stating that RR “was designed in the 1970s prior to most of the modern
research into how children learn to read. Not surprisingly, therefore, it lacks a number of
elements which have been found by research to be essential in teaching low achieving
children how to read” (p. 13). As part of the effort to overcome the failure of New Zealand’s
national literacy strategy, RR needs to be replaced with an intervention programme that is
based on contemporary theory and research on reading intervention and targets children who
are most at risk of failing to learn to read.

Has New Zealand ensured that beginning reading instruction is not based on the whole language approach which fails many children in the first place?

If New Zealand had universal systematic synthetic phonics teaching - this would radically introduce the need for 'intervention' and then any 'intervention' could simply be in line with the mainstream teaching and not something different.

Just to clarify, systematic synthetic phonics teaching is not to the exclusion of vocabulary enrichment and language comprehension development - these run side-by-side - but SSP does not include the multi-cueing strategies that the article above makes clear were rejected by the research community thirty years ago.

It's a pity that all the university lecturers, politicians, advisors, teaching union leaders, literacy associations and the teachers don't appreciate the rejection of multi-cueing reading strategies thirty years ago!

It's still prevalent even in England where the teaching profession is officially encouraged to adopt the systematic synthetic phonics teaching principles.

And as I said earlier, Reading Recovery in England is firmly 'established' through the Institute of Education.

So what chance do the student-teachers have of good, clear information I wonder? :?
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Post by debbie »

McDowall et al. overlooked the fundamental problem with RR, which is
that it is based on the multiple cues theory of reading, a model of reading that was rejected by
the scientific community over three decades ago (e.g., Stanovich, 1980). Church (2005) made
a similar point, stating that RR “was designed in the 1970s prior to most of the modern
research into how children learn to read. Not surprisingly, therefore, it lacks a number of
elements which have been found by research to be essential in teaching low achieving
children how to read” (p. 13). As part of the effort to overcome the failure of New Zealand’s
national literacy strategy, RR needs to be replaced with an intervention programme that is
based on contemporary theory and research on reading intervention and targets children who
are most at risk of failing to learn to read.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.ldanh.org/docs/Reading%20Recovery.pdf

I wonder how many times Tunmer and Chapman have had to repeat the message about RR - and what effect they have had?

I couldn't find a date on this document but it's references range up to 2003 - a decade ago.

How many children, then, keep slipping through the net needlessly? :?

And how many RR teachers could be re-trained to be of greater service to the children?

Here in England, RR folk keep producing glossy reports. But in England the government promotes systematic synthetic phonics teaching and schools are doing more and more phonics teaching which is changing the picture of the children attending RR sessions.

Thus, what are RR 'results' really attributable to nowadays in the English context?

The waters are no doubt muddy.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-ma ... AB66833793

One just has to keep repeating the message over and again.

We did this in England - and fortunately, ex-Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, 'heard it'.

We've still some way to go - but 'phonics' is everywhere nowadays - we just need to keep building on current knowledge and skills.

But, Reading Recovery is pretty much 'everywhere' too - and often where the children would really, really benefit from high-quality phonics teaching and learning.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standar ... cy-ignored

Well done to Michael Cummings in his piece:



Experts' advice on child literacy ignored

OPINION: There are two academics at Massey University in Palmerston North who care passionately about child literacy in New Zealand and have been researching the subject for 25 years but, for some reason not yet fully articulated by the Ministry of Education, they are being ignored.

In a report published this week, education researchers James Chapman and Bill Tunmer say the key programme to lift literacy rates in our schools is "fundamentally flawed", and needs to be reviewed.

Their report found, based on data from an international literacy study and reading recovery monitoring reports, that the reading skills of Kiwi children have not improved in the past decade.

The $40 million-a-year programme has been running for 30 years, and professors Chapman and Tunmer have been monitoring it since the 1980s. The concerns they have raised this week are nothing new.

They have been calling for a rethink on how literacy is tackled since the 1990s but their advice to the ministry has gone largely unheeded.


...Or should that say 'child illiteracy'?

Just because something is 'established' - HUGE INFACT - doesn't make it right!

You simply cannot argue with the sheer logic, common sense, of stepping in a lot sooner with the basic, fundamental, foundational technicalities of teaching the alphabetic code of the English language and the skills to apply it.

Think of this logic:

The English language has a very complex written code because of the complex history of England.

BUT, we have unpicked that complex code and have fab, straightforward, cumulative resources and programmes with which to enhance the teaching and learning and to make it memorable. We know that - there is a consensus about underlying 'synthetic phonics teaching principles' work regardless of a label on a 'programme'.

Here is the English alphabetic code, unpicked and made 'visual' for teachers, learners and their parents - it's an information and teacher-training issue:

www.alphabeticodecharts.com - see the 'Free' charts!

We know that, in general principles, there are two main overarching processes to reading - word decoding/recognition and language comprehension. See the Simple View of Reading diagram (the 'literate cultural capital underpins both 'language comprehension' and 'word recognition' - in other words, kids with lots of exposure to language and literature from home tend to have a headstart in all respects):

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/The ... _model.pdf

We have an INTERNATIONAL communication system. People in authority in New Zealand can check out, for example, what is happening to leading-edge practice in England. They can scour the internet, they can visit England.

In fact, they need to check out some of the schools in their own country, New Zealand, that have been doing Jolly Phonics for a number of years and found great improvements.

Why, oh why, is there such entrenchment? Vested interests? Ignorance?

Just stuck in what 'is' or has 'always been'?

Just because something is done on vast scale, does not make it right!

The people in charge of the trust of Reading Recovery need a huge wake-up call. If all the true 'educationalists' gave them the clear, clear message to CHANGE THEIR GUIDANCE - IT IS TIME TO TRULY CHANGE - RADICALLY CHANGE.

Or shut up shop.

The only way to give RR this message, however, is for everyone else to wake up to the past 30 years research.

Good on Tunmer and Chapman - and so many others who are out there flagging up the results, sticking to objectivity - saying it as it is.

If you teach any writing system, YOU NEED TO TEACH THE CODE - AND TEACH IT WELL AND TEACH IT IN SMALL STEPS WHILST GIVING THE OVERVIEW TO PROVIDE THE CONTEXT.

You shouldn't just rely on 'literate cultural capital' which just happens to be a child's social and family background.

Why has the word TEACH become a dirty word in the teaching profession for our youngsters?

And where is all the common sense amongst the advisors and politicians in New Zealand?

Whose wife, brother, sister, mother is entrenched in Reading Recovery of those in or associated with the 'Literacy Task Force' I wonder?
Last edited by debbie on Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by debbie »

Professors Chapman and Tunmer have been sending a message to the ministry for more than 20 years; it has an obligation to New Zealand children (not to mention taxpayers) to either state clearly why it rejects their advice, or move quickly to adopt the changes they have recommended.

And those recommendations seem hardly radical.
One of their key recommendations is to drop the reading recovery programme's "wait to fail" approach, saying children who are likely to struggle should be identified when they start school instead of in their second year, as is the practice at present.

That seems eminently sensible and must surely be more cost-effective. It is accepted that academics don't always have all the right answers, and what seems logical in theory is not always effective in practice. But if the conclusions of two education experts who have been researching literacy for 25 years are being ignored, the ministry needs to put forward compelling reasons why their solutions won't improve results. Professors Chapman and Tunmer are owed that as a courtesy, and the rest of us are owed it as a matter of right.
TOO RIGHT! :cry:

AND WHAT ABOUT AN APOLOGY TO THE CHILDREN?
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Post by debbie »

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/co ... ng-NZ-kids



Editorial: Reading Recovery failing NZ Kids
OPINION: Albert Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

By that standard, searching questions need to be asked of the Ministry of Education in the light of new research on its much-vaunted reading recovery programme.
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Post by debbie »

http://nzinitiative.org.nz/Media/Insigh ... fo8.twitte
Reading into reading recovery

Written by Rose Patterson on August 9th, 2013.
The report points out evidence to show that children who start on the back foot may benefit more from a heavier emphasis on back-to-basics approaches. As far back as 1999, a Literacy Expert Group advised that the Reading Recovery programme should put more emphasis on these approaches.

The advice was ignored. The Reading Recovery is trademarked and copyrighted, meaning that changes cannot be made without approval. The problem with this, as noted by researcher John Church in 2005, is that Reading Recovery ‘was designed in the 1970s prior to most of the modern research into how children learn to read. Not surprisingly, therefore, it lacks a number of elements which have been found by research to be essential in teaching low-achieving children to read’.

Reading Recovery is dear to kiwi hearts. But perhaps what should be held dearer is an openness to constructively criticise and adapt programmes so that they are more effective for those they aim to benefit. This is essential if New Zealand is serious about narrowing gaps in educational achievement.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/reading- ... t/5/164081
Reading Recovery 'not responsible for underachievement'

A University of Canterbury (UC) education professor says Reading Recovery is not responsible for the lack of change in the long tail of underachievement in New Zealand school children, as recently suggested by some New Zealand researchers.

Professor Garry Hornby says Reading Recovery was developed in New Zealand in the 1970s by Dame Marie Clay and has been widely researched and implemented in many countries around the world.

Reading Recovery is acknowledged as an intervention with extensive research evidence for its effectiveness by top researchers in education such as Professors John Hattie and Bob Slavin.

Further, Reading Recovery is included in the What Works Clearinghouse in the USA which only includes educational interventions with the most rigorous research evidence supporting their effectiveness. So it seems bizarre to attempt to blame the lack of improvement in literacy achievement on Reading Recovery.

The long tail of underachievement in New Zealand is not only evident in literacy but also in maths and science. This suggests that the cause lies not in our literacy provision but elsewhere.

It is much more likely that the underachievement of our lowest 25 percent of children is due to weaknesses in our provision for many of these children, who have special educational needs.
Please do read the full response - it blames 'special needs' and the lack of 'systems' for 'special needs' not the lack of teaching, or type of teaching, or type of intervention, in New Zealand for the weak literacy results.

It's really important that we address all the points raised over this issue about underachievement.


For example:

How 'early' should literacy intervention take place?

Is it true that explicit code-based instruction is not the 'norm' in New Zealand for children who enter the school system?

Should all children have guaranteed code-based explicit systematic instruction or should only children lacking in 'literacy cultural capital'?

If children have low levels of literacy, is this likely to affect levels of maths and science - and if they have high levels of literacy is this likely to affect levels of maths and science?

Should the teaching profession of a country be trained in explicit code-based instruction or not?

Does it take a special needs industry to teach children with special needs when these amount to literacy special needs?

Will a teaching profession lacking in training in code-based explicit teaching be more or less likely to result in children with literacy difficulties and apparent 'special needs'?

Are Reading Recovery teachers trained in methods which are in line with the research regarding the effectiveness of explicit code-based reading instruction?

What happens to the children in New Zealand that Reading Recovery rejects and what methods are they then taught with?

How much, if at all, has the Reading Recovery approach been modified in the light of research findings since its original inception?

If children have low levels of literacy, how do we decide whether this is genuine special needs (of the child) or that the child hasn't been taught properly in the first place?
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Post by debbie »

In his defence of Reading Recovery, Professor Garry Hornby suggests the following which I have to question. Does he really think that the lowest 25% of the children in New Zealand - or 'many of' the children - really have 'special needs' and that they cannot be better taught as mainstream children than is currently the case.

Are these really 'special needs' children or 'ain't been taught' children? New Zealand has already spent a fortune on the Reading Recovery intervention programme but apparently not addressed the problem of weak literacy of many New Zealand children. Does the professor think spending more money on bureaucratic special needs systems is really the better solution than updating ALL New Zealand teachers on explicit code-based teaching methods?

The professor suggests:

The long tail of underachievement in New Zealand is not only evident in literacy but also in maths and science. This suggests that the cause lies not in our literacy provision but elsewhere.

It is much more likely that the underachievement of our lowest 25 percent of children is due to weaknesses in our provision for many of these children, who have special educational needs.

In comparison with other countries that do not have as big a tail of underachievement as New Zealand, such as the USA, UK and Finland, there are major weaknesses in our provision for children with special needs in New Zealand.

We do not have specific legislation focusing on children with special needs, like that in the USA which sets out the rights of children with special needs and their parents and the responsibilities of the education system to meet their needs.

We do not have a code of practice for special needs setting out what schools must provide, such as IEPs for children with moderate and severe levels of special needs, as in the UK.

We do not have schools organized to identify the 30 percent of children with the lowest levels of achievement in first year of schooling and target them for additional specialist teaching and support, as they do in Finland.

We do not have trained special needs coordinators in all of our schools, as is mandatory in the UK.

Also, the majority of our mainstream school teachers have had little or no training on teaching children with special needs.

So let’s focus our attention where it is needed, on improving education provision for children with special needs. This is much more likely to have an impact on our long tail of underachievement than simply blaming Reading Recovery for not fixing it,’’ Professor Hornby says.




Below is an article written some time ago - but it seems most pertinent in response to the statement above re the suggestion that the poor literacy rates in New Zealand are because of unidentified 'special needs' and the lack of 'machinery' in New Zealand regarding special needs compared to other countries - rather than because of wrong teaching methods in the first place perhaps embodied in early literacy teaching in New Zealand and in the multi-cueing reading strategies of Reading Recovery:

http://www.rrf.org.uk/archive.php?n_ID= ... eNumber=46
"Special Need" or "Can't Read"? John Marks
"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass. Chapter 6

What do we know about 'Special Educational Needs'?

There are now ten times as many pupils with 'Special Educational Needs' in our schools than there were 20 years ago - over a million and a half pupils in total.

Across the country more than one in five of all pupils are on 'Special Needs' registers - and in some schools the figure is as high as a staggering 55% or more.

Can all these pupils really have 'Special Needs'? The answer is almost certainly no.

Children with the most severe problems - pupils with Statements of Special Educational Need - make up only about 2% of all pupils. But the number in mainstream schools has more than doubled in only eight years and is now, as a deliberate policy, about twice as many as are in special schools.

But the most dramatic growth has been in 'Special Needs' pupils without statements - a category which was only introduced in 1994. Such pupils now make up over 16% of school rolls in secondary schools and more than 19% in primary schools rising from figures of 9.8% and 11.6%, respectively, over the last four years.


Conclusion to the article:
Professional negligence?

The question that really needs to be asked is:

Is the explosion in 'Special Needs' real?

Or has it happened because schools have failed over many years to teach properly - and to teach reading in particular - a failure which even Ministers now acknowledge.

This is a hypothesis which is well worth testing. If it proves to be right, we can all benefit. Teachers would not have such a wide range of ability to teach in the same class and could thus teach much more effectively. Pupils, especially the less able, will be better taught - and taught to read in particular. And pupils generally will benefit from the improved and more focused teaching which will be increasingly possible.

If we really cared about children with special needs or handicaps we would have done these things long ago. We would not have tolerated a system or policies which leave us in the current cloud of unknowing.

Not to know whether special needs pupils can read is not to care. And not to take the trouble to find out whether they can read or not is the opposite of that accountability which is at the heart of true professionalism. It is professional negligence of the kind which the House of Lords has now recognised for dyslexia but which may be much more widely applicable.

So let us put existing policies on 'Special Needs' to the test - in the interests of all those pupils who have over the years been failed by 'the system' by not being taught to read properly at the age when they were most capable of benefiting from such teaching and of all those new pupils to come in the years ahead.
Thanks to Jim Curran of the UK Reading Reform Foundation for reminding me about John Marks' article.
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Post by debbie »

Professor Hornby said:

Also, the majority of our mainstream school teachers have had little or no training on teaching children with special needs.
But what training have the mainstream teachers received in evidence-based systematic synthetic phonics teaching - both to AVOID special needs and to ADDRESS special needs?
So let’s focus our attention where it is needed, on improving education provision for children with special needs. This is much more likely to have an impact on our long tail of underachievement than simply blaming Reading Recovery for not fixing it,’’ Professor Hornby says.
But, professor, Reading Recovery IS for special needs is it not?

And clearly Reading Recovery as the dominant intervention programme, is not the answer!

As it doesn't appear to have done the trick!
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Post by debbie »

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopi ... y+Ed+Balls

This old Reading Reform Foundation thread goes back to 2008.

It may be of particular interest to people in England.

It's very long and no doubt many people will not be able to sustain their interest for too long - but I decided to add it to this current thread as we are basically going over old ground.

What lies at the heart of the issue is the absolute 'entrenchment' of Reading Recovery and its promotion alongside the systematic synthetic phonics teaching principles.

In England, it demonstrates that a government has many players - and that even when some of those players are on one track, other players are on another.

In other words, the guidance for the teaching profession is not consistent - so what are the teachers to think/do/provide?

I highlighted this lack of consistency and logic to the government back in 2008 when we were questioning the persistent promotion and funding of Reading Recovery alongside acceptance of the recommendations of Sir Jim Rose (March 2006) following his independent national review of teaching children to read. This was a contradiction in terms.

I asked:

Is the government saying that the strongest schools with the strongest pupils should receive the systematic synthetic phonics teaching principles recommended by Sir Jim Rose which does not include the multi-cueing guessing strategies...

...but the weakest pupils in the weakest schools should receive the Reading Recovery multi-cueing reading strategies which is the kind of teaching that Sir Jim Rose rejects?


That is at the heart of the issue.

In the light of this latest report from New Zealand, I have now forwarded the report to our Department for Education and asked them to make a statement about their current position regarding Reading Recovery - once again I have asked which teaching methods our teaching profession is expected to take into account.
Last edited by debbie on Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ces-reform
Expensive but effective programmes such as Family Nurse Partnership and Reading Recovery, a reading tuition programme for six-year-olds, eventually pay for themselves many times over, but would not have got off the ground without Whitehall sponsorship under a Labour government.
I've flagged this article up as another example of how Reading Recovery is so firmly entrenched.

What literacy teaching and intervention would pay off so much better in all senses (educationally and financially) compared to Reading Recovery.

If there was to be a 'count' of the number of articles in the media related to driving up literacy standards - as an example of intervention then invariably 'Reading Recovery' is held up as either the gold standard - or the one and only example of intervention.

This is at the heart of the problem - its embeddedness in the 'establishment' - in many countries across the world.

It's longevity, its formalised and institutionalised organisation seemingly makes it impossible to question or shift.

Even when it is questioned - heavily - the organisation and uptake of RR carries on regardless.

So, we have a self-fulfilling set of circumstances.

Just because something exists and is used widely, does not make it right or the best thing to continue with regardless of questions and regardless of transparent evidence which DOES raise questions about its methodology, its efficacy, its cost and its uptake. :?

However, I do not want to take away from the article above which raises the issue of poverty, education and the need for support for some mothers and parents more than others. Who could argue with that.
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