I'll assume you're familiar with the Bi/Bi method of Deaf education. Previously, I had been a Teacher of the Deaf and for a while, I contemplated the idea of having a bi/bi approach in educating my students, but with a twist;
I would use Cued English for the reading assignments, and ASL for everything else. That way, the narrow prism afforded by Cued English is trained upon Deaf children in their literacy efforts. While Cued English can also double as a communications method, I prefer to look at it as a literacy tool in mastering English, no more or no less.
However, I never got the chance, for reasons beyond my control. My #1 problem was that I did not know cueing. At first, I thought I could learn a little here and there, and be somewhat ahead of my students, and learn Cueing along the way. But I quickly realized that for each consonant, I had to learn every possible vowel pair to go with it. All of a sudden, I felt I had to be truly fluent in Cued English in order to use it in my classroom.Granted, I'll give you that Cued (Speech) English has been mischaracterized, misunderstood, and glossed over in so many years from so many people involved in Deaf Education. Nonetheless, I'll take a stab;
Deaf people have long denigrated Cued Speech, myself included. It relied on lip-reading and looked too artifical for practical use. It also relied on residual hearing and speech ability for it to be truly effective. As many Deaf people can attest, we rebel at the slightest hint of speech/aural therapy!
However, it appears that Cued Speech now has 'reinvented' itself to be Cued
English, with emphasis on literacy. The lipreading/speech component has been deprecated or given little emphasis. It is along those lines where I would consider using Cued English in aiding young Deaf students in reading/writing English.
Also, more emphasis has been placed on early language acquisition aspect of Cued English, where the family picks it up and starts using it with their Deaf child, long before school starts. This alone has made Cued English all that more appealing to me, as I have encountered students coming from language-deprived households.
As for why Cued English has not been in widespread use in Deaf educational settings all over America, I really am at a loss. Literacy remains the #1 problem in Deaf education, and I find it truly surprising that Deaf educators are still grappling with this vexing problem for so long. If not Cued English, then something else has to come forward! Maybe as some commentators have suggested, too much has been invested in the current state of Deaf education, to consider fresh new alternatives, even those as old as Cued English.I share the same exact concern. There need to be scientific studies done in using Cued English and the results to be measured objectively as much as possible. To date, I have not heard of any significant studies done with a large sample and reliable data collection on how Cued English affects literacy efforts of Deaf children.