Dear President Trump,

The “Matthew Effect” refers to the scripture reading in Matthew where Our Lord talks about “talents” or “money.” In this parable each servant is given a number of “talents” and the master expects a return on the talents when he returns from a journey. The master returns and finds the one given the most talents to have invested wisely and doubled his money, the master is pleased! Two servants out of the three made interest on their investments but the third buried his in the ground and just returned the single talent. The master is angry at this servant and finds his lack of fortitude and hard work on behalf of his master unforgivable.

In this parable found in both Matthew and Luke we learn that Our Lord expects us to use what we have and give a return. Coined by a reading researcher, Keith Stanovich, the term “Matthew Effect” refers to a point in the Gospel of Matthew which says that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Keith Stanovich uses this in explaining that those who learn how to read, read more than those who don’t know how to read,  there becomes a great divide, an unforgivable divide because the children were not taught how to read with effective instruction. The children, of course, are not the unforgivable in this situation, it’s the administrators and their constructivist choices that are unforgivable. 

At this point in history we now see a new and very unforgivable problem in our society due to the lack of schooling that the children have suffered because of this “Chinavirus.” (I’m using your term, Mr. President). What has happened is that those parents who could, worked with their kids during the pandemic or hired some kind of tutoring and did some kind of work with and for their children while our poorest families who often do not even know enough to read themselves have suffered exponentially. 

Here we now see a HUGE divide that MUST be overcome this Fall. 

We cannot let our poorest children suffer because there is no school or no adequately trained teachers to teach them. 

The “Matthew Effect” has been one of my favorite pet peeves because, I have always overcome impoverished children or children with deficits with good solid, direct, systematic, explicit, instruction in my classroom. 

While other teachers often wasted precious classroom instructional time because of the PUSH towards novel approaches and trendy constructivism, I closed my door and got down to business with instruction that was direct,, systematic, explicit and multi-sensory. 

When the administration asked me to do their constructivist instruction I would do it for a time but consistently moved back towards my hidden secret! Good curriculum!

The parents of these poorest children often fought for me and pushed the administration back, “Mrs. Calabrese uses what works! Let her do it!” and that’s how it went. My classes were always full because the parents requested my instruction and these parents could rest easy knowing that their children were learning quickly and efficiently..  

Now, I’m retired and here I see that the “Matthew Effect” is taking on a new meaning. The poorest are not getting tutored, they are not working on getting good curriculum, they are hoping that the schools will re-open. 

What if schools don’t open?  What if they do open and use their constructivist methods with these children who are already now WAY behind? What will happen? 

The teachers will get blamed, the Chinavirus will get blamed, but really the curriculum choices that schools have been making and continue to make could greatly help these children succeed even in this time of serious delay.

Dear Mr. President, I know you have a lot on your strong and able shoulders, but this is enormous! Children in our country are being delayed, how do we address it efficiently? 

China has THEIR kids back in school! Singapore has THEIR kids back in school and trust me, those schools are much more structured and on point than our curriculum choices. The children will be instructed with direct, systematic, explicit, instruction and they will learn quickly while our children lolly-gag with questioning and child-centered learning, and all these novel approaches. 

If you could only know that this is the perfect storm!  This lack of schooling and these poor choices in curriculum have impoverished our poor more than you could imagine. 

I leave you with a video of my KINDERGARTENERS, who were in a very impoverished area, in NYC yet way ahead in their reading skills. It’s not me I’m trying to point to, it’s the curriculum choices that have been made in our schools for DECADES that are faulty. It’s the fact that our teachers are not trained how to really teach English in college.

There’s so much to tell you!

Sincerely Yours,

Christine Calabrese  

Math instruction has suffered tremendously, the children in our schools spend so much time “explaining”  that they are not taught to memorize key facts!

Yours Truly,

Christine Calabrese, NYC Teacher, Tutor, Reading Expert