Part 7: Governance Failures in Discipline and Literacy

In Part 6, I showed how disciplinary powers exist but are often applied selectively. Fraud and corruption invite sanctions, but civil debts are frequently treated as “private.” Whether that pattern will repeat itself in the case of my complaint remains to be seen. I have written to the Director of Education, and I await her reply. The question is whether the Department will act on the clear authority it possesses, or whether it will avoid confronting dishonesty.

 

The same pattern appears in literacy. Institutions do not lack methods; they misapply them. Experts such as Marion Blank have claimed that phonics does not lead to automatic reading, that letter names are unnecessary, and that non‑content words should be treated as “bandit words.” These claims are not harmless. They shape how teachers approach reading instruction, and they misdirect attention away from the real cause of reading difficulties: wrong teaching that confuses children.

 

The parallels are striking. In discipline, the risk is that dishonesty will be tolerated because administrators avoid confronting it. In literacy, confusion has already been excused because experts avoid admitting that children are being taught the wrong way. In both cases, institutions choose avoidance over accountability.

 

Governance requires confronting dishonesty in teachers and confusion in classrooms. Yet what we see is selective enforcement. Debt dishonesty is at risk of being treated as a private matter. Wrong teaching is explained away as “phonological deficit” or the “opacity of English.” Both are evasions. Both normalize failure. And both corrode the culture of schools.

 

That is why I have argued for rote memorization of Dolch words, for teaching the correct sounds of letters, and for informing children early that letters often represent more than one sound. Just as I have lodged a disciplinary complaint against a teacher who defied a High Court order, I have challenged literacy programmes that deflect responsibility. Whether in governance or literacy, the principle is the same: institutions must stop avoiding the hard truths.

 

Until disciplinary boards apply their powers consistently, and until literacy experts stop misdirecting teachers, school culture will remain compromised. Dishonesty tolerated in discipline and confusion tolerated in literacy are two sides of the same governance failure. And children — whether as students of integrity or as learners of reading — will continue to pay the price.