Recommended Reading

In additon to the blogs and journal articles that I read frequently, I also read some worthwhile content in a more traditional form. Here’s a list of several that I recommend others read, too. I shall add to the list as I get time. (Note that I don’t make any money by posting these recommendations here. I have received complimentary copies of some of them, but that’s about it.)

Engelmann, S. (2007). Teaching Needy Kids in Our Backward System. Eugene, OR: Association for Direct Instruction.
Mr. Engelmann provides a strong indictment of the education community for failing to employ reasoned standards of evidence in making policy decisions. I had the good fortune to study at Oregon when Zig and his collaborators (Wes Becker, Doug Carnine, and others) were working on the Follow Through Project. I was then and am still impressed with the strength of his analysis. I continue to be impressed with his dogged persistence in the face of repeated sophistic attacks.

Here’s the publishing blurb about the book, and here’s a link to a page where one can purchase it.

Teaching Needy Kids in Our Backward System documents the often-outrageous experiences of a man some consider the most important educator ever, Siegfried (Zig) Engelmann. Through a tapestry of vignettes that start in the 60s and continue through 06, Professor Engelmann describes the battles he has fought to provide effective instruction for at-risk kids, particularly children of poverty. The most incredible of Engelmann’s battles occurred in Project Follow Through, the largest and most definitive educational experiment ever conducted, involving 180 communities and over 200,000 at-risk children in grades kindergarten through 3. To discover which approach was most effective, Follow Through installed and tested 22 models of teaching disadvantaged children, from 1968 to 1977. The models covered the spectrum of approaches that are in schools today form the discovery-oriented approaches to those based on behavioral principals of reinforcement. The evaluation measured the children’s achievements in reading, math, language, and spelling. The study was also designed to discover which models were superior in teaching basic skills and which excelled in teaching higher order thinking skills, also which models had kids with the strongest sense of personal responsibility and which kids had the highest self images. The results astounded educators and made a mockery of their predictions. There were not various winners, but only one winner, and that one excelled in every category measured. The winning model was designed by Zig Engelmann and his colleagues Direct Instruction. Why haven’t you heard about Follow Through, Direct Instruction, or Zig Engelmann? Because Follow Through outcomes were never disseminated, never made public, and never used to influence educational decision making. Why would the Feds spend half a billion to fund Follow Through and never disseminate the results? Read the book and discover the astonishing truths.

Bateman, B. D., & Linden, M. A. (2006). Better IEPs: How to develop legally correct and educationally useful programs (4th ed.). Verona, WS: Attainment Company.
Barbara Bateman and Mary Anne Linden have the academic and legal chops to discuss the development of legal and worthwhile individual education programs, they also can explain the knotty issues involved in doing so in such a way that the content is readily accessible to both lay and professional readers. In my view, this is a book that parents, teacher, and school administrators should own. If all parties read and abided by the sensible advice in this volume, there would almost surely be fewer hearings and law suits.

Here’s the publisher’s blurb, and here’s a link to a page when one can order the book.

A newly revised and enhanced edition of the ultimate guide to understanding IEPs from a legal standpoint. A classic in its field, Better IEPs presents a focused, three-step process that zooms in on the individual student. The book dismisses out of hand the one-size-fits-all approach that is too often mistaken for proper procedure in today’s schools. This fourth edition is newly revised with IDEA 2004 updates and enhanced to help in understanding and creating IEPs.