Jerry Brown appoints Honig

Honig Appointed to State Board of Education: More Support for Excessive Phonics Teaching?   by Stephen Krashen 

Reports of Governor Brown's appointment of Bill Honig to the State Board of Education have focused on Honig's previous legal problems.  More serious is Honig's stance on educational issues  ("Brown names top advisers," 1/6). 

After resigning as state superintendent, Honig became a dedicated supporter of intensive systematic phonics, the view that all children need phonics instruction that includes all major rules of phonics, presented in a strict order. 

Some basic phonics instruction is helpful, but evidence refutes the extremist intensive systematic position: Studies show that intensive phonics makes no significant contribution to performance on tests in which children have to understand what they read.