LA Times draws on expertise of Paul L. Thomas in article about MS reading scores

Furman University’s Paul Thomas, an education professor, is cited in an article appearing in the Los Angeles Times about Mississippi’s seemingly “miraculous” gains in fourth-grade reading scores. Calling the glowing reports “a statistical illusion,” columnist Michael Hiltzik points to other factors besides instructional technique in Mississippi and elsewhere that predict reading outcomes. For that, he turns to Thomas to support his argument. Hiltzik writes, “Education expert Paul L. Thomas has identified the key factors as ‘food and work security, healthcare, [and] class size.’ Those get neglected in the literacy debate, he observed, ‘even though these conditions combined would dwarf any measurable impact of teacher quality or program/standards quality.’”