What happens when all the evidence is on the side which experts reject?

Emily Oster provides another example of the dangers of "experts" in her article, What Is the Best Way to Teach Reading.  She is summarizing the status of the long running battle between phonics (teaching children to read on a basis of sounding out words) and whole language or whole word (memorizing patterns of words.)  

Whole word came to prominence in the 1980s and now has nearly fifty years of embedded financial stakes (curricula sold to school districts) and reasonably strong and enthusiastic support from the education establishment (Teachers Unions and Education School/Departments in Universities).  In other words from the "experts."

Whole word also has fifty years of opposition from parents and no credible empirical evidence from studies.  In fact, it is worse than that.  There is a vast literature to the effectiveness of the tried and tested phonics approach.  There is little evidence to the effectiveness of whole language.  And there is material evidence that those most educationally marginalized are those who perform the worst under the whole language approach.  

The experts inflicted whole language on parents and children without the evidence of its effectiveness and have stood in opposition as the evidence to its harm has accumulated for nearly fifty years.  This is experts being profoundly wrong.  

Oster has a good high level discussion with some important nuance.  After a base established through phonics, we don't really have any evidence for the effectiveness various supplemental approaches to reading.  Free reading has its advocates.  Story-telling and narrative development probably have roles.  But so far there is little evidence of how much of which in what sequence yields what results.

Oster concludes:

• Research shows that phonics (linking letters to sounds) is an essential part of an effective reading curriculum. Programs that deemphasize phonics are less effective, especially for readers who are struggling.

• There is still a lot we don’t know about the best methods for teaching reading. More research directly comparing approaches is needed, especially if it focuses on the group of kids who need more support. 

• Parents can ask their child’s school about their reading curriculum, particularly whether there is a focus on phonics. To support reading at home, parents can use various programs and resources, but the most important thing to do is regularly read aloud to their child. 

Its all there in the first bullet.  After fifty years of debate and in opposition to the position of education establishment experts, phonics works and it works better than any known alternatives.  And it works better for the broadest spectrum of student abilities.

The second bullet is true but daunting.  If it has taken fifty years to begin, only begin, to displace the expert recommendation of whole language, it suggests the education establishment is not good at conducting research and/or is not good at acting on the evidence.

The third bullet can only have been written with a blind eye to the continuing failure of the education establishment and legions of misinformed education "experts" and with an unwarranted confidence in the effectiveness and credibility of the education establishment.  Parents can ask whether their schools whether the schools are using the one proven technique (phonics)?  That seems to misplace roles and responsibilities.  

Forget asking about whether asking whether schools are doing the bare minimum of using the one approach known to work.  Parents should insist on phonics and then turf out any school boards who refuse.