Some of the more extreme examples relevant to your sentence are below:
"At a meeting of the International Reading Association four years ago Ken Goodman attacked Marilyn Adams [a phonics advocate] as a 'vampire' who threatened the literacy of America's youth" (p. 42).
Levine, A. (1994, December). The great debate revisited. Atlantic Monthly, 38-44.
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“Doug Carnine's and Reid Lyon's back-to-brutality direct instruction reading model for behavioral control is now out of the shadows and into the limelight … . Doug Carnine's stable of mercenary professors housed at the University of Oregon, UT, and Florida State … .”
Horn, J. (2007). University of Oregon: Ground zero for Reading First corruption investigation. Schools Matter, Saturday, February 03, 2007. Retrieved from
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2007/02/u ... o-for.html
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“Where there is political interference there are lobby groups, and one that has become very strong during this era includes those who never quite left the focus on the skills such as explicit decoding. These groups have been beavering away, many with their own small research projects that prove categorically that children must have a well-developed sense of phonemic awareness, must know the alphabetic principles, and must be taught phonics through systematic and explicit instruction. Their message has been passed down since the 60s. What is frightening is that the spin these people have put on their message today has convinced so many in positions of power and financial control that this narrow (and, we would argue, out of touch with the real world) view of literacy is the only pedagogy for the teaching of literacy (Teaching Reading Report, 2005)” (p.23).
Cambourne, B. & Turbill, J. (2007). Looking back to look forward: Understanding the present by revisiting the past: An Australian perspective. International Journal of Progressive Education, 3(2), 8-29.
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“Sadly, because of the money to be made from phonics programs, and the ease with which these programs can be tested and ‘researched’ phonics has been claimed in the USA in particular to have been ‘scientifically proven’ to be the best method to teach reading. If we scratch a quick-fix, sure-fire method of ‘curing’ reading difficulties we will often (but not always) find behind it a core group from an education publishing house, or a government department, or an institute in a university which stands to gain massively, financially, from their endeavours.”
Fox, M. (2008). The folly of jolly old phonics: A phonics tale of three children (with morals for teachers of reading).
http://www.memfox.com/the-folly-of-joll ... onics.html
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Teachers are … “wise to the often tortuous attempts of educational, psychological, and cognitive researchers to cloak themselves in the sometimes ill-fitting garb of ‘science’.” … the interlocking directorate of the right-wing back-to-basics movement: John Saxon, Chester Finn, William Bennett, Diane Ravitch, Jeanne Chall, Charles Sykes.”
Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Bizar, M. (1999, March). Sixty years of reading research -- But who's listening? Phi Delta Kappan. Retrieved December 4, 2004, from
http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kzem9903.htm
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“It just seems to me that the real "Nation at Risk" involves the threat to the control of public education by conservatives who fear the future and employ phonics and testing to cripple the youth of today. I don't see this as an idle exercise in pedagogical thought. There is a reason why disinformation is promulgated by conservatives against public education. I have written here before about the "commoditization of children" as part of this process to turn the populace into little more than tractable farm animals as "labor inputs" for an international elite.”
Martin, M. (2008). Reading first fails. Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency.
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“It (direct instruction) is a scripted pedagogy for producing compliant, conformist, competitive students and adults.”
Coles, G. (1998, Dec. 2). No end to the reading wars. Education Week Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-18/14coles.h18
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“Now the forces aiming to destroy social justice and limit democracy have learned to use their money and power and the processes of democratic institutions to accomplish their goals. They no longer confront, they co-opt and subvert the very groups whose interests they attack. They don t stand in the school house door, they close down the failing neighborhood schools using test scores as their bludgeons.”
Goodman, K. (2002). When the fail proof reading programs fail, blow up the Colleges of Education
Retrieved December 4, 2004, from
http://tlc.ousd.k12.ca.us/~acody/goodman.html
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“How is it that Reid Lyon, of whom most of us never heard before this year, has become the media superstar on reading? The best way to make sense of this is to view it through Chomsky's notion of manufactured consent: a concerted and strategic campaign to manipulate and instruct public opinion.”
National Council of Teachers of English. (1999). Elementary school practices. Retrieved from
http://ncte.org.
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“His (Reid Lyon) whole 15 minute presentation is an amazing set of lies, clichés, and exaggerations.”
Goodman, K. (2002). When the fail proof reading programs fail, blow up the Colleges of Education
Retrieved December 4, 2004, from
http://tlc.ousd.k12.ca.us/~acody/goodman.html
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"The political Far Right's agenda is well-served," she writes, "by promoting docility and obedience-on the part of the lower classes." Ultraconservatives advocate phonics teaching because it is authoritarian, she says, and serves to socialize "nonmainstream students, especially those in so-called lower ability groups or tracks . . . into subordinate roles."
Weaver, C. (1994). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
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According to Weaver, who directed the Commission on Reading for the National Council of Teachers of English in the late 1980s, right-wing extremists believe that kids who study phonics will get "the words 'right'" and thus read what the Bible actually says rather than approximate its meaning. Moreover, she writes, "Teaching intensive phonics. . . . is also a way of keeping children's attention on doing what they're told and keeping them from reading or thinking for themselves."
Weaver, C. (1994). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
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The research the (National Reading) panels summarized excluded 95 percent of the important reading research, including my own 40 years of research.
Goodman, K. (2004). No: The Whole-language method really works and has led to a golden age of children's literature. Insight on the News - Symposium Issue, 8(47), p.8, 3/30/04. Retrieved from
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/artic ... literature
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“The antagonism of the Christian Right to these (WL) programs is based on a fear of losing control over their children's thinking, rather than any compelling empirical data.”
Berliner, D.C. (1996). Educational psychology meets the Christian right: Differing views of children, schooling, teaching, and learning. Retrieved from
http://courses.ed.asu.edu/berliner/read ... eringh.htm
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"Whole language teachers need not be defensive or apologetic. They believe in kids, respect them as learners, cherish them in all their diversity, and treat them with love and dignity. That's a lot better than regarding children as empty pots that need filling, as blobs of clay that need moulding, or worse, as evil little troublemakers forever battling teachers." p. 25
Goodman, K. (1986). What’s whole in whole language. Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann.