Publishers Fume Over Phonics Redefinition in Texas

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

The Texas state school board has approved a last-minute rule change that requires publishers to beef up on phonics in their 1st grade readers or risk losing some of the $91 million market in the nation’s second-largest textbook-adoption state. The change has publishers crying foul, as they contemplate legal action against the board for what they say is breach of contract and scramble to print additional materials to bring their products up to the new standard.

At its Nov. 5 meeting, the state board endorsed a change to guidelines that had been sent to publishers nearly two years ago. Those guidelines had called for "engaging and coherent texts" in which "most" of the words were "decodable," meaning easy to sound out, in line with phonics instruction. At the publishers’ request for clarification of the word "most," state education officials said that at least 51 percent of the words must be decodable. Publishers then began developing and publishing materials to meet that requirement, in addition to the other 111 standards outlined in the state standards.

But in September, as the board began discussing which books conformed to the guidelines, Geraldine Miller, the vice chairwoman, argued that the textbooks should include more phonics instruction. Acting on her recommendation, the board subsequently voted 10-5 to change the word...