Chapter 13: A Love and Commitment Not to be Feared

Blogger's Note:  Below is an excerpt from the book I co-authored with

Philip L. Kilbride, entitled "Plural Marriage for Our Times:  A Re-

invented Option? Second Edition," published by Praeger, Santa

Barbara, California, August 2012.  In light of the recent decision
by Federal Judge Clark Waddoups over the case made by "Sister
Wives" television star Kody Brown and his four wives, this chapter
is presented as the debate in the United States about marriage,
especially plural ones, continues as well as all unions considered
different, perhaps even outside the norm, to traditional,
heterosexual, monogamous marriage, are questioned.

"A Love not to be Feared"

It must be the times in which we live.  Because it strikes us as

odd that it is easier for people to accept divorce than it is for them to

support plural marriage. 

We base this thought on the many conversations the co-author

has had with people when he’s told them about this book.  Their

reactions have included the following:  “Why would anyone want

plural marriage?  They abuse women and children?”  “If people hate

their wives or their husbands, just get divorced.  Don’t add a spouse.”

“There’s a reason we have divorce.  So people can end bad mar-

riages.”  “No woman wants more than one husband.”  “Men don’t

know how to live with one wife.  They don’t need two – or more!”

“Plural marriage?  That’s a little out there.”

Maybe it’s because so many people have been touched by

divorce in the last 30 years that the idea of marital break up is found to

be more comforting and easier to accept than the idea of plural marriage.

Or perhaps Americans just casually accept the idea of marital failure.

It’s just a matter of time, some people might say silently to themselves,

before a couple they know, including themselves, whose wedding they

may have attended, wind up sitting in a court room and asking

a judge to end their marriage.

Perhaps this acceptance is part of the fall out from the divorce

culture, which Barbara Dafoe Whitehead warned about many

years ago.[i]  In fact, in a recent survey by the Gallup Organization,

in 2008, it was learned that 70 percent of all adults found divorce

“morally acceptable.”[ii]   As for children, more than 23 million

are growing up in a household headed by either a single or divorced

parent, the Census Bureau reports.[iii]  In light of much evidence that

divorce is harmful for children perhaps that is why Americans want

children raised in intact, two-parent families.

According to the last Census, there were more than 24 million

divorced adults in the United States and there were more than

another 75 million adults who were never married, which means

the country now has around 100 million adults who are single

or divorced.  That’s about 41 percent of all adults.[iv]

So what’s better, going all out to keep marriage as it is – an institution

solely for two people, with, perhaps, a minor change, allowing two

people who share the same gender to marry – or expanding marital

opportunities so children living in single-parent houses have an

opportunity to grow up under improved

economic circumstances? 

To us, the latter, while certainly a controversial idea for a society

that outwardly claims to be monogamous, is the better idea.  It

improves children’s chances, giving them better childhoods, and

more likely turning them into healthy, educated, well-adjusted adults.

The former – standing on ceremony on behalf of monogamy – dim-

inishes many children’s prospects for the future.

The difficulty most Americans have in accepting plural marriage is

that they keep returning to the model they have seen too often on

television or read about in newspapers or magazines:  It’s an abusive

system – with adults marrying children – and puts far too much power

in the hands of a patriarch. 

We are suggesting people look upon plural marriage with a new

set of eyes – as a much more equitable system of marriage that allows

not only men to have plural spouses but also women, too, legally of

course.  We are proposing this so to recognize what already exists

often in the shadows of criminalization and secrecy.  We favor a

system whereby children grow up with at least two parents, providing

them with the guidance they so need and require with

the benefits of public legality.

           

And, indeed, based on the economics we know, as shown in an

earlier chapter, married women are in a stronger economic position

when compared to all other women of all other marital statuses.

That means that married women beat out – financially at least –

their single and divorced counterparts.  Since many single and never

married women, especially those in their 20s, are giving birth and

bringing up children, isn’t there a way we can offer many of

them an improved financial position, not only for them but also

for their children?  We believe there is by expanding marital

options through plural marriage.

Based on the latest information from the U.S. Census Bureau,

the United States is teetering on the threshold of having more

single than married adults.  As it is, fewer than half of all adults

are married and living with their spouses.  The traditional

outlook on marriage – something that is only for two people

of the opposite gender – does not appear to be the solution that

is going to increase the ranks of the married anytime in the near

future.  So it is best that we consider and debate – and hopefully

make legal – the option of plural marriage as described in this

book.

In a legal, plural marriage, as law professor Adrienne Davis has

outlined, there is a means by which marital assets can be equit-

ably broken up.  She suggests that plural marriages be guided by

partnership law, which is similar to how some states, California

especially, divide assets in a marital breakup.

Plural marriage works for some and doesn’t work for others in

the same way that monogamous marriage works for some but

not for others.  “It depends” is our principle based on a strong

empirical research often in more than one culture or nation.

By saying “it depends,” we’re saying that some people have

the partners, personality, means and lifestyle to make

plural marriage – and even monogamous marriage – suc-

cessful while others do not.

Many studies show younger Americans and Europeans are

less committed to marriage than previous generations.  Kil-

bride finds college students, overall, to be keenly aware

of the disruptions caused by divorce.  As a result of these

experiences, few seem willing to defend the status quo of

heterosexual, monogamous marriage – in American family culture.

What does this mean for the future of marriage?

Strangeness

Polygamy today remains a stigmatized practice despite

much more public knowledge about it.  But the strange-

ness of polygamy is, in fact, not so strange when com-

pared to many another cultural practices.

Consider this for example:   “For some Japanese men, 

body pillow girlfriends based on comic book characters now

take the place of the real thing.”[v]  Lisa Katayama writes

that in Japan, where 25 percent of men between ages 30-34

are virgins, their difficulties in coping with modern romantic life

may explain why they turn to life-size dolls.  One informant

told Katayama that he, “knows it’s weird for a grown man

to be so obsessed with a video game character… ‘when I

die I want to be buried with her in my arms.”[vi]  Anthro-

pology students tell Kilbride that using dolls as romantic

partners is spreading across the United States.

In fact, there’s a company, based in California, called

“Real Doll.” Google it.  You’ll get the idea, fast!

In our view, marriage in its many forms is preferable to

otaku-like substitutes, especially from a child-centered

perspective.  For example, since much of the work of

raising children in the world’s cultures is done in the

context of marriage, this practice cannot substitute for 

parenting functions within marriage.   We were struck

by a news account from South Korea about a married

couple so preoccupied with catering to the imaginary

needs of its virtual child that its human baby starved

to death.[vii]

The term “strange,” commonly applied to polygamy,

is in fact, upon cross-cultural examination, including

the observations just considered, not so strange at all.

As we have seen in the book, it is a form of marriage

and family culture that’s widespread today just as it

was in the past.  The attitude, “It depends” also applies

to our opposition to extreme cultural relativism

(the idea that each cultural practice can only be evaluated

in its cultural context).  On this view, “otaku,” a

relationship with a life-size doll, and polygamy, 

are equally valid, enjoying approved status in at

least one culture.  We think marriage, even in its many

forms, is far more preferable to doll substitutes.

Marriage brings people together, which is better

than “making love” to a doll.

The media and entertainment industries play a

significant role in the attitudes the general public

holds toward a number of issues.  Television

shows like “Big Love” and “Sister Wives” as

well as other family-based shows on the air

today, show that family life is far different that

it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

In “Big Love” a man in Utah has three wives who

live in separate houses side by side.  Family life is

made routine to the viewers as issues of sexuality,

work, religion, and morality play out against the

backdrop of life in contemporary America.  “Sister 

Wives” is similar to “Big Love” but is based on

the real lives of a polygynous family, which

recently moved to Nevada. 

On “Big Love,” John Tierney, in The New

York Times, wrote, “The story of a husband with

three wives in Utah will not terrify Americans.

Polygamy does not come off as a barbaric threat to

the country’s moral fabric…not one that could ever

be a dangerous trend in America.”[viii]  He con-

cluded his piece writing, “These three wives …

sound much like the women in polygamous

marriages I’ve talked to in rural Africa…Overall,

they figured it was better to share one prosperous 

husband than to marry someone else without land,

cows, or a job.”[ix]  Tierney notes that polygamy

isn’t necessarily worse than the current American

alternative, divorce and re-marriage, sometimes

referred to as serial monogamy or, as is said

in Africa, “non-simultaneous polygamy.”

The father in “Big Love,” unlike so many fathers

in America, is committed to maintaining his

marriages and relationships with his wives

and children.  How much more in favor of

“family values” can you get than that?

Despite Tierney’s optimism that “Big Love” will

not terrify Americans, the evidence, as of late, is not

encouraging.  A recent, fair and balanced National

Geographic article entitled “The Polygamists”[x] 

aroused primarily negative letters to the editor.

Factual knowledge about polygamy matters as

societies everywhere have a vested interest in a

healthy marriage and family culture.  For those

opposed to marriage in any but one form, they

need to ask themselves that if there is only a

minimal marriage opportunity – heterosexual

monogamy – how will children be reared? 

Although marriage is often difficult, there is strong

evidence that marriage has some significant health

benefits.[xi]  In this extensive survey we learn,

“scientists have continued to document the

‘marriage advantage’; the fact that married people

on average appear to be healthier and live

longer than unmarried people.”[xii]  Studies

show a marriage advantage, for example, in

pneumonia, surgery, cancer, and heart attacks.

People in stressful marriages enjoy no advantage.

An extensive study of men and women in their 50s

and 60s found that, “when the married people became

single again … by divorce … death of a spouse, they

suffered a decline in physical health from which they

never fully recovered.”[xiii]  Remarriage after divorce

helped only some.  Divorce, it appears, often a rou-

tine solution for marital woe, is detrimental and not

only for children.

State government action concerning marriage is very

much in the forefront of public policy today invol-

ving a few states that have legalized same-gender

marriage.  Efforts for a constitutional amendment at

the federal level to prohibit all but heterosexual

monogamy appear to be on the back burner, at

least for now.

University of Chicago Law School Professor Martha

Nussbaum, considered earlier, identifies a number of

issues to be addressed should polygamy be legalized.

She believes that, “Children would have to be protected

so the law would have to make sure that issues such

as maternity/paternity and child support were well

articulated…polygamous unions would…be

difficult to administer – but not impossible with good

will and effort.”[xiv]  For Nussbaum, issues related

to marital dissolution include: property rights after

divorce or death; legal and financial responsibility for

minors and custody rights with divorce; and of course

income tax assessments. 

Nussbaum (2000) proposes a capabilities approach

in evaluating public policy objectives by assessing

quality of life outcomes.  She proposes specific

capabilities as fundamental to human existence, which

would serve as a framework for evaluation and policy.

Her universalist perspective includes, for example, an

expectation for a normal life span, freedom of bodily

movement, and opportunities for social interaction and

having an emotional life without fear and anxiety.

She notes that a capabilities perspective means,

“having the social bases of self-respect and

non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a

dignified being whose worth is equal to that of

others.  This entails provisions of non-

discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual 

orientation, ethnicity, caste, religion, national

origin.”[xv]  Applying Nussbaum’s policy framework

to polygamy in the United States, it is clear that

public policy needs to be directed to improve the

quality of life of those whose pursuit of the good life,

though unconventional, is unnecessarily stigmatized.

The most serious policy issue mentioned by Nussbaum

is likely taxes, already a matter of growing concern in

the United States and around the world.  One of the

letters critical of the polygamy article on FLDS in

the National Geographic mentioned taxes.  The

letter, in part, states,

If an FLDS man has four wives, only

one of them is legally married in the

eyes of the state and federal

government.  The other three are

single women with no income,

no assets, and multiple children who

apply for and consume every state

and federal entitlement benefit for

which they are eligible.  These

communities thrive through the

generosity of the American tax-

payer and the willingness of

state authorities to turn a blind

eye to the misuse of entitle-

ment funds.[xvi]

In Canada, a recent piece reports the term

“bleeding the beast” is used by some FLDS to

describe strategies to take money from the

government.  This article does not fail to cite

obvious problem cases like “self-styled ‘Bishop

of Bountiful’ Winston Blackmore, whose 22

wives and 119 children all draw taxpayers’ funds

while pursuing their…illegal life style.”[xvii]  The

story concludes that unemployed wives with

children often obtain child tax benefits based on

one low income mother’s rate, a situation, it could 

be noted, would not be possible if all wives

were legal and therefore taxed.

Taxes are an issue in other countries beyond

Canada and the United States.  In the United

Kingdom, a man who marries polygamously in a

country where it is legal can draw benefits from the

government as all of his wives are recognized as

dependents.[xviii]  For those who wish to limit

tax abuses of polygamy, this example indicates

that making it legal first and then taxing fairly, 

probably will not be popular among those who

presently profit by informal and unregulated

polygamy.

David Popenoe (1999), a national authority on

marriage and the family, proposes recommen-

dations to strengthen heterosexual monogamy,

which, for him, is superior to other forms of the family

including, for example, same-gender marriage and

single parent homes.  He believes that a father and

mother, united through marriage, have biologically

based, complimentary differences needed for

positive child development.  Popenoe lauds such

sex typed parenting differences whereby some studies

show mothers are overall “responsive” and

fathers are “firm.”  He states further, “…many

studies have shown that men interact with children

in a different way than women, suggesting that the

father’s mode of parenting is not interchangeable

with that of the mother’s…men emphasize play more

than caretaking…”[xix] 

Popenoe is correct to develop policy recommendations

even if only to strengthen two- parent, heterosexual

households which are central in our national cultural

family ideology.  Strengthening families through

marriage is also in the interest of all families.  We

disagree with his argument that marriage should be

exclusively heterosexual and monogamous.  We 

want to strengthen marriage, too, so by seeing its

rights, privileges and responsibilities extended to

same-gender couples as well as polygamous

men and women.  Popenoe’s argument to bolster

the “essential father” by marital links to his child’s

mother is precisely what we’re proposing as

an argument in favor of plural marriage – absent

the shackle of essentialism so often applied to it.

People, for centuries, through songs, novels, poems,

first-person accounts, politics, religious faith and

rigorous, academic study, have attempted to explain

and define love.  Yet it remains mysterious.  How

do you know when you’re in love?  Is the emotion

of love that one person experiences for someone

exactly the same that another person experiences

for someone?  Can you love two people, maybe

more, simultaneously?  Is that wrong?

What’s worse – a society that loves (even if it does

make room for many different combinations of lovers)

or a society that doesn’t love at all?  This question,

explored in variety of literature, including George

Orwell’s 1984 to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New

World and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s

Tale, would likely lead most readers to conclude that

a society that loves – even if some of the love expands

the boundaries beyond what the majority considers

acceptable and normal – is far better than one that

doesn’t.

Why is love so important?  Because in the 21^st 

century, as with the previous one, it’s a reason

two people marry in America; if it fades away

from the marriage, it’s a reason people seek a divorce.

How can a government sanction only one version

of legally allowable, committed relationships, especially

when there are plenty of examples showing hetero-

sexual, monogamous marriage doesn’t work for

everyone?  Does a government that only permits

monogamous marriage alienate lonely, divorced

and never-married men and women?

How can two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and

Christianity, place limits on marriage, when another

one, Islam, allows polygyny?  Do you need to be

in love to marry?  Do you need to hate to file for

a divorce? 

Can plural marriage, which creates extended families, 

become the next social safety net?  Are young men, in

their late teens or early 20s, at a heightened risk of not

marrying women their age if plural marriage is legal?

Could plural marriage save one couple from divorce by

adding a spouse and spare their children the emotional

and economic upheaval such breaks up can cause, not

to mention frequent harmful impact on children?

Are these questions we shouldn’t ask because they

make people uncomfortable?

If we have done our job effectively, we’ve left you

with more questions than answers.  That’s why the

title of this book ends with a question mark,

not an exclamation point.  


You can buy the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Plural-Marriage-Our-Times-Reinvented/dp/0313384789/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387411021&sr=1-1&keywords=plural+marriage+for+our+times%3A++A+reinvented+option+second+edition

---

[i] One of the most thorough articles ever written about divorce’s affects on family life was authored by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and appeared in the April 1993 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, entitled, “Dan Quayle Was Right.” The article’s title was referencing former Vice President Quayle’s response to a popular television show, “Murphy Brown,” where the lead character gave birth without being married.  Dafoe Whitehead’s article can be found here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/04/dan-quayle-was-right/7015/

[ii] “Cultural Tolerance for Divorce Grows to 70 %,” May 19, 2008, http://www.gallup.com

[iii] Table D1:  Characteristics of Children Under 18 and their Designated Parents:  2009, United States Census Bureau, August 2010, http://www.census.gov.

[iv] Table A1.  Marital Status of People 15 Years and Over by Age, Sex, Personal Earnings, Race and Hispanic Origin,” United States Census Bureau, November 2011, http://www.census.gov.

[v] “Love in 2-E,” The New York Times Magazine, Lisa Katayama, July 26, 2009, pp. 20

[vi] Katayama, ibid., pp. 20

[vii] “Couple starved real baby while raising virtual baby,” The Examiner, March 6, 2010, Tanya Valdez, http://www.examiner.com

[viii] “Who’s Afraid of Polygamy,” The New York Times, March 11, 2006, John Tierney, http://www.nytimes.com

[ix] Tierney, ibid.

[x] “The Polygamists,” National Geographic, February 2010, Scott Anderson, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com

[xi] “Is Marriage Good for your health?,” The New York Times, April 18, 2010, Tara Parker-Pope, http://www.nytimes.com

[xii] Parker-Pope, ibid.

[xiii] Parker-Pope, ibid.

[xiv] Martha Nussbaum, “Debating Polygamy,” The Faculty Blog, The University of Chicago Law School, http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2008/05/debating-polyga.html

[xv] “Women and Cultural Universals,” pages 197 – 228, Martha Nussbaum, Pluralism:  The Philosophy and Politics of Diversity, Maria Baghramian and Attracta Ingram, editors, (New York:  Routledge, 2000), page 212

[xvi] National Geographic, June 2010, “Letters,” page 8

[xvii] “B.C. polygamist leader ‘see no sin’ in taking tax money,” National Post, June 16, 2009, Suzanne Fournier, http://www.nationalpost.com

[xviii] “Polygamous husbands can claim cash for their harems,” The Daily Mail, April 18, 2007, http://www.dailymail.co.uk

[xix] “Modern Marriage:  Revisiting The Cultural Script,” pages 151 – 167, David Popenoe, The Gendered Society Reader, Michael S. Kimmel, editor, with Amy Aronson, (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2000), page 162

Plural Marriage Decriminalized

“Sister Wives” reality television show star Kody Brown and his four wives can play house without fearing a possible police raid should they ever return to Utah.

That's the crux of the ruling Federal Judge Clark Waddoups issued from his chambers in Salt Lake City last Friday in the case of Brown and his four wives, stars of the popular reality television show, “Sister Wives,” which appears to decriminalize plural marriage.

For those convinced Armageddon is here for heterosexual, monogamous marriage, rest easy:  Waddoups’ ruling is far from being a full out victory for polygyny or any kind of plural marriage and hardly spells the death knell of marriage as it’s traditionally known, between one man and one woman.

One of the key considerations in the case, Waddoups said, was that the Browns were not asking for legal recognition for the three additional “wives” Kody claims. 

What they were seeking – first and foremost – was the ability to live in Utah, should they return, without fear of a police raid. 

Judge Waddoups didn’t overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 19^th century ruling outlawing polygamy.

All Waddoups said was adults, because they’re granted freedom of religion, a First Amendment right, are allowed to practice their faith.  If that means they want to live with other, unmarried adults – even have a relationship with them that looks like a marriage – they may do so without fearing the police will break up their families or jail them.

The biggest effect last week’s ruling has is taking away a tool police and district attorneys in Utah use to investigate polygyny – cohabitation.  In Utah, up until Waddoups’ ruling a week ago, it was illegal for unmarried adults to live with one another.

“A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person,” Utah’s law against cohabitation read until Waddoups’ ruling. 

Waddoups amended the statute by removing its last five words.

In addition, says the Browns’ attorney, Jonathan Turley, the ruling decriminalizes the Browns’ plural marriages – as well as other plural marriages – because of their faith as Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, which continues to believe in polygyny even though the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped recognizing it more than 100 years ago.

In his 91-page ruling, Waddoups reviewed many of the same legal arguments that Phil Kilbride and I discussed in our book, Plural Marriage for our Times:  A Reinvented Option?  Second Edition, including the infamous Reynolds decision of 1879 by the U.S. Supreme Court prohibiting polygamy because it “has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.”

“In other words, the social harm was introducing a practice perceived to be characteristic of non-European people – or non-white races – into white American society,” wrote Waddoups in his critique of the Reynolds decision. 

He also took issue with how the Supreme Court’s ruling is applied today, saying, “In the religious cohabitation at issue in this case … the participants have ‘consciously chosen to enter into personal relationships that they knew would not be legally recognized as marriage even though they used religious terminology to describe the relationships.’”

Waddoups also discussed the most controversial case in recent Supreme Court history, Lawrence v. Texas, which essentially made all sexual behavior between consenting adults legal, saying, the Browns’ “arguments about the meaning and implications of Lawrence for Utah’s ability to criminalize their private conduct of religious cohabitation are very persuasive.”

The judge noted that life has changed, saying that 42 percent of Utah residents between the ages of 18 and 64 were unmarried and that 30 to 60 percent of them were living with one another.

This goes to a point that Salt Lake City civil rights attorney Rodney Parker told me:  If Utah were serious about prosecuting unmarried adults living together, many of his clients would be jailed.

Indeed, around the country, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are about 8 million unmarried, opposite gender couples living together and nearly 40 percent of them are bringing up children.

Finally, Dr. Kilbride and I argued that in a time when marriage and family life gives every appearance of being threatened – either because people aren’t marrying or they’re divorcing, leaving children in the hands of their former spouse – plural marriage might very well be the antidote to fix these problems.

Waddoups appears to agree, writing that Utah’s ban on prosecuting “adulterous cohabitation” (sex between a man and woman without any commitment to ever marry) but doing so to those couples who practice “religious cohabitation” (committed to one another as husband and wife but without the marriage license) seems “counterproductive to the goal of strengthening or protecting the institution of marriage” and, thus, family life.

In the United States, according to the Census Bureau, there are two distinct minorities:  Married couples make up less than half of all households, about 48 percent, and less than 20 percent of all households consist of a married couple, where both the husband and wife have a genetic connection to the children they’re bringing up.

It’s difficult to see how defending heterosexual marriage will improve these numbers.  The more likely scenario, in the coming years, is that plural marriage and same-gender marriage will live alongside heterosexual, monogamous marriage.

While I continue to miss Phil Kilbride’s enthusiasm for the topic we researched and wrote about, I’m sure he takes as much satisfaction as I do in knowing Judge Waddoups used many of the same legal arguments we discussed in support of plural marriage.

Post Script:  Phil Kilbride passed away about a month after our book, “Plural Marriage for our Times:  A Reinvented Option? Second Edition,” (Santa Barbara, CA:  Praeger Publishers, August 2012) was published, in September 2012.  He was a wonderful man, great scholar, loving father and a tremendous colleague.  He’s very much missed.

You can buy the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Plural-Marriage-Our-Times-Reinvented/dp/0313384789/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387411021&sr=1-1&keywords=plural+marriage+for+our+times%3A++A+reinvented+option+second+edition

You can read the judge's ruling here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/191414121/Sister-Wives-Ruling

Wondering about reading skills & The Catcher in the Rye

Perhaps I should take Harvard University Professor Paul E. Peterson’s advice:  Common Core is just the latest reform movement in education.  There’ll be others, so there’s no need to sweat this one.

But as a concerned dad, with kids in Massachusetts’ public schools, it’s anathema to me to simply leave their education in the hands of the professionals.  I reserve the right to step in. 

And so my biggest worry, after math instruction, is how reading is coming along for my fifth and fourth grade sons.

Last year, when my elder son was in the fourth grade, he was required to produce a book report each month.  He read Wonder; Hoot; Steve Jobs:  Thinking Differently; A Wrinkle Time; and Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets, among others.

Our younger son, when he was in the third grade, also read Wonder as well as many of the Harry Potter books.

But, so far, a book report has yet to show up for either boy.

Still, that hasn’t stopped their school district from implementing another standardized test – the Benchmark Reading Assessment – as a means of determining the kids’ reading abilities.

Louise Snyder, principal of the Dale Street School in Medfield, described the test in her email (provided to you as it showed up in my inbox):

“Irene Fountas and Gay Sue [sic] Pinnell, highly respected teachers of reading and leaders in reading research developed this program to meausre [sic] the many aspects of what makes a person a reader.  This test has students read a passage from a short text aloud.  Teachers record when a student misreads, repeats, or corrects him/herself as he/she reads.  Then the child is asked to read the rest of the passage silently.  The teacher takes note of the student's fluency and grades him/her according to a rubric.  The teacher also calculates the students [sic] correct words per minute. Aftere [sic] the student has completed the reading, he/she has a comprehension conversation with the teacher.  Students are asked literal, inferential and evaluative questions that are within the text, beyond the text, and about the text.  The teacher then grades the student using a comprehension rubric.  All of this information is used to determine a student's reading level.  Some students will read 2-3 levels of books while being tested and others will need to read more to determine the appropriate instructional level.”

The school is checking out this new test, Snyder wrote in her email, on a select sample set of kids:

“First, this endeavor takes time, modeling and conversation for teachers to learn the procedural aspect of the system.  [sic] Secondly, [sic] we have a lot of other new initiatives on the plate this year. (new schedule, new evaluation system, new math tools) so that we did not want this to take a back seat or become too overwhelming and fail.  Thirdly, [sic] we wanted time for teachers to be able to interact with the tool and ask as many questions to feel comfortable with what information the test gives them about their students as readers.”

I responded to her note, saying if the school required more book reports, there would be less of a need for another standardized test.  I also mentioned that my elder son read The Catcher in the Rye during the summer.

Snyder's response is what I should have expected:

“We do need to keep in mind that reading the words and

being able to comprehend the meaning of the story both within the text and

beyond it are critical to developing a strong reader. This new test will

help teachers to better hone their skills to find those books that do all

that for each reader in their class.

Thank you for your feedback.”

Sure, it’s an insulting reply but that’s to be expected when you’re challenging the education industry’s wisdom. 

She’s saying my son just scanned the words, if that much, when I thought he was reading J. D. Salinger’s great novel. 

A far more appropriate response might have been something along the lines like good for you.  Keep up the good work. 

But an acknowledgement like that just might signal parents know their children better than their teachers. 

And heaven forbid that should be the case!

For the record, I’m fully aware of what my son understood when reading The Catcher in the Rye because on more than one occasion he needed my assistance to comprehend the text.

But by reading the book, he disproved the idea that kids can only comprehend “age-appropriate” texts.  He understood most of the story. 

When his reading skills were assessed recently, his fifth grade teacher told me, he scored as reading at the 7^th grade level; another test showed him reading at the 9^th grade level, she says.

Our younger boy is also reading above grade level, so we’re thrilled.

The problem with Common Core, as least how it’s being implemented in our little Burg, is that the thrust of English education – this year – is vocabulary.  I’m not about to knock vocabulary instruction but it’s limiting.  It’s about spelling and definitions.

The broader education – learning how words are used to describe people, situations and settings – is missing.  Literature, like a good history book or a biography, can make a kid think.  That’s what’s not happening now.

So in accepting Common Core, our school system traded the opportunity for teaching kids how to use their minds and imagination for rote memorization.

I suspect that’s good if you’re bringing up robots, but I don’t know any parents who are.

From time to time, especially lately, I wonder how our kids’ literacy skills would measure up if they hadn’t read challenging books, like Wonder or The Catcher in the Rye. 

Not nearly as well, I say!

P.S.  Can someone please edit Ms. Snyder's emails -- before they're sent?

Arne Duncan -- Clueless Man or Male Chauvinist?

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is the most clueless man in America.

He and is ilk take an Orwellian approach to life, saying Common Core, the latest movement in K – 12 public school, educational reform, was adopted and voluntarily accepted by 45 of the 50 states.

It’s all in how you define “voluntarily.” 

As parents across the country are fast becoming aware, it looks more like this:   Under the cover of the darkness of night, their governor or state board of education pulled a fast one, adopting Common Core without putting it before the voters or their state legislature first.

Compare that to how Massachusetts went about reforming its schools, long before there was anything called a Common Core.  Back in 1993, the state legislature very publicly took up the issue of improving the schools. 

It was hotly contested and received a lot of press, providing Bay State parents with time to look at the condition of the state’s public school education and how it compared to what their peers across the country and overseas were doing.

The result was that the State House decided to reform the schools and, 20 years later, Massachusetts can rightfully claim to have some of the best public schools in the country.

In fact, based on some of the latest international testing results, Bay State kids hold their own against some of the best students in the world.  And it was due to the fact that education was focused on pushing the kids to read, write and understand math and science better than they had before.

Still, in spite of being considered a top state for public school education, Massachusetts succumbed to Common Core's tactics, with the only vote approving this latest reform movement done by the board overseeing the state's department of elementary and secondary education.  

And now Arne and his Common Core co-conspirators have a problem.

Parents are organizing, screaming that Common Core’s standards are dumbing down education – and there are plenty of experts to back that up – and, as a result, some state legislatures are taking a look at this thing, scaling it back or putting it on hold for further review.

This is what happens, Arne, when you insult the voters’ intellect, especially parents, and fail to follow President Abraham Lincoln’s maxim – “I’m a firm believer in the people.  If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.”

Even my elder son’s fifth grade teacher says Common Core is slowing down math education.  It’s not enough to know that 10 divided by 2 equals five; now the kids need to write an essay.  Really?

The public school system in our little Burg may want to treat kids like idiots, but we don’t:  We think our sons are damn intelligent and deserve better.

Which is why, Arne, my wife and I took matters into our own hands and send them to the Russian School of Mathematics.

Which is why, Arne, instead of pushing my elder son to re-read “No Talking,” a book that’s about five steps above “Dick and Jane,” I had him read “Catcher in the Rye.”

Which is why, Arne, from time to time, the boys will read stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.

In the 21^st century, Arne, it’s critical our sons have the skills necessary to compete against kids from South Korea, China, Japan – and elsewhere around the globe – where education is taken seriously and kids are pushed to achieve more, not less.

I don’t know where you’ve been, Arne, but you haven’t been standing on the sidelines of baseball and basketball games or on the decks of swim meets, making casual conversation with suburban moms as their children participate in sporting events.

Had you been doing so, you’d come to know them the way I do – incredibly intelligent, committed to their professional success and their children’s education.

In addition, there’s something else, Arne, you don’t know about suburban moms – they’re educated, holding college degrees and then some.  

Maybe they didn’t all go to Harvard like you did, Arne, or Columbia, like your boss, but their college degrees are just as good as yours.

Because today they’re doctors, lawyers, cardiac nurses and registered ones, too, FBI agents, securities regulators, pharmacists, writers, journalists, public relations executives, bank regulators, accountants, sales, marketing and advertising executives, teachers and one I know pretty well manages a sizeable city in a western state.

So Arne, they’re not going to stand for being disparaged as a bunch of no-nothings, and they’re not buying snake oil either!

The taxpayers, Arne, pay your salary.  In this democracy of ours – as suburban moms will be happy to remind you – you report to us!

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/18/who-are-the-enemies-of-common-core/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/24/more-states-delay-common-core-testing-as-concerns-grow/

http://mrsmomblog.com/2013/10/02/how-common-core-is-slowly-changing-my-child/