A new report on whole-book reading in secondary English classrooms arrives at a useful moment. The debate over whether students in school has become increasingly , and at times nearly . A growing chorus insists that American schools have abandoned literature and are trapped in a joyless regime of excerpt-driven “skills instruction” imposed by standards-aligned curriculum and testing. Rand brings something refreshing to the conversation: evidence. And, as it tends to do, the evidence complicates nearly everyone’s preferred narrative.

The report’s headline finding is less alarming than much of the recent rhetoric would suggest: Nearly 90% of secondary English Language Arts teachers report assigning at least one full fiction or nonfiction book during the school year. About two-thirds assign between one and four books annually, while roughly one-quarter assign five or more. Clearly, that’s not a picture of novels disappearing entirely from classrooms. But neither is it particularly reassuring. For one thing, the report doesn’t tell if the average number of books assigned has declined, or which books students are reading: graphic novels or classic literature? The authors also acknowledged, “We do not know the form their assignment took; teachers could have used the book for whole-class instruction or as a choice for independent reading.”

The researchers’ most troubling finding is that teachers serving disadvantaged students consistently assign fewer books. Students in high-poverty schools or majority nonwhite schools, multilingual learners and students with disabilities all appear less likely to experience sustained encounters with complete works of literature. 

That matters, because reading a book is not just an extended version of reading a passage. It requires different cognitive habits: sustained attention, memory, fluency and the ability to remain immersed in language and ideas over long stretches of time. As Doug Lemov noted in a I hosted recently, teaching whole books effectively means cultivating “cognitive persistence” in ways that are becoming increasingly rare in our fragmented digital culture. 

So, if there is a singularly troubling implication in the Rand report, it is not that books have vanished. It’s that the students most in need of the benefits that whole books provide appear least likely to receive them.

The report also contains a finding that will delight critics of standards-aligned curriculum: Teachers using publisher-developed instructional materials assigned fewer books on average than educators using self- or district-created materials. Rand cautiously suggests that excerpt-heavy curriculum design may partly explain the trend. That said, I suspect the authors of the report may be assigning too much causal weight to curriculum publishers and not enough to the accountability systems that have shaped their products. For at least a quarter-century, high-stakes reading tests have functionally imposed a theory of literacy upon American educators that views reading comprehension primarily a suite of transferable skills that can be amply demonstrated on short, decontextualized passages: finding the main idea, making inferences, citing evidence, identifying author’s purpose and so on.

If that is what policymakers demand and tests reward, curriculum publishers would be irrational not to align their products to it. Said differently, the tests drive practice. Curricula are adapted to the tests. This is one reason I have that reading exams damage literacy instruction: they subtly teach educators to think about reading in ways that are at odds with cognitive science, leading schools to de-emphasize the importance of background knowledge, vocabulary and fluency in favor of a skills-and-strategies approach that assumes reading comprehension can be taught, practiced and mastered via repeated practice on brief passages. This approach largely conflicts with the science of reading that policymakers, literacy advocates and curriculum reformers are to persuade states, districts and schools to embrace.

To be sure, testing mandates in grades 3 to 8 cannot fully explain the decline of whole-book instruction in high school. But accountability systems helped shape the field’s broader conception of reading itself — not merely elementary and middle school test prep. High school assessments like the SAT largely reinforce these signals, emphasizing analytical skills applied to . The point is not that standardized tests directly cause teachers to assign fewer novels in high school. It’s that the accountability era has normalized a fragmented theory of reading across the entire K-12 system. 

It would be a mistake to respond to the Rand report with a simplistic demand to raise the novel count. Assigning lots of books is not automatically good instruction. A poorly taught novel can easily become an exercise in disengagement or superficial discussion. What matters is whether schools and teachers understand why whole books matter in the first place and can confidently guide their students through literary analysis and conversation.

The AEI webinar I hosted last month touched on both of these crucial topics. During the event, Lemov argued that whole books are cognitively powerful precisely because they demand sustained thought. They immerse students in language rich enough to shape how they themselves think and speak. Reading a book requires students to hold ideas in memory over time, revise their understanding as characters evolve and tolerate ambiguity long enough for meaning to emerge.

Mike Austin of Great Hearts Academies made a related and more humanistic point: Books welcome students into an ongoing cultural and moral conversation larger than themselves. Whole books matter not merely because they are long, but because they allow students to inhabit another consciousness deeply enough to encounter enduring questions about human life and moral values. 

On the question of how to teach books effectively, Kyair Butts, a Baltimore middle school teacher, emphasized the importance of building classrooms where students feel safe taking academic risks, reading aloud, building fluency and participating in shared intellectual work.  Lemov reinforced this point by sharing a video of eighth graders reading To Kill a Mockingbird together in class. Their teacher walked around the room, paper book in hand, as she modeled expressive reading, cold-called on students to read and encouraged self-correction. All these practices help students develop their reading fluency, a key aspect of upper-grade literacy.

In sum, good ELA instruction doesn’t happen simply because a publisher inserts a novel into a curriculum map. Nor will schools fully recover sustained literary reading until or unless policymakers and administrators create structures that signal its value and reward it. For years, schools received the opposite signal. 

The question now is whether schools are prepared to reclaim a richer understanding of reading itself — not as a toolbox of comprehension “skills” or test prep, but as immersion in language, knowledge, memory, narrative and thought.

Annika Hernandez, a research associate in education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a former middle and high school English teacher, contributed to this essay.

The 12-11 vote fell along party lines, with the Republican chairman of the committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, calling McMahon “the partner this committee needs to improve the nation’s education system.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who is the committee’s ranking member, said he liked McMahon personally. “I respect the work she has done in building a large and successful business.” But he said no matter who the education secretary is, “he or she will not have the power” to make consequential decisions. A small group of people in The White House, he said, will be “calling the shots.”

Sanders was referring to massive cuts at the department by auditors deputized by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Along with other Democrats, Sanders criticized White House plans to dismantle the U.S. Education Department, which he said “provides vital resources for 26 million kids who live in high-poverty school districts. These are the kids who most need our help.”

During her confirmation hearing last week, McMahon said she supported dismantling the department, but admitted that the administration needs congressional support to do it. 

“We’d like to do this right,” she told the committee. “We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with.”

Sanders on Thursday said that was misguided. “Is it a perfect entity?” he said. “No. Is it bureaucratic? Yes. Can we reform it? Yes. Should we abolish it? No.”

Likewise, Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said he’d vote no on McMahon’s nomination for that reason. “I can’t vote for somebody who will willfully engage in the destruction of the very agency she wants to lead. That is disqualifying.”

McMahon’s nomination proceeds as the administration sends decidedly mixed signals on its education agenda. President Trump has nominated two experienced, well-regarded educators — North Dakota state Superintendent Kirsten Baesler and former Tennessee education chief Penny Schwinn — as top lieutenants to McMahon, even as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency decimates the department’s research arm, slashing millions of dollars in contracts in search of waste, fraud and abuse. At a press conference last week, Trump called the department “a con job.” 

McMahon, for her part, has said she supports DOGE’s work, saying, “It is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door.” 

While she’s expected to easily earn confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate, with support among conservative groups, McMahon faces opposition from education and civil rights groups that more broadly oppose the White House education cuts. 

The conservative group last week said Trump was smart to nominate McMahon to lead the department “in what we hope is a short tenure” as she works to shutter it.

Conservative commentator Rick Hess McMahon’s WWE experience gives her the right background for the top job: “Considering that it’s an agency that’s long been plagued by low morale and accused of being too chummy with the unions and the college cartel,” he wrote, “there’s a strong case that what’s needed is an outsider with a strong managerial track record.”

By contrast, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights on Wednesday urged lawmakers to reject her nomination, saying in a co-signed by more than 240 groups that she’s “unprepared and unqualified” to lead the agency. Her confirmation would be “disastrous for students, their families, and educators,” the group said. 

Worth more than $3 billion

One of 13 billionaires tapped to lead Trump’s administration, McMahon has held tightly to Trump’s key education priorities: advancing private school choice, preventing trans students from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity and fighting antisemitism. 

McMahon’s confirmation has taken longer to schedule than those of most other cabinet nominees as the education committee waited for her to complete ethics paperwork detailing vast financial assets and ties to far-right organizations. Her net worth totals more than $3 billion.

As a board member of Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the president’s Truth Social platform, she earns $18,400 quarterly. Politico reported that she also received stock in the company worth more than $800,000 in late January. McMahon is also on the advisory council for the Daily Caller, a conservative media outlet that has given her favorable coverage. 

If confirmed, McMahon has promised to step down from her board positions, forfeit any shares in Truth Social that she doesn’t yet fully own and divest from those that she does within three months. She also earns interest income from education-related municipal bonds that fund school construction across the country and has pledged to divest from those as well.

A vote before the full Senate has yet to be scheduled.