Today we dive into the reading wars. We aren’t going to explore the best way to learn how to read. Rather, we are going to unpack how the Science of Reading has been used to push an agenda of standardization and privatization.

My guest is Elena Aydarova, an assistant professor in the educational policy studies department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has two recent publications on the science of reading: One in Harvard Educational Review entitled “‘Whatever you want to call it’: Science of Reading Mythologies in the Education Reform Movement” and a second forthcoming article entitled “What you see is not what you get: Science of reading reforms as a guise for standardization, centralization, and privatization.”