What were teachers asked who participated in the Required Reading Survey? Not the right things.

 You know this is the first ever mandated list for reading, right? Not sure I wanted to be first in line for such nonsense. 

So what did TEA ask these few teachers who completed the survey? I'm summarizing, but...

Identify specific literary works you currently use for direct teaching. Include novels, plays, poems, short stories, folktales, and primary source documents.

(Notice that they did NOT ask for the language in the TEKS - things that are read, heard, and viewed; increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts; nothing related to digital and multimedia texts.) 

Which titles are most effective in teaching the TEKS? Which books are engaging for the different grade levels? 

Teachers were given 10,000 titles and were asked to cut it down based on text complexity (challenging but accessible), suitable for the grade level (considering developmental needs), and were good for connecting to history and science. 

Notice that they were PROVIDED with a list. Priming the pump? Leading the witness? Texts suitable for kids in Quitaque aren't quite the same things kids in Austin are gonna need. And do I need to even tell you that all kids aren't in the same place at each grade? And text complexity is a whopper that NO ONE agrees on. Because it all depends on the kid in front of you, you know, the human being? 

As for cross curricular connections, teachers would have paired the texts with the current SS and Science topics in the TEKS and NOT the ones that will be in place by 2030. So automatically, any of those text now no longer apply for complexity or suitability. 

There was nothing in there about digital and multimedia stuff. 

TEA wanted to make sure that they had a variety of folks - so they asked them about grade level and years of experience. 

5700 people responded. They don't tell you how they quantify the grade levels and diversity. Ethnic background and race were not considered. They will tell you how many texts were reported on average by each grade level of teacher: 

Grade Level	Avg. Works Reported per Teacher
Kindergarten	58
Grade 1	59
Grade 2	61
Grade 3	45
Grade 4	41
Grade 5	39
Grade 6	43
Grade 7	33
Grade 8	30
Grade 9	27
Grade 10	27
Grade 11	28
Grade 12	24

They did have someone from each grade level submit the survey. There nothing about gender, race, ethnicity, or quantifications about diversity. 

Biggest Problem: 

The survey didn't ask the right questions. Teachers didn't think they were making a coherent unit of study. They thought they were saying what they were doing that makes sense for THEM and their kids. 

So we take all this mess to make a required reading list, right? When teachers use texts, they use them in a coherent sequence - increasingly complex, progressions of themes, and texts that match the scopes and sequences (CSCOPE, TEKS Resource, or District Documents). 

The list the state has made becomes a whole 'nother thing - a collection and scope and sequence no longer aligned to the TEKS, no longer aligned to any existing progression, no longer aligned to any scope and sequence, no longer aligned to genres or student skills, no longer aligned to any kind of assessment any of us are using anywhere in the world. NOWHERE. 

Because it's nonsense. Because the teachers were asked about pieces that make sense to them because of the wholeness of their knowledge, expertise, individual learners, and communities. 

Instead, the state took all these pieces from different school bodies from around Texas and have made a Frankenstein whole list that replaces curriculum, scope and sequence, connections to accountability...gosh y'all. They've created a whole new thing that is a monster. 

Call your people and have them pull the plug before the lightening strikes.