Listening to him desperately try to understand stories, struggling to sound out words and losing the plot, was a deeply painful experience for us both. I read the whole book out loud to him. After we finished reading together, he lay in his top bunk and stared at a copy of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” I hoped he’d be able to read the words, but I know the truth is that he picks books like that because he can follow the pictures when the letters are too jumbled to make sense of.

This isn’t the first kid I have seen struggle to read. In fact, I have seen hundreds of them. 

In 2010, I was a special education teacher at North High School in Denver. My first week on the job, I was asked to screen incoming freshmen to place struggling readers in an intervention class. As I sat and listened to each one read, I heard the same pain that I hear at night when I listen to my own son. 

The average child in that incoming ninth grade class was reading at a sixth grade level. There were enough 15-year-olds reading below a third grade level to fill an entire classroom. They were old enough to get a learner’s permit to drive a car, but they had been failed so acutely by their education that they could not even write their last names. They could not read the words “question” or “equation,” but had to somehow keep up with high school algebra.��

The worst part of this story is that these kids are in the majority. In nearly every state, fewer than half of students are reading on grade level. Nearly 7 out of 10 high school seniors graduate without being considered proficient readers. These are the people who will be reviewing your medical records, building your houses and measuring the dosage on your prescriptions. 

This cannot continue. So what is the solution? 

The , introduced by a bipartisan coalition led by Sens. Bill Cassidy and Maggie Hassan, is a great start to addressing the nation’s literacy crisis. The legislation is a chance to finally stop pretending this problem will fix itself. If passed, it will help states use proven strategies to teach kids how to read, identify and support struggling students early, and give teachers and families the tools they need to step in before it’s too late. 

In practice, the Read Act would mean that more children are screened early for literacy challenges, so problems are caught before they turn into years of frustration. It would require schools to notify parents if their child is falling behind and to clearly explain what the screening or assessment showed, what supports the school will provide to get students back on track, and what families can do at home to help. Just as importantly, the Read Act would push states to ensure that teachers are trained in evidence-based reading instruction and that classrooms are using high-quality materials that actually teach kids how to read, so fewer families are left trying to fill the gaps on their own.

The science of reading points to an interdisciplinary body of research that emphasizes a structured way of teaching how letters combine into sounds, how sounds combine into words and how words combine to generate meaning. 

Mississippi’s rise from 49th in the nation to the top 10 in fourth grade reading started when the state adopted the science of reading. But the state also backed that shift with literacy coaches, early screening and targeted interventions to help struggling students before they fell too far behind. Using the same approach, Louisiana and Alabama are seeing similar gains. But nationwide, progress remains uneven, with some states embracing these evidence-based strategies while others have been .

The future of America’s children and the country’s prosperity rely on a solution to this problem, and the stakes are too high to patchwork it together. Families need a real, national plan to ensure that children do not continue to fall behind. 

Reading is not optional, and families are no longer willing to accept a system where children are promoted year after year without the skills they need. All students deserve a future where they can thrive, and families like mine deserve a future where they aren’t left reading bedtime stories with a knot in their stomachs. Literacy needs to become a national priority, and that needs to happen now.

This story was originally published by .�� for their newsletters.

It’s not quite the “Mississippi Miracle,” but California’s reading scores have been inching upwards since the state poured billions into changing the way students learn to read. A shortage of literacy coaches, however, may be preventing students from improving even more.

In 2013, before California  in K-12 schools, the state ranked  for fourth grade reading skills on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card. Only 27% of students scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the reading test, given every two years to students across the country.

The following year California released a new English language arts framework that encourages schools to focus on phonics, vocabulary and other nuts-and-bolts methods when teaching children to read. Phonics-based instruction won’t  until next year, but most schools have been gradually adopting the method.

Next came new curriculum materials,  and updates to teacher credential programs. The state also expanded  and implemented new guidelines for English learners.

But perhaps the biggest literacy investment came in 2023 with $500 million in grants set aside for schools to hire literacy coaches and take other steps to boost reading skills. The coaches – typically, former classroom teachers with extra training in reading – work directly with teachers to help them effectively teach children to read. Last year the state added $215 million, and the most recent budget includes an  for literacy coaches.

Mississippi, whose reading scores went from 49th in the country in 2013 to 9th in 2024, partially credits the turnaround to literacy coaches and other teacher training tactics. Mississippi’s reading framework is similar to California’s, but Mississippi invested heavily in training teachers to implement it, while California rolled out its training program over several years.

Reading scores inch up

California’s reading scores have improved gradually — but significantly — since 2013. Last year, California ranked  nationwide, with 13 states scoring higher and the rest scoring the same or lower. This happened at the same time that national scores began falling.

On statewide tests, the number of fourth graders reading at grade level jumped from  in 2014 to  last year. Before the pandemic, the percentage was close to 50%, dropped a few points when schools switched to remote learning, but has been inching back up since then.

Fourth grade is a key benchmark for literacy because by fifth grade, students need reading skills sufficient to understand other subjects such as history and science. Students who aren’t proficient readers by fourth grade are more likely to lag academically in other subjects.  have found that adults with low literacy skills are more likely to be unemployed, incarcerated or face other challenges.

Sarah Novicoff, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, that found that California’s literacy investments have paid off — with a caveat.

“They’ve absolutely had a positive impact,” Novicoff said. “But we have an opportunity to do an even better job.”

Novicoff found that nearly 60% of school districts used their grant money to hire literacy coaches to work with teachers, reading specialists to work directly with students, or otherwise arranged for teacher training related to literacy.

School districts that made those investments saw significant improvements in reading scores, including among English learners, she found. Results varied by district, but in general students scored 6 points higher on state tests within two years of the investments, she found. She expects the scores to rise further over time.

Some districts struggle to hire literacy coaches

But plenty of school districts hired no literacy coaches. Not because they didn’t want to, but because there were none to hire. In fact, 42% of districts said they had trouble hiring coaches.

“I’d love to hire a literacy coach,” said Patricia Gunderson, superintendent of the Lassen County Office of Education. “It’s great the state is offering the money, but we just can’t do it. We don’t have the capacity.”

In remote and rural parts of the state, finding literacy coaches has proved to be nearly impossible – and has hindered improvement, Novicoff found. For example, Lassen County, along the northern Nevada border, can barely find enough credentialed teachers, let alone education professionals with advanced specialty degrees. And even if schools could hire literacy coaches, they couldn’t find enough substitutes to fill in for teachers undergoing training.

But Lassen has been creative in finding ways to boost literacy. In 2023, for example, it held a weeklong summer training course for teachers, where teachers were paid to learn the new curriculum and the course didn’t interrupt the school year. Gunderson said it was a big success; state reading test scores jumped more than 7 percentage points, although still lag behind the state average.

In Siskiyou County, along the Oregon border, county superintendent Allan Carver said he welcomes the state’s investment in literacy coaches, but it’s created another problem: Teachers are opting to become literacy coaches, possibly because it’s less stressful or pays a bit more, leaving vacancies in the classroom.

“We work to solve one issue and further exacerbate the teacher shortage,” Carver said. “We have to develop the literacy coach pipeline before we simply allocate funds and expectations for training.”

In Baldwin Park, in the San Gabriel Valley, principal Laura Rodriguez said literacy coaches have been instrumental in turning around her school’s reading scores. Using state grant money, Tracy Elementary has added a literacy coach who works closely with the school’s teachers, aides and reading specialist.

The literacy coach, Claudia Barba, holds workshops for teachers and parents, trains the aides, assesses the students, analyzes data, and gives feedback to teachers. She’s also devised a literacy plan that looks closely at the causes for the low scores and specifically addresses the reasons.

“She is amazing,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve seen such a difference since we started this. It has changed our campus.”

Tracy Elementary, a Spanish-English dual immersion school, is mostly low-income. More than 30% of students are English learners. The literacy plan teaches children to read in Spanish first, then English, by focusing on vocabulary and phonics in both languages. By third grade, when the state first tests students’ reading skills, students are fairly fluent readers in both languages.

In just two years, after hiring the literacy coach, Tracy’s reading scores jumped more than 10 percentage points. Even English learners saw their scores significantly increase. Other metrics also improved: Chronic absenteeism dropped from 44% just after the pandemic to 11% last year. Math scores are increasing, too.

“Literacy is the key to everything. If a child can read, they can access knowledge. They start to enjoy school,” Rodriguez said. “They can get a better education.”

This article was  and was republished under the  license.

More than 40 states now mandate evidence-based reading instruction in public schools. The specifics in these new laws and regulations vary — most require that schools use high-quality curriculum based on the Science of Reading, many invest in new teacher training, and some ban discredited methods. But they all have one thing in common: a focus on the early grades. 

In my nonprofit’s work supporting districts to implement new curriculum and instruction, we’ve seen educators work tirelessly to shift classroom practice. We’ve then seen them joyfully experience the positive impacts on teaching and learning. And we’ve been hearing a consistent question.

What about high school?

Time and again, school and district leaders would pose the same questions about grades 9-12 that we were exploring in K-8. They wanted guidance about what high-quality English curriculum should look like. They were looking for materials that would nurture literacy for older students, especially those who struggled with grade-level texts. They were asking: How could they identify well-designed materials that truly support strong English instruction in high school, especially as it relates to building knowledge through rigorous, content-rich texts?

At the same time, we were hearing from publishers. Some were expanding their programs for younger students to include high school English, while others were interested in strengthening existing materials. Several were just getting started developing something new. No matter where they were on this journey, publishers wanted thoughtful, evidence-based criteria and feedback to ensure their materials reflected the strongest research and instructional design principles. 

They weren’t simply looking for a rating — they wanted guidance that would help them build evidence-based curriculum that met the needs of high school teachers and students. 

These many questions converged. It became clear that there was an opportunity to create a shared framework that could support both sides of the equation: helping publishers develop stronger curriculum, while helping districts make more informed adoption decisions. That inspired the Knowledge Matters .

We had past experience to draw on: In 2023, we created a review framework for evidence-based, knowledge-building ELA in . We built on that foundation while bringing together additional experts with deep experience in high school English, to ensure the criteria reflected the unique demands of academic expectations and classroom instruction in grades 9-12. 

That yielded a set of about two dozen criteria across eight domains, starting with a curriculum’s alignment to the science of reading. A strong curriculum uses evidence-based practices that accelerate student literacy, such as building vocabulary and knowledge through reading a substantial and coherent volume of texts. That helps students grapple with challenging texts, including through communal close reads that build students’ stamina, confidence and ability to ensure that what they read makes sense. It also engages students with content-rich topics drawn from history, science, the arts and literature, because a rich knowledge base is what makes complex texts comprehensible and literary analysis meaningful. 

Our tool identifies the features of a curriculum that foster this growth, including activities that systematically develop academic and domain-specific vocabulary; guidance for educators to engage students in productive and sustained academic discussions; explicit instruction in writing and frequent writing opportunities anchored in texts; targeted supports to grant equitable access to grade-level content; and predictable, effective instructional routines and teacher-facing materials to inform professional learning.

We then field-tested the tool by reviewing Novel HS ELA, a knowledge-rich, novel-based 9-12 program published by , The curriculum was designed to foster engagement with rich literature while also developing the knowledge, analytical skills and reading experiences that prepare teenagers for success in college, careers and civic life. Working through the review process helped us refine the tool while providing meaningful feedback to support the development of the materials. It also provided insights into how hard many publishers are working to put strong curriculum into the hands of great teachers. 

Ultimately, our goal is pretty simple: help more educators gain access to the strongest possible instructional materials. We believe that better curriculum sets the foundation for strong teaching, and that clearer guidance helps both curriculum developers and school systems move the field forward. 

When educators have a common language of excellence, both teaching and learning thrive. Our hope is that this tool supports high school educators to develop a shared understanding of what high-quality literacy instruction looks like and where instructional time is best spent. The tool isn’t just a way to evaluate materials — it’s an opportunity to identify and inspire the rigorous, engaging, effective English curriculum and instruction that all high school students deserve.

The classroom at the Northeast Community Action Partnership Early Head Start was part of a five-week program that uses the recorders — often called talk pedometers — to gather data on teacher-child interactions and train their educators to guide them toward longer, more in-depth conversations. The program is offered by the national nonprofit , or Language Environment Analysis, which uses the technology to research young children’s language skills.

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute, an education research center at the University of Nebraska, partnered with seven rural and urban Head Start locations to use Lena technology this spring with more than 1,300 children. It was Nebraska’s first statewide implementation, funded by a five-year, $1.3 million geared toward helping states create programming to improve child literacy skills.

Lena has existed as a research nonprofit for more than two decades, but its professional development program, Lena Grow, started about six years ago. Last year, Florida lawmakers to provide Lena Grow to more than 400 preschools. The program has been over the past two years with a $3.2 million grant. Tennessee currently uses the technology in more than .

“It’s such a huge opportunity to be able to utilize these grant funds because it sets a really wonderful foundation for [children] as they enter kindergarten,” said Paula Thompson, a University of Nebraska-Kearney professor and one of the grant project directors. “It will hopefully have positive outcomes as we look toward that ultimate goal of increasing third grade proficiency.”

The work follows decades of discussion over how preschoolers best learn language. 

A found a dramatic difference in the number of words heard by children, depending on their family’s income — often referred to as the 30-million-word gap. has found that it’s not so much the number of words children hear, but the quality of the language they are exposed to.

Researchers have that talk and interaction between adults and children in their first few years of life often impacts future cognitive development and academic achievement. This engagement is measured in “conversational turns,” or the back-and-forth exchange of words between children and adults. 

“The term ‘serve and return’ is kind of a basic analogy for these conversational turn-taking events,” Thompson said. “It’s been a foundation in language and literacy for years, and we just continue to strive toward better understanding it.” 

Lena records and collects data about conversational turns through the device in each child’s purple vest. Daycares, preschools and Head Start centers use the data and training to increase the number of conversational turns between adults and children.

Lena Grow was designed to be used by all children in a classroom, but it is especially helpful for kids who don’t talk much or are at risk of — meaning they get fewer than five back-and-forth exchanges with an adult per hour. An of 33,256 children using Lena Grow found that 13% experienced language isolation.

“The way to improve literacy is actually to invest in and support language development in these early years,” said Alexandra Daro, director of applied research for the Buffett Institute. “The more back and forth you can get in a particular conversation, the better children are able to pick up on the language that you’re using.”

A child’s use of conversational turns has been to early literacy skills, social development and IQ scores. 

A June shows that the 51 children who participated in Nebraska’s initial Lena Grow program increased their conversational turns by 21% over the course of five weeks — from 33.5 to 40.6 per hour.

Children in center-based childcare average 15 hourly turns, but an optimal early talk environment is roughly 40, according to Lena. Youngsters who began Nebraska’s Lena Grow program with fewer than 15 hourly conversational turns boosted their talk by 111%, from an average of 9.7 to 20.5.

During the professional development program, early childhood centers have the children wear their vests one day per week. The recorder collects the number of conversational turns per child, in whatever language they are speaking, while the teacher continues the day like normal.

Norfolk educator Cassie Niedig said the data brought attention to children the adults weren’t talking to as much, such as Elvis, a 3-year-old who is nonverbal. It also showed that some toddlers were vocalizing words but not creating conversational turns with adults.

“I thought I was talking to Elvis a lot,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much more we talked to Marlo versus the other [children] — he’s our best talker because he’s the oldest. But even though he’s talking a lot, it’s not necessarily with conversational turns.”

Niedig said the toddlers loved the vests when they were first introduced to them, but there have been struggles because the children are so young. 

“We’ve had a couple of issues just because they want you to let them play, and they don’t want to have to put them on. But otherwise, we’ve had a great time with it,” she said. “We just let them talk, and I do not treat it any differently than a normal day other than trying to focus on whatever goal we are focusing on that week.”

One student with sensory issues struggled wearing one at first, but got used to it within a couple of hours. Placing stickers on the front of the vests also helped the kids warm up to the idea of wearing them once a week.

At Dodge County Head Start in Fremont, Nebraska, the 5-year-olds in the Lena program were excited to wear their vests, said Brittany Brown, a Head Start education specialist. One boy said the bulky recorder on the front made him feel like Iron Man — the device reminded him of the glowing reactor in the center of the superhero’s suit.

“They feel a little empowered, and they really like having it — there’s no hesitancy to put the vest on,” Brown said.

After a day of recording, the data is uploaded and analyzed. Then, a Lena coach — often a local staff member trained by the nonprofit — teaches the educators participating in the program ways to increase the number of turns. 

“The teacher is able to see if there is a certain hour where there’s a dip, and they’re able to discuss with their coaches ways to increase those conversational turns throughout the day,” said Rocy O’Keefe, the nonprofit’s chief growth officer.

During the coaching sessions, educators choose strategies to implement in the classroom. For example, Lena recommends that while teachers talk, read or sing with a child, they should comment on what the student is doing, name things the child is interested in, wait for responses, imitate them or get down on the children’s eye level so interactions are face-to-face.

“The coaches will work with teachers to set a goal based on the observations of the data — either a classroom average goal, or they are looking at individual children who might need some individualized attention,” Daro said. “Then the teachers practice throughout the rest of the week.”

Amy Bloomquist, coaching coordinator and area manager, was trained by Lena to be a coach for the Norfolk Head Start program. She said teachers have responded well to working on a specific topic each week to increase conversational turns. They also talk to families about the program after parents have given permission for their child to wear the recording device. 

“Each week they’re sending an informational flyer home with the families, sparking some conversation between the teachers and the families,” she said. “They’re also giving them some tips on how to increase conversational turns at home.”

In Nebraska, 22 Head Start centers are eligible to participate in the program, and Thompson said the Buffett Institute hopes to work with as many as it can by the end of the five-year grant. Its main goals for the next few years are not only for Nebraska children to improve their conversational turns, but for Lena Grow to increase 4-year-olds’ literacy scores on an assessment of early childhood development called Teaching Strategies Gold, or TS Gold. Lena Grow has been to improve language and literacy scores on these assessments in other states, such as Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and Washington, D.C.��

“The dream goal is to also eventually be able to work with the school districts that these kids are entering into to look at improvement in TS Gold [scores] as they transition into kindergarten,” Daro said. “So, big dreams, but that’s what we’re going for.”

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation and Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to Lena and �鶹��Ʒ.

But while screen time limits are one solution, they still treat the screen itself as the problem, when a screen is simply another opportunity for communication and exploration, just like a book, game or toy. With this in mind, what if the real question isn’t, “How much screen time is okay for kids?” but, “How can we make children’s screen time more meaningful?”

At Pittsburgh’s PBS station WQED, we believe literacy starts long before a child can decode words on a page. It starts with conversation, curiosity, stories, songs, play and trusted characters who help children make meaning of the world. Instead of asking whether screens are good or bad, we should be asking: What kind of on-screen media are children engaging with, and how is that shaping their relationship with reading? 

When content is intentionally designed to build literacy skills through storytelling, vocabulary exposure and narrative comprehension, it can complement and encourage reading behaviors. from The Ohio State University found that first graders who engaged more frequently with educational media not only spent more time reading but also spent less overall time on screens. This emerging research complicates the long-held assumption that all screen time displaces reading and may even help shift the narrative toward seeing meaningful screen use as a gateway to developing healthy reading habits.

Educational media can also introduce children to characters, story arcs, vocabulary and language structures that mirror the foundations of books. in the American Educational Research Journal that reviewed evaluations involving more than 24,000 children, educational media developed through the Ready to Learn initiative was found to have positive effects on early literacy skills, including comprehension, vocabulary and phonological awareness.

The point is not that all screen time is equal; it is that trusted, intentionally designed media can help open the door to reading.

The interactivity and engagement of screen time can also be beneficial. One of the most consistent findings across early childhood research When used thoughtfully, highly engaging and interactive educational media can help caregivers and educators create everyday literacy moments, especially in communities where access to books, time, and resources can vary.��

That’s why, in Pittsburgh, WQED has joined the “” campaign — a collaborative effort among libraries, literacy organizations, and The Grable Foundation to not only put more books in young people’s hands, but also to support the region’s adults as allies in children’s literacy.

Parents and early childhood educators can further support this approach by asking children open-ended questions, connecting media to children’s own experiences and turning screen time into a shared literacy experience. I’ve personally watched a child become absorbed in an episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, then walk across the room to find a similar idea waiting in a book. That moment of recognition — that connection — is how a love of reading starts to blossom. And when children move from consuming stories to creating them through drawing and writing, it further strengthens their confidence and their identity as readers and storytellers.

We are raising children in a media-rich world. The answer is not to pretend screens will disappear or to leave families to navigate them alone. The answer is to surround children with meaningful stories — on the page, on the screen, in classrooms, in libraries and at home — and help caring adults turn those stories into conversation, curiosity and confidence. If we want to raise a generation of readers, we should see the educational media that children engage with on screens not being in competition with books but as another pathway to discover the joy of reading.

Over the last decade, has embraced evidence-based reading instruction. Legislatures have passed literacy laws, and teacher preparation programs are (slowly) shifting their . Those changes are paying off: According to from the DIBELS early reading screener, 30% of second graders ended the year far offtrack in reading, the best mark since 2019-20.��

Massachusetts is the latest state to join the movement. Last month, Gov. Maura Health a that requires school districts to use evidence-based reading instruction, prohibit the use of three-cueing and other discredited word-guessing strategies, require educator preparation programs to teach evidence-based literacy methods, expand screening for students with dyslexia and create a process for the state department of education to review and approve K-3 reading curricula.

Massachusetts is now a test case for what I like to think of as the Lexington Problem.

If a district has low reading scores and uses instructional practices that are inconsistent with what has been about how children learn to read, the case is clear for switching to an evidence-based science of reading approach.

But Lexington’s young readers are not struggling. They have relatively strong . So, perhaps not surprisingly, the prospect of being forced to change their literacy practices hasn’t sat well with Lexington’s leaders.

Famously, Lexington is the place where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired. Today, it’s a wealthy suburb about 10 miles outside of Boston. Its are extremely well-educated — 84% have a bachelor’s degree or higher — and the median price for purchasing a house is $1.2 million.

As state legislators debated the science of reading bill, Lexington Public Schools attracted because it continued to use literacy materials associated with (much-maligned) balanced literacy approaches, including Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study . (The district uses a supplemental program called in an attempt to fill in gaps.) The superintendent has been an outspoken of the state legislature’s efforts.

Perhaps in spite of its curricular choice, and thanks in part to the families it serves, Lexington’s students score pretty well on state tests. Last year, 70% of its third graders scored in reading, compared with 42% statewide. Lexington doesn’t have a lot of poor kids, but its low-income third graders outperformed their peers statewide (44% versus 24%). Only 25% of Lexington’s children with disabilities reached the same bar, but even so, that was higher than the statewide average of 14%.

�鶹��Ʒ even named two Lexington schools — Joseph Estabrook and Harrington Elementary — to our list of Bright Spots schools whose third grade reading scores outperformed what would be expected based on their poverty rates.

The new law includes a waiver allowing districts to continue using unapproved reading curricula if those are “based on evidence-based literacy instruction” and can “meet quality standards” as determined by the state department of education. While it’s not clear yet what that process will look like, EdReports gives Lexington’s current program a rating of “,” so it seems unlikely it would pass muster. 

In an ideal world, Lexington’s leaders would see the writing on the wall and adopt a new, better curriculum for K-3 literacy. It’s quite likely that its students would earn even higher scores if it did a better job teaching foundational skills.��

But Lexington’s test results illustrate a broader policy problem. Science of reading reforms have been most successful when they focused on basic skills where the evidence is strongest and the policy solutions are clearest. States can require phonics instruction. They can prohibit three-cueing. They can require universal screening and force changes at colleges of education.

But literacy involves more than the basics. Strong reading outcomes also depend on vocabulary, background knowledge, writing and countless other factors that are harder to regulate from a state capitol. 

And that’s what makes cases like Lexington so complicated. As Massachusetts moves from identifying a problem to implementing solutions, it should remain careful not to confuse compliance with success. A district using the “right” curriculum will not automatically produce strong readers, just as a district using a disputed curriculum will not necessarily fail its students. The best way forward is to keep focusing on the goal of helping more kids learn to read.

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

California librarians were stunned when a last-minute budget change stripped K-12 schools of a trove of research materials, potentially leaving thousands of students without resources to do reports, projects or homework assignments.

Without notice to schools or librarians, the Legislature last week canceled $5.5 million that pays online fees for the Encyclopedia Britannica, New York Times, PBS videos such as Ken Burns documentaries, scientific journals and thousands of other online materials used by students and teachers. The cut goes into effect on July 1, 2027.

“We had no idea this was coming,” said Greg Lucas, head of the California State Library, which helps oversee the program for California’s 10,000 public schools. “This will have a huge impact on California students.”

The program, called , is an online database of research and curriculum materials that have been vetted by teachers and librarians. Compass is also available through public libraries, but the vast majority of users are at K-12 schools. Since the program launched in 2018, it’s received nearly 1 billion hits.

Students use Compass for classroom assignments as well as for recreation. Many of the materials are available in multiple languages. Among the more popular features are National Geographic Kids; Pebble Go Science, which includes hundreds of science activities for pre-kindergarten through second grade; and Alexander Street, which offers videos of cultural performances such as the Joffrey Ballet and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Compass is especially important at a time when fewer schools have libraries — and librarians — to help students with research. Although nearly 90% of schools have physical space on campus for books, magazines and other research materials, only about a quarter of those spaces are staffed by librarians. The rest are staffed by volunteers, classified employees or not at all. California ranks 49th nationwide in school librarian staffing, with nearly 10,000 students for each librarian, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Compass is available free to all schools in California. If schools were to subscribe individually to Compass materials, they’d spend more than $216 million annually, according to a . A typical medium-sized school district might pay $100,000 or more for the services, an expense lower-income districts are less likely to have money for.

Losing the service raises concerns about internet access

Without access to Compass materials, students would likely rely on free resources online. But those materials tend to contain advertisements or track user data, a violation of state student privacy laws. They also are less likely to be vetted for accuracy, a particular danger in the age of artificial intelligence.

“Losing Compass is catastrophic for the state of California,” said Kate MacMillan, library services coordinator for Napa Valley Unified. “This service is a lifeline. I can’t believe the Legislature would let this happen.”

Funding for Compass was in earlier versions of the budget the Legislature debated over the past few months. But the final version eliminated Compass funding after July 1, 2027. Instead, it directs $5 million of the funding toward the , and $60,000 for technical support of an online lesson-sharing platform called California Educators Together.

Legislators and staff members on the budget education committees contacted by CalMatters did not comment on why the money was cut.

Meanwhile, librarians are launching an aggressive campaign to save the program. They’re emailing Newsom and the Legislature, and trying to bring attention to the issue.

Connie Williams, a retired school librarian and former head of the California School Library Association, said that losing Compass will exacerbate disparities in the state’s education system. Lower-income schools will lose crucial learning resources, while higher-income schools will be able to pay the subscription costs themselves, without state assistance.

“The disparity will be overwhelmingly glaring,” Williams said. “We’re leaving students at the mercy of whatever is free on the internet.”

It’s especially galling, she said, that this move comes as the state is promoting media and digital literacy in schools. In 2023 California enacted a law requiring schools to in all subjects, with a focus on teaching students to recognize fake news, determine if an information source is trustworthy and generally think critically about what they view and read online.

“We want students to think critically, put away their phones, know how to do research,” Williams said. “And we’re grabbing away some of the best learning tools we have.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Touting his state’s soaring literacy scores, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves urged Oklahoma leaders to commit to tough reading policies.

This year, Oklahoma as Mississippi, whose fourth-grade reading scores have after decades of ranking near the bottom. The state’s meteoric rise has been called the “Mississippi miracle.”

“It really wasn’t a miracle at all,” Reeves said during an Oklahoma State Chamber event Wednesday. “It was the direct result of very good, strong policy followed by a plan to properly implement, and also — and perhaps most importantly — an accountability piece that was built into the statute.”

Mississippi began implementing significant investments and changes in its literacy laws in 2012, Reeves said. That included a controversial requirement that struggling readers repeat third grade.

Oklahoma students will face a similar “third-grade gate” starting in the 2027-28 academic year. Third graders who score below a basic level on the annual state reading test and who fail a second standardized assessment would have to repeat the grade, unless they meet limited criteria for an exemption.

, signed into law in April, also requires Oklahoma public schools to provide extra tutoring, small-group reading lessons, summer academies and transitional classrooms starting in kindergarten to support students who show early signs of falling behind.

The state Legislature invested $5 million to grow a statewide team of literacy coaches, $5 million for reading instruction training for teachers and $840,000 to purchase reading materials to mail to children. Lawmakers also added $26.25 million in school funding for reading instruction.

State Chamber President and CEO Chad Warmington said literacy coaches and teacher training will be essential to improving Oklahoma’s academic outcomes. The chamber, a powerful collective of Oklahoma’s business community, has been a .

“If we don’t take the science of reading and make sure that teachers have that training so it’s being taught in the classrooms, none of this meant anything,” Warmington said.

The science of reading emphasizes phonics-based instruction. Focusing on phonics is “a good place to start” for a state turnaround, Reeves said.

Mississippi also has raised its standards for how it defines a proficient reader. A state law whenever 75% of students make a proficient score on yearly tests or when 65% of schools or districts make a grade of B or higher on annual A-F evaluations.

“We have increased that level, by the way, four times since I’ve been in office, and (are) about to increase it again,” Reeves told Oklahoma City news reporters. “Because what’s going to happen when you raise the bar, when you raise the level of expectations, what’s happened in Mississippi is exactly what’s going to happen in Oklahoma.”

Oklahoma’s proficiency standards . NAEP tests students in all 50 states every two years and compiles the results in the Nation’s Report Card.

Not only has Mississippi’s overall fourth-grade reading progress impressed the nation, but the state’s scores among Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students have ranked at or near the top of the country, according to .

Mississippi ranks only 40th in eighth grade reading, though, which has raised questions about the long-term efficacy of the third-grade gate.

Reeves said he signed legislation this year to add reading, math and career coaches focused on grades 5-8 to address the middle-school regression.

“If we don’t start seeing better retention of those (reading) gains, then we’re going to start testing kids when we get towards the seventh grade, just like we test kids in the third grade,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

Those were dark years before principal Carol Leveilee arrived at the Seaford, Delaware school.

Kids were never greeted by staff when they entered the building. It was a familiar sight to see school aides in the back of classrooms on their cellphones and children fighting or running out of the building. There was no art on the hallway walls, decorated instead with mold and paint that looked like it was original to the school’s opening in 1922. 

The school felt like a “prison,” multiple teachers said — dark, dreary with overwhelming behavior problems amounting to over 300 suspensions in one year. The school was like the district’s “stepchild,” veteran staff said — a school no one wanted to send their kids to, ranked last in test scores; and on the edge of a state takeover 12 years ago.��

“I really thought about quitting teaching. I didn’t want to teach anymore because it was that bad here,” said fourth-grade teacher Mike Hurlock. “In my second year I was feeling like, ‘I’m gonna go be a corrections officer because I’m already [one] here.’ ”

Hurlock filled out an application for a nearby prison and decided to wait one more year before submitting it. 

His wait paid off. Leveilee arrived in September 2014, bringing with her a dramatic overhaul.

“It saved my career,” Hurlock said, now a 15-year veteran teacher at the school. “There was never a sense of pride — until Carol got here.”

Armed with more than 30 years of experience, 11 as an elementary teacher and the rest in administration in schools across Charles County, Maryland, Leveilee had been on the brink of retirement before she took the job at Frederick Douglass. 

She felt her work wasn’t finished.

“I didn’t feel like I’d done enough or helped enough kids yet,” she said. “I saw [Frederick Douglass] was high needs and I knew I wanted a challenge. I didn’t know quite how big of a challenge I was getting myself into … [but] I just felt like I was meant to be here.”

It may have felt like an overwhelming transition at first, but Leveilee has made all the difference at the school an hour south of Dover, the state capital.

The veteran educator not only saved Hurlock’s career, but also thousands of kids along the way, providing them a school where they would be educated and emotionally supported.

Now, at 8 a.m. every morning, hundreds of students flood out from a row of yellow school buses. Outside the school’s front door stand Leveilee and other staff who are swarmed with high-fives, hugs and laughing children racing to get inside.

As the children enter the building, they’re also greeted with banners recognizing the school as a 2020 National Blue Ribbon School and a 2024 Delaware Department of Education Recognition School alongside blue bulletin boards highlighting kids of character and upcoming birthdays — all a testament to the school’s transformation under Leveilee.

Throughout her time at Frederick Douglass, Leveilee has created spaces that are warm and celebrate students.

She got rid of staff that didn’t see her vision or fully commit to the idea that everything done at the school is what’s best for kids. And most importantly, she fought for her school, several staff members said, whether it was pushing back against layoffs, advocating for renovations or paying for supplies out of her pocket.

“You see Carol and you don’t see her as a fighter. She looks like she’s somebody’s grandmother, just sweet — but no, she’s a fighter,” Hurlock said. “She came in and fought for us, and the difference in the students [and staff dynamics], just in one year, was tremendous.”

Frederick Douglass Elementary School enrolls about 500 students in grades 3-5, a majority of whom are children of color and from low-income backgrounds. Expected to have a reading proficiency of 32.8%, according to a data project focused on Bright Spot schools launched by �鶹��Ʒ, it’s defying the odds at 60.5% and is among Delaware’s top five exceptional schools. 

For educators who have stuck out the journey, they say the school’s transformation feels “unreal” and “something that you dream of.” They credited Leveilee as the sole factor in the school’s success, but she argues it was the relationships that were built.

“Some people say you start with instruction, but in my opinion, in this building, I could have had the best curriculum possible, state-of-the-art smart boards and everything, and we would have been taken over by the state,” Leveilee said, “because it’s all about people.”

Soon to be 12 years, the principal’s commitment to the school continues to pay off in strong staff retention, low disciplinary referrals and growing student achievement.

Cleaning house

When most people hear B.C., they think of dinosaurs or other prehistoric periods, but Jen Covington thinks of it as “Before Carol.”  

Covington, a former third and fifth grade teacher who recently became the school’s special education coordinator, taught at Frederick Douglass Elementary School for 15 years before Leveilee’s arrival. Off the top of her head, she could rattle off at least six principals and 12 assistant principals that were part of a leadership revolving door.

“It was pretty much a free-for-all,” Covington said. “There weren’t set guidelines. There weren’t expectations. … Nobody was on the same page.”

Shannon Rolph, another veteran staff member who joined the school in 2004, said Frederick Douglass had hit rock bottom and remained there for several years before Leveilee.

“There was no consistency. There was no leader,” Rolph said, a former third and fourth grade teacher turned reading coach. “It just was not a great place to work. The behaviors were crazy, … but I lived here in Seaford. My kids went here. I was invested.”

So, when Leveilee came to the lower Delaware city in 2015, it took time to gain trust, both teachers said. 

“For those of us that had been here, it was like, ‘OK, here comes another one. How long are they gonna stay? How invested are they gonna be?’ ” Covington said.

Just like the teachers at the school, Leveilee had no idea what was in store when she signed her first three-year contract.��

She remembers walking into the school on her first day and no one acknowledged her or offered her the keys to her office. When she toured the campus, she couldn’t figure out why the hallway was so dark, until a teacher told her they had the custodian take out all the center lights because they didn’t want people looking at walls full of ripped paper, chipping yellow paint and destroyed cork boards.

Just 32% of third graders were proficient in reading and the school was under “a constant magnifying glass” she said with recurring visitors from the state asking questions, doing walkthroughs and scrutinizing student data. 

Like the hallways at the school, it was a dark time for Leveilee.

“I’ll never forget my first year was all defeats,” she said. “I got here and I regretted my decision daily. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I worked 16-hour days, seven days a week. … People didn’t like kids. Kids didn’t want to be here. Parents didn’t like the school.” 

But, Leveilee knew her students were her saving grace.

“Every single one of those kids needed me,” Leveilee said. “They needed me to hire the best teachers and staff possible. They needed me to wake the para up that was always asleep in the chair. … Needed me to tell the kindergarten teacher in my first year, ‘You know teaching isn’t good for you, you don’t like our kids’ and those hard conversations. Those 383 kids were counting on me and my team.”

Within two months, it was clear to Leveilee it was time to clean house, both among staff and the actual physical space of the school.

She first tasked teachers with cleaning out their rooms, many filled with decades of outdated material.

“We were like ‘Why does she care about what’s in our closet? … Why does she keep telling us to clean out our filing cabinet? … She’s lost her mind,’ ” Covington said, gritting her teeth with an eye roll before laughing at the memory. “But, what [we later realized is], when your space is organized and clean, you become more effective.”

Leveilee was in and out of classrooms, taking notes on a notepad she still wears around her neck and that staff now jokingly call “her brain.” Within three months, seven teachers were put on improvement plans. 

By Christmas, two of those educators had left. In her first three years, about half of the staff followed, Leveilee said.

‘We needed a leader’

When Reesie Jones and Monika Kittell arrived at Frederick Douglass Elementary School a year before Leveilee, they were long-time veteran aides.

But in that year, they learned that students ran the school. The kids’ behaviors were out of control, disrespectful and students didn’t care about the consequences, they said. Suspension was a normal occurrence, and anytime one of them was called to be a substitute, they’d ask the other to come for extra support.

“We needed a leader,” Jones said. “We were in desperate need of a leader.”

In Leveilee’s first year, she bought everyone a copy of The Energy Bus for Schools by Jon Gordon. Weekly, she assigned a chapter to read and led discussions. The book stressed the importance of collaboration and how everyone needed to be heading in the same direction, said Kittell, now a third grade teacher.

“If you are a Negative Nelly, you need to get off the bus. [Leveilee] would truly say ‘If you are not part of this bus, you need to get off because you’ll bring all us down,’ ” Kittell said. “That’s how it all started shifting.”

After 11 years, the veteran educators — including Jones, Kittell and Rolph — have kept yellow toy school buses that were gifted after completing the book.

“Some did not give it a chance. … It took a few years to get some people out that just weren’t here for the right reasons. Carol wasn’t going anywhere, so either you needed to change or…” Rolph said, trailing at the end of her sentence with a laugh.

Changing from reactive to proactive

A handful of other changes occurred simultaneously in Leveilee’s early years, including a new piloted reading curriculum, aligned with the science of reading, which has stuck around.

The district also reconfigured the school from a K-3 campus to 3-5, which shifted demographics and created more diversity within the city’s four elementary schools.

Curriculum alignment and reconfiguration in the district were catalysts to some growth, but continuing work on school climate was the biggest challenge — and game changer. 

Beyond staffing changes, the actual campus needed an overhaul.

“The decor was probably the same from the time the building was constructed,” Rolph said. “We saw other schools and they looked so nice, and it was just like, why didn’t anyone care to fix our grounds up?”

More than just cleaning closets, Leveilee had the school repainted, cork boards installed to decorate the halls with students’ proudest work, new furniture installed, murals painted and fences and landscaping fixed outside.

While it began with small cosmetic changes, Leveilee was also acutely aware of the needs of students.

“When I first came here, there were 312 suspensions,” Leveilee said. “Not only are [our kids] in high poverty, but they come with huge backpacks filled with trauma. … We had to do something because sending these kids home was not the answer.”

In Leveilee’s first few years, she kept a dozen students with her and out of the classroom because of behavioral issues. She would take children into the cafeteria to try and regulate them, which eventually led to the creation of the Reflection Suite and Positive Path.

The Positive Path extends through two hallways, decorated with Legos, velcro tic-tac-toe and coloring paper walls, where kids can get 10-minute passes to go into the hallway and “reset.” 

The Reflection Suite is a series of rooms, some empty to prevent a child from hurting themselves, and others filled with bean bags and motivation quotes on the wall for when students are overwhelmed or need sleep. In the Reflection Suite, students can also meet with counselors.

“Prior to Carol coming in and reworking the whole system, it was very much punishment based,” Covington said. 

But now, the relationship has changed. This year, there have been only three suspensions.

“You can tell when their feet hit the pavement … what kind of morning they had had, what kind of night they had — if they needed to just go in the Reflection Suite and sleep the first hour because they were up taking care of a one-year-old little brother or sister,” Covington said. “We have to take care of all their basic things first before we can ever expect them to learn.”

In addition to having designated spaces to regulate student behavior, there’s an incentive model, including positive office referrals, character slips that praise a child’s positive decision-making and other rewards which have changed how kids view school. 

Over time, the changes began to come together.

“Once the kids started realizing staff checks on them — whether it’s the reading specialist, whether it’s the nurse, whether it’s the cafeteria — … we turned the behaviors from reactive to proactive,” Rolph said. “They just needed to feel that this is a safe place.”

The behavioral improvements led to a 37 percentage point increase in reading scores between 2014-15 and 2018-19.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 70% of third graders at Frederick Douglass Elementary School were reading on grade level. 

The school saw a dip after the pandemic, which persists, but reading scores remain higher than the state average, which was . Math scores at Frederick Douglass are also nearly double the state average.

Twelve years later

When Leveilee walks around Frederick Douglass, kids stop her in the hallway for a hug and start telling her about their weekend. When she stands by a classroom door, kids wave. When one student passed on his way to the bathroom, Leveilee knew to ask about the passing of his grandfather and to ask if he was doing OK.

For most students, if you ask about their favorite thing at Frederick Douglass Elementary, they admittedly say recess, but a close second is the staff.

“I really like the playground and the teachers and the stuff that they do in the school,” said David Impert, a fourth grader. “I really love all this.”

Fifth graders said they feel ready and prepared for their next academic journey, but confess it’s a little scary to be leaving a place that’s made them feel heard and accepted for who they are.

“I’ve just had a lot of people who understand me. A lot of people, when I tell them I want to be a bug scientist, basically, they’re like ‘Ew, what? That’s weird.’ But I come here and they’re like ‘Wow that’s cool. How can we help you learn more about this?’ ” said fifth grader Willow Pinkerton.

Those responses are not something that would’ve been heard 10 years ago, Leveilee said.

Teachers see the difference too, especially with some of the highest-need children.

“I’ve had kids that have been through [the Division of Family Services], and have been [emotionally] withdrawn, but as soon as they’re back [to school], they’re so excited to be here because it’s their safe place,” Hurlock said.

For teachers, they say one of their favorite parts of the job is Leveilee. Several educators said she spoils them, and they can’t imagine what the school will look like without her one day.

“I could probably cry,” Covington said. “There are many times that she fights for teachers and teachers don’t even know that she’s fighting for them. I truly think that there is never going to be another like her.”

As for Leveilee, finding a new place to call a second home has been one of her favorite parts of the journey. She doesn’t cry every night anymore, she said, and the challenges were worth it to see the school thrive.

“I’m so glad that I did come, and for the sake of these kids that they’re able to learn and laugh in a much better setting than what they were in,” Leveilee said, “and to me that’s worth all the tears, all the gray hair, all the stress.”

The Nation’s Report Card released Long-Term Trend assessment data this morning, and the findings are mixed. While 9-year-olds are making progress in math and reading, 13-year-olds have stagnant scores. Across the board, students are largely working below levels seen during the pandemic and around 2012 when achievement was at a high point.

In math, where the declines are sharpest, average scores for 13-year-olds are down roughly 10 points from just before the pandemic and around 15 points from 2012. Average math scores for 9-year-olds are still down too, though they’re now moving in the right direction.

The new report shows trends dating to the 1970s. In reading, 13-year-olds are still working at the same levels as their counterparts then. The report also includes survey questions about student experiences in and outside of school. The share of 9- and 13-year-olds who report they read for fun most days is stuck at historic lows. For example, just 14% of adolescents say they generally read on their own daily. That’s the same as in 2023, but it’s down significantly from 35% in 1985, when the question was first asked. Among 9-year-olds, 37% read almost every day, down from 53% in 1984.

In addition, the share of 9- and 13-year-olds who say they talk about the things they’re learning in school with their family nearly every day is low. Only 1 in 5 13-year-olds report having these regular conversations. Among 9-year-olds, about a third have these talks just about daily. As a book lover, and mom to two school-aged boys, all that hits hard.

I hear all the time from parents who have been told their child is fine but have started to suspect that story is not the whole picture. These new NAEP results confirm something the country has been slow to address: Average scores for students peaked a decade and a half ago.

It’s important to look at what’s changed in schools if parents, policymakers and educators want to improve them. Around the time these declines began, after decades of progress, there was a loosening of policies around the country that brought attention and focus to achievement and made schools more accountable for learning gains.

As accountability loosened, distractions expanded.

The iPhone launched in 2007, when the 13-year-olds working at the 2012 high water mark were 8 years old. Instagram launched when they were 11. They were likely aware of these products and platforms during their adolescent years but not immersed in them. This 2012 cohort may be the last whose childhood happened mostly off a personal screen. It’s notable that students in subsequent grades did worse academically.

The country has spent the last year or so debating phones and artificial intelligence in schools, and confidence in education technology is low. In a recent , half of students said using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teachers. But the cost of letting that collective distrust harden into blanket rejection is high.

When I taught special education students in New York City, the children in my classroom were the ones a ban on technology would have hurt most. I’ve seen the value of tech tools that help identify learning gaps and support accessibility. It’s imperative for teachers and school and system leaders to be able to tell the difference between research-based learning resources and distraction engines, and be clear in articulating that distinction to parents and teachers.

It is possible to return to an era of progress across subjects and grades if state, district and school leaders focus on creating strong, coherent teaching and learning strategies, taking responsibility for what is and isn’t happening in schools, and building lasting trust with students, families and teachers. Here are ways to help make that happen.

Tell parents the truth, clearly. Schools can send families regular updates on individual student performance and outline how they are addressing areas of concern. States like Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana are starting to promote these practices, and Mississippi provides reports to parents when students need extra help with literacy. But many state and school systems are not being transparent with parents, and are doing much of the hiding.

Make the school-to-home conversation easier. My family gets regular emails home from school with updates and questions that can spark face-to-face conversations with our children. On busy and chaotic days, it’s so helpful to have a prepared question to ask a student, like, “Today in math, children estimated the circumference of a pumpkin or apple by cutting a string and comparing it to their fruit. Ask your child which fruit they chose, and whether their string came out longer or shorter.”

Make AI governance a discipline, not a slogan. AI guidelines must actually be used in schools, not just filed away. They must be clear so they enable school and system leaders to make decisions quickly, learn from what’s happening and adjust as evidence comes in. States and districts should name outcomes before naming tools, audit what they already pay for and design for safety before scale. And, of course, parents and educators should be included at every stage of this work.

Teach every child how to decide. The Alliance for Decision Education and the Burning Glass Institute reviewed 6.8 million U.S. job postings and found 41% required decision- making skills. Educators must help young people understand information they encounter by teaching strong analytical, critical thinking and other skills that will always be in demand. Ensuring that students read broadly, are exposed to a range of perspectives and debate ideas across subjects is a good start.

Put real books back in children’s hands. Schools and libraries should make space and time for kids to pick books they actually want. Let their curiosity be the spark and their choice be the fun. Adults can put reading time on the family calendar. Educators and leaders can offer support for parents who haven’t read aloud since they were kids.

Today, 13-year-olds in the U.S. read at roughly the same achievement level as the federal government assessed more than 50 years ago — a worrisome sign that education isn’t progressing over time as it should. I don’t believe the solution can be bought or banned. It requires real books, engaging learning opportunities, evidence-based approaches and meaningful data accompanied by the will to act on it. 

Unfortunately, conventional wisdom in American education is that until third grade, students learn to read by building foundational literacy skills, and from fourth grade on they read to learn, mastering subject matter without the need for basic literacy support. This means that after third grade, there’s no time in the schedule for literacy instruction or intervention, and most secondary school educators aren’t trained to teach it. If you’re a sixth-grade English teacher, you’re expected to focus on literary analysis, not literacy. 

Given that the most recent found that only 31% of fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders read proficiently, it’s fair to say that this approach is not serving students well. Literacy is a continuum, not a finish line that kids cross at the end of third grade. The two-thirds of students who can’t read proficiently still need to practice key literacy skills. But that’s not what they’re getting.

A solution is to provide educators and students with a core curriculum that includes supports for students who struggle with reading. For example, eighth graders might be reading To Kill a Mockingbird, with an assignment to discuss the role of racism in the story. Students who can’t read To Kill a Mockingbird can absolutely practice that same grade-level skill with a book that has a slightly more accessible text. The same applies to background knowledge: Students who read about civil rights at a more accessible level than their classmates are able to join the discussion even though they aren’t yet able to read To Kill a Mockingbird independently. 

Several dozen schools and districts across the country have adopted this approach of embedding grade-level standards into foundational literacy skill instruction, and it has proven effective. In a 2025 conducted by Johns Hopkins University, students at five middle schools showed both increased NWEA MAP scores and a more positive attitude toward reading. In my conversations with middle and high school teachers around the country, I’ve found that they are eager — even desperate — for a curriculum that allows their entire class to practice grade-level skills together, regardless of their differences in literacy ability.

Closing the gap between knowledge and practice also requires interdisciplinary communication. When middle and high school teachers collaborate with the reading interventionist, multilingual learners’ coordinator or special education teacher about what works for their struggling readers, they can identify strategies to reinforce literacy growth across subject areas.

Students must read to succeed in science, social studies and even math, so all educators must become teachers of literacy who connect the dots among subjects. If students are learning about the water cycle in science, their teacher can introduce the unit with a morphology lesson where students learn the Greek prefix hydr– and the Latin base aqua. They may learn about the Hydra (a serpentine lake monster) when studying Greek mythology in English class and aqueducts when studying Ancient Rome in social studies. Then, they can apply their knowledge of the Greek prefix to understand what it means when a character is dehydrated.

Reinforcing these interconnected threads across subject areas enables students to simultaneously learn grade-level subject matter and strengthen their understanding of how words are formed and meaning changes, based on their structure. For this approach to succeed, secondary school educators in all disciplines need professional development focused on how they can engage and support students with varied literacy skills.  

Engagement is essential because kids who struggle with reading often become discouraged. But when they read about subjects that spark their interest, in a format that feels comfortable, the opposite happens. I believe that when it comes to struggling or reluctant readers, all reading is good reading, whether it’s in a book or on a tablet, in an audiobook or a graphic novel. 

Students who can’t sound out words but can understand concepts can listen to an audiobook and deepen their knowledge without the barrier of decoding. They can also read an accessible text that uses simplified grammar or defines challenging vocabulary words by offering strong context clues. Once they’re engaged, students can make amazing leaps quickly, just like my fifth-grade student who was obsessed with the Jonas Brothers. From there, teachers can gradually increase the rigor of the language, enabling students to progress toward the literacy outcomes they need to succeed in school and life.

While teaching literacy can be more challenging in the upper grades, a coherent curriculum that marries engagement with rigorous instruction can not only teach older students how to read, but also inspire them to love reading.

The state has revamped both subjects in recent years, starting with the passage of the . New math curricula rolled out two years later. The dual efforts cost more than $130 million in state and federal funding, education officials said, and the work is ongoing.��

State education leaders attribute student and teacher success to the use of high-quality instructional materials, ongoing professional development, robust summer math programs and high-dosage tutoring in both subjects. 

“Tennessee implemented specific high-dosage tutoring requirements which include a minimum of two to three sessions per week for 30-45 minutes delivered by a certified teacher or trained tutor in groups no larger than three students for the entire school year,” explained Kristy Brown, chief academic officer at the state Department of Education. 

According to the Education Scorecard report, which examined both state-level tests and student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress for grades three through eight, Washington, D.C., made the most gains in math, followed by , Louisiana, Delaware and Maryland. 

The nation’s capitol also outdid all other states captured in the scorecard in reading. But the report’s overall findings were bleak. It concluded the U.S. has been in a “learning recession” since 2013, a trend that has run alongside kids’ skyrocketing use of social media and the decline of school accountability measures.

Math proficiency rates in Tennessee on state assessments between 2021 and 2025, moving from 28% to 42%. But historically underserved students still lagged their peers.

While nearly 51% of white children met that benchmark last year, just 24% of Black students, 32% of Hispanic kids, 26% of English learners and 24% of economically disadvantaged children did the same. Results were similar for  

Still, Tennessee ranked high among dozens of states, according to the Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth researchers who produced the scorecard, now in its fifth year. 

Christy Wall, the state’s assistant commissioner of academics and instructional strategy, said Tennessee learned much from the successful rollout of its literacy initiative and applied winning strategies to mathematics. The state was sure to include input from school leaders and staff, and provide proper training so they would not feel blindsided — or unsupported — in implementing the changes. 

And they were careful to factor in the time it takes to adopt a new strategy, she said. 

“It didn’t seem like something new,” Wall said of the updated math curriculum. “It was a predictable cadence in terms of tools and resources.”

The scorecard analyzed data from roughly 10,000 school districts: 450 saw improvement in either math or reading and 108 were labeled “on the rise” for gains in both subjects. Such districts must serve more than 1,200 students in grades three to eight, have at least four peer districts in their state, and report an increase in achievement of at least 0.3 grade levels in reading and math from scores derived between 2019–2025. Johnson City, Putnam County, White County, and Maury County schools in Tennessee were in the on-the-rise category. 

COVID-era federal relief money — the state received roughly $3.86 billion in aid for K–12 schools at that time — supported much of Tennessee’s efforts around both subjects. That money eventually dried up, but the state managed to fund the programs that worked best, including summer learning and tutoring for English and math.  

Brown said, too, state regulations require that students who were retained in any grade between kindergarten through second must be provided a tutor. The same holds true for students who did not score proficient on the reading portion of the state assessments at the end of third grade. 

Chelsea Crawford is the executive director of , an advocacy organization that seeks to ensure every student in that state has access to a high-quality education. 

Crawford served as the state education department’s chief of staff during the pandemic closures in 2020 and credits another factor for its success: a quick return to in-person learning. 

Most Tennessee students, she said, by fall of that same year. 

“Not all of our districts opened on that timeline, but the vast majority of them did,” Crawford said.  

And, she said, the state’s requirements around tutoring meant students received the help they needed, as evidenced by their improvement. 

“There’s a very specific kind of approach for districts to follow, including things like tutoring for the entirety of a semester focused on a single subject,” she said. “So, you’re getting deep intervention in the subject matter where you need it as opposed to a little bit of tutoring across all of your areas.”

And the districts had financial incentives to spur their own investment in education, she said. 

“We actually created a recognition program where districts would be required to fill out a plan on how they intended to spend their money,” she said of COVID-era funding. “And if they were able to demonstrate to us that they wanted to spend at least 50% of their local allocation on student academic need, tying their investment to the areas where their students needed the most help, then we as a state agency would take a portion of our set aside and gift it to that district.”

The report notes larger gains among the highest-income and the lowest-income school districts in the country with middle-income districts — those where 30% to 70% of students receive federally subsidized lunches — seeing the least improvement, on average.

Achievement data was derived from the and produced by  

A dozen states — Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont among them — were not included in the analysis. Some, including New York, had too few state test score results as many students chose to opt-out of those exams, according to the report. 

Before the “learning recession” detailed in the report, researchers noted the academic gains that preceded it. Between 1990 and 2013, math achievement in grades four and eight rose, improving by more than two grade equivalents during that time. 

Fourth graders in 2013 were scoring at a similar level to sixth graders in 1990, according to the analysis.

But by the time the class leaves the following spring, the majority are ready for fourth-grade reading. It’s a transformation made possible by Frederick Elementary’s third-grade teaching team, whose strategies include daily interventions that break down literacy into 15 distinct skills.��

Frederick Elementary has roughly 360 students in a district of 737, located about 45 miles from Lawton, the nearest mid-sized city. About 87% of elementary students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch during the 2023-24 school year, which would predict a third-grade reading proficiency rate of only 40%, according to federal data that are the basis of �鶹��Ʒ’s Bright Spots literacy project. Instead, 71% of the school’s third graders were proficient in reading.

The academic scores of all schools in Oklahoma rose that year, after the education department, led by then-State Superintendent Ryan Walters, lowered testing standards. After the state last year, Frederick’s proficiency rate came in at 66%. 

Oklahoma requires students in early grades to receive reading intervention if they score below the 40th percentile on a screening test that’s given multiple times a year. Depending on a student’s level, state statute mandates specialized instruction in small groups at least twice a week.

At Frederick Elementary, reading intervention occurs daily.

The school’s program, called , can be difficult to implement, said reading specialist Danna Akin. 

“There’s been other schools that have wanted to get started in it, and they bought into the program, but it’s hard to get started,” she said. “The scheduling gets pretty complicated.”

Students who score below the 40th percentile then take an exam with 95 Percent and are grouped together by the specific reading skills they are missing, such as understanding silent “e.” A teacher — sometimes the librarian or special education instructor — works on a particular skill during a period called flex time, a 45-minute block that occurs each morning.

“The students above the 40th percentile obviously don’t need 95 Percent, so we put them in larger reading comprehension groups,” Akin said. “But for the 95 groups, we try to keep it to seven or less [students] so they can get that one-on-one intervention time.”

The instruction starts with plastic envelopes, each containing lessons and activities that teach a specific phonics skill. Students will move small chips over a board that has letter sounds and review them with their teacher. They’ll practice vocabulary, spelling and reading short passages that include words they’re struggling with. 

Each of the 15 skills in the 95 Percent program takes students roughly a week to 10 days to go through. After students graduate from a skill, they are tested again to see if they can advance to the next envelope taught by another teacher during flex time.

“If you’re only doing [reading intervention] twice a week, they’re not going to get the reinforcement that they need. But if you’re doing it five times a week and for 45 minutes, they’ll get what they need,” Akin said. “By the time you’ve done that much reinforcement with them and you’ve spent that much time on a skill, they’ve got it.”

Akin and Frederick’s three third-grade teachers review student progress at least once a week to see what each child still needs to become more proficient. A data wall in Principal Laura Yeager’s office tracks where each student in the intervention program is at.

“Sometimes it takes a little while, but eventually they all get out of the 95 Percent program, and then they’re working on those grade-level skills,” Yeager said. “This year, we’ve been really fortunate. We’ve been very, very successful getting kids out of it.”

Frederick Elementary has only third, fourth and fifth grades. Younger students attend the Prather Brown Center from pre-K through second grade.

“It’s really challenging, because when the second graders come to us, we usually have a large amount that fall under that 40th percentile,” Akin said. 

That’s a trend seen nationwide: A found that by the middle of the 2024-25 school year, only 58% of second graders were on track for core reading instruction and were likely to meet grade-level standards by spring.

Frederick’s third grade teaching team starts each school year with the mindset that they can’t begin with third grade standards, because they have to review second grade skills first. 

“We’re having to fill these phonics holes, which I think is happening probably everywhere — I don’t feel like that’s just a Frederick Elementary thing,” said Halle Pineda, one of the third grade teachers. “But I don’t feel like we really get their best third-grade self until about January. And by then, we only have four months until it’s time to start wrapping up. It’s a game of catch-up.”

Last fall, Frederick Elementary received $10,000 from the state to bolster the 95 Percent program. Yeager said the money was part of Oklahoma’s new , which has an initiative solely for rural schools. Frederick Elementary used the money for high-dosage tutoring in reading. Early data showed some students jumped from the 30th to the 60th percentile in literacy. Others, on average, improved 12 percentage points in their performance.

Oklahoma has been trying to improve its reading proficiency scores for . Legislation implemented in 2013 required third graders to be held back a grade if they scored poorly on the state’s reading test. After years of back and forth and added exemptions to the retention law, it was .��

Now, literacy is back on the table, and it’s center stage. Lawmakers want to reverse Oklahoma’s , which show that 27% of students scored at or above grade level in English language arts and 36% scored below basic during the 2024-25 school year. 

A law has a robust set of guidelines for struggling readers and reinstates third-grade retention. It’s part of a by the state’s chamber of commerce to boost local economies and make Oklahoma more competitive against other states for employees and business.

Beginning next school year, the mandates that first and second graders who don’t read at grade level at the end of the year either be held back or receive reading interventions when they return to school. 

Parents will be notified of their child’s reading deficiency within 30 days of its discovery. Third graders not at grade level by the end of the school year will be retained unless they qualify for an exemption. Some exemptions are geared toward English learners, students with disabilities or children who were already held back in earlier grades.

Chad Warmington, CEO of the , said there have been “lessons learned” from the 2013 legislation that required third grade retention. This year’s law uses the practice as a last resort, he said. 

“You can’t put in place a retention policy at the expense of all the other things that are going to improve outcomes — that’s just not how it works,” he said. “Last time, there was far more emphasis placed on the retention part, and not enough on what we are going to do to make sure teachers coming out of teaching schools are trained on the science of reading. Or that the teachers in the classroom are retrained and given opportunities to improve their skills in the science of reading.”

Some educators want legislators to focus on other challenges in the classroom than reading proficiency, said Erika Wright, founder and former leader of the .

“Our teachers have been screaming about class sizes and behavior, and pay is always on the burner. When this whole literacy [initiative] came out, we pulled together a group with the State Chamber to sit in a room so that they could listen,” she said. “I sat in that room for four hours listening to the teachers saying, ‘This is awesome, but you’re not listening to us. This will not work because I have 29 kids in the kindergarten class and 14 of them have Individualized Education Programs and eight of them don’t speak English. I don’t have an assistant. I am spending all of my day managing behavior.’ ”

Warmington said he’s heard from teachers who are dealing with similar issues, but a “vast majority were absolutely for this deal.”

Yeager said very few Frederick Elementary third graders were held back when a retention law was in place a few years ago, so the new legislation won’t have much of an impact in that area. But that Oklahoma held back more students than all other states, except Mississippi, when the old retention law was still active.

A small number of third graders will go through the 95 Percent program again once they enter fourth grade to build back skills they lost over the summer, Yeager said.

“We have a unique culture and a great team that works together with these 95 Percent groups. We also do these groups in fourth grade to make sure we’re not missing skills,” she said. “It doesn’t just stop with third grade, but it gives you that idea that, ‘This is just not my class, and I’m responsible for my class’ scores.’ They’re all our kids, and that’s something my teachers say that makes the difference.”

But when TV writer Ernie Bustamante read Manzano’s 2015 memoir, Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx, his mind went to an entirely different neighborhood: He thought her life story would make a great sitcom. 

He envisioned a coming-of-age series, with Manzano as “the ultimate protagonist” who pushes through all of her struggles. “She conquers. She overcomes.”

Manzano liked the idea, and the pair got to know one another as they worked to sell it to studios. But after years of trying with little success, they pivoted to a new enterprise.

The result is , a new feature-length documentary that explores Manzano’s life and career as the first Latina to appear regularly in an American TV series. The film is making the rounds at this spring as Bustamante searches for a distribution deal. In the meantime, he’s seeking out schools and universities to arrange “impact screenings” for aspiring filmmakers, actors, educators and anyone wanting to know more about the iconic actor — and the groundbreaking series that both offered her a platform and revolutionized children’s television.

“All young people want to change the world to some degree,” Manzano said in an interview. “I was lucky enough to fall into a group that wanted to do the same thing.”

In the film, she likens the show’s key creators — puppeteer Jim Henson, producer and composer , among others — to another seminal ‘60s group: “The Beatles are great — separately they’re all good. But together they made some magic.”

‘I had to be myself on purpose’

Manzano grew up in the South Bronx in the 1950s, before the notorious city planner Robert Moses “destroyed” it, in her words, with a tangle of expressways cutting through mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods. Her parents were both Puerto Rican — her father was a roofer, her mother a seamstress, and the everyday talk in the neighborhood revolved around la lucha, the struggle to survive.

Raised in a home where her father drank and her parents often fought, Manzano quips in the film, “Mostly they struggled with each other.”

She found solace in TV, movie musicals in particular, and imagined herself in starring roles. When a teacher took her to see the movie West Side Story, she was “absolutely overwhelmed” by the spectacle and awed by how it transformed the gritty streets of New York into art. At the end of the film, she burst into tears.

“I think it touched me so much because it was the first time I saw things in my neighborhood exalted and made beautiful,” she says in the film.

Manzano’s first big break came when a teacher encouraged her to apply to New York’s High School for the Performing Arts. She’d eventually make her way to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, studying with, among others, the renowned mime , who introduced her to the physical comedy of Charlie Chaplin — she’d later bring her own to Sesame Street. 

By 1971, Manzano had fallen in with a group of Carnegie Mellon drama students helping classmate John-Michael Tebelak produce his senior thesis, an improvisational drama based on the Gospel of Saint Matthew. It was a hit at school and the group took it to on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where, with the help of composer Stephen Schwartz — only two years older than Manzano and the rest of the cast — it morphed into the surprise hit musical .

Sesame Street, another surprise hit, had debuted on TV in 1969, and by 1971, Mexican American activists on the West Coast were demanding more Latino representation on the show. Manzano got a call for an audition and impressed producer Stone, who offered her a part.

Manzano had actually glimpsed the show at Carnegie Mellon, wandering into the student union one day as a very young James Earl Jones slowly and deliberately onscreen. The scene cut to , married characters who also happened to be Black. “I really flipped because in those days you never saw people of color on television — and if you did, it wasn’t these charming couples.”

Coming on the heels of the Civil Rights movement, the show’s representations made sense. None of it happened in a vacuum, she said. “America was ripe for it.”

Manzano’s first moment of reckoning as a Latina on the show happened before she even appeared on camera: A makeup artist was at work heavily tinting her face when Stone walked in and insisted that she appear onscreen as natural-looking as possible. The makeup — at least most of it — had to go.

“It made me understand that these people at Sesame Street, they really meant what they said — they really were interested in having a real Puerto Rican on television that was not slick or glib. They wanted real humans.”

Recalling the moment more than 50 years later, she said, “It freed me, because I realized I didn’t have to play any part. I could just be myself.” Whenever she tells the story, she likes to cite her favorite line from : “I had to be myself on purpose.”

With her improv and musical theater background, Manzano soon became a reliable player who could do nearly anything.

Puppeteer , who performed on the show for 26 years, said her abilities shone through despite the show’s demands: In early seasons, cast and crew were expected to shoot as many as 130 episodes.

“Everybody is great, but when you had a scene with Maria, it was just guaranteed to be awesome, because she was such comedy gold,” he said in an interview. 

All the same, Mazzarino said, Manzano and her co-stars felt like real people. By the late 1980s, Maria would fall in love with and marry Luis, played by , another longtime player. Her scenes with Delgado rang true, he said, bringing a truly loving couple to the screen.

“Even though Sonia can do great comedy, she always felt grounded,” Mazzarino said. 

Manzano herself has a fondness for the show’s loose, improvisational feel, especially in the early days: It was, she recalled, a party-like atmosphere in which everyone was trying to crack up everyone else. That allowed her to both try out her comedy chops and search for a way to let the Muppets’ madcap humor shine. 

“They were completely zany,” she recalled. “They ate tables. You could throw them against the wall and nothing would happen to them.”

She recalled an early episode in which a scene began taping before puppeteer , who played The Count, could make it to the set. As his colleagues proceeded with the scene, Nelson swept in. “And there was no interruption,” Manzano recalled. “It’s a remarkable moment.”

Over time, she became renowned for the knowing gaze she’d offer to the camera, breaking through the fourth wall in exasperation each time a Muppet co-star — most notably Oscar the Grouch — did or said something ridiculous. 

“That was a real breakthrough — no pun intended — when I understood what my job was,” she said, “that I could have this relationship with the camera separate from my conversation with the puppet right next to me. I could look at the camera and say, ‘Do you get this? I mean, do you see what’s going on?’”

Over the years, Sesame Street scripts became more research-based and deliberate, and life on the set tightened up. Manzano left the show in 2015 and gets nostalgic about the “looser kind of environment” it had at the beginning. “As they became more tame, they kind of lost a little bit of that craziness.”

‘She never talked down to children’

Michael Davis met Manzano in 2005, when TV Guide sent him to write a piece marking the show’s 35th anniversary. By then, Manzano was also a writer for the show — she’d eventually earn 15 Emmy awards for her writing. She was the first cast member he met.

“I remember coming home to my wife and saying, ‘You know, I met the actress who plays Maria on Sesame Street today,’” Davis said in an interview. “‘I had a long conversation with her, and she’s the realest deal I think I’ve ever encountered. She is exactly as her character and her TV persona projects — open, funny, candid, intelligent, capable of making great sense about preschool children and their needs.’”

He filled a notebook with her thoughts that day.

Davis, who would go on to write the 2008 book , said that for all of her comedic instincts, Manzano understood her job as a trusted adult in kids’ lives. “She never talked down to children,” he said. “And I think this is true of the Muppet performers and other cast members: They never talked the cutesy voice or talked baby talk, even to 2-year-olds. They addressed children with great respect and interest and really listened to what they had to say. And yeah, it was just a beautiful thing to watch.”

It’s difficult to imagine another actor whose entire adult life has been captured by the camera, he said. Manzano grew up on the show, first appearing at age 21. She fell in love and , had a baby and changed careers several times, at one point working construction. In one renowned episode, she led the cast as they took viewers through the grieving process when old . 

In the documentary, Manzano quips, “We were the first reality show — without the whining.”

Davis, whose second book on the show, , is due out this fall, said Manzano herself underwent a remarkable transformation from her Godspell days. “She started out as an ingénue — basically a character who was in her teens, just this perky Latina who is new to the street.” She grew, he said, “into one of the most influential characters in the history of Sesame Street and a trailblazer in many, many ways.”

Manzano stuck around the show until age 65 before stepping aside to make way for a new generation of actors — and to write books and produce . At 75, she shows few signs of slowing down, working more recently with another Sonia from the South Bronx, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, to help found the .

Through it all, Davis said, “she has the most level head, and she is almost painfully normal, and I love her for that.”

He added, “She knows who she is — she absolutely knows who she is, and why she’s here.”

“Small district. Big impact.” It’s more than a motto for the curriculum team at , it’s a daily commitment in action.

In a district where professional connections and a unified vision drive collaboration, that mindset is translating into meaningful gains in early literacy. By prioritizing alignment, consistency, and strong collaboration across schools, Whiteville is proving that size doesn’t limit success, it can actually accelerate it.

At the center of this work is a committed district literacy team that meets consistently to strengthen communication and alignment across the district.

“I think a lot of it starts with this team,” said Kazie Martin, an Early Literacy Specialist (ELS). “We meet monthly as a district literacy team to make sure that communication is consistent.” In her role, Martin helps bridge state literacy priorities with district implementation, ensuring coherence across all levels of the work.

Scaling what works and aligning systems to support students

For nearly a decade, has implemented in its K-2 classrooms. After seeing strong results, the district expanded the program into third grade this year, following a successful pilot at . The expansion reflects a broader district commitment to building coherence, not only in curriculum, but also in instructional language and expectations.

“It was important to streamline the language and expectations so teachers and students could experience the same consistency across planning, instruction, and intervention,” said Ashlee White, director of curriculum and instruction.

Looking ahead, district leaders are working to extend that same alignment into intervention supports, including fourth grade students identified under North Carolina’s Read to Achieve initiative.

“We’re using the resources we have that we know work to close gaps with students,” Martin said.

Next year, the district is exploring the adoption of an aligned comprehension program to further strengthen literacy instruction. Plans are underway to incorporate these additional steps into the district Literacy Intervention Plan, ensuring students encounter consistent language and strategies across all levels of support.

The district is also intentionally supporting beginning teachers by connecting their training to classroom practice.

“It allows for a much clearer understanding of the correlation between the science of reading and instruction we are already doing,” Martin said.

Strengthening MTSS and data use

A major focus this year has been clarifying the district’s framework.

“We have helped teachers understand that MTSS is a framework that all students go through to receive additional support,” Martin explained. “Everything begins with a strong, solid core for all students, followed by research-based interventions.”

Interventions primarily take place within the classroom, supported by teachers, instructional assistants, and interventionists. In some cases, teachers collaborate across classrooms based on student data, creating more intentional connections throughout the school day.

To strengthen this work, the district has refined its data systems.

“We have adjusted our district framework to include entering the data in to seamlessly monitor each student and drive instruction based on the level of intensity they need,” White said.

A district MTSS team meets every other month to support teachers, while school-based teams meet monthly to review student data and guide instructional decisions.

Creating feedback loops through walkthroughs

Another key strategy has been increasing the frequency of district walkthroughs. Leaders now conduct approximately 15 walkthroughs per month, rotating across schools. These visits serve multiple purposes: monitoring implementation, building relationships, and gathering data to inform professional development.

“It helps ensure we are implementing with fidelity while also building supportive relationships,” White said. “Students enjoy when others come in, show interest, and ask about what they are doing or what they’ve learned.”

The walkthrough process includes immediate feedback through an automated form, allowing teachers to receive timely, actionable insights.

“I’ve even put a note on a kid’s desk,” White added.

District leaders analyze walkthrough data to identify trends and inform professional development, professional learning community discussions, and coaching support.

Building ownership and capacity

Whiteville’s size, often seen as a challenge, has also become a strength. The district benefits from having its ELS work across both schools, creating continuity in implementation. They also have strong pre-K programs in the schools, serving nearly half of incoming kindergarten students, supporting early literacy foundations.

Additionally, many teachers are deeply rooted in the community. “Most of the teachers grew up here,” Martin said. Whiteville is building its own educator pipeline.

The district has also made significant progress in data practices. A structured progress monitoring calendar, paired with consistent reminders and ongoing conversations, has led to a fidelity rate above 80%. It has become second nature for teachers as they are making connections and understanding the intentionality and purpose.

Despite the progress, district leaders remain focused on sustaining momentum and deepening understanding. One ongoing priority is building teacher buy-in around instructional shifts.

“We want all teachers to understand that everyone is a reading teacher,” Martin said.

The district is also working to protect time for collaborative planning during the school day, led by instructional coaches, and continue to refine master schedules to maximize instructional impact. Through intentional alignment, strong communication, and a shared commitment to literacy, the district is demonstrating how focused systems can lead to meaningful gains for students.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

A of four urban districts confirms these research-based early literacy pedagogies are indeed widely implemented in these school systems. Educators are doing many things right: They are consistently delivering explicit phonics instruction that includes a clear purpose using high-quality foundational skills curricula.��

Across the four districts, between 88% and 94% of over 200 surveyed teachers reported using their foundational skills curriculum daily or almost daily. Classroom observations of 112 foundational skills lessons confirmed that instruction was focused, aligned, and explicit—hallmarks of effective early literacy teaching.

But something critical was often absent from those same lessons: the opportunity to

connect sounds and words to meaning. In a previous report, we explored how meaning is often missing in the tasks that upper elementary students are assigned — for instance, finding literal and nonliteral language in a reading passage but not what the author was trying to convey. In our latest publication, we look specifically at the foundational reading skills taught in the earlier grades.

Moreover, we found that many students meet literacy benchmarks for foundational skills on early literacy screening assessments. But by third grade — when they are expected to make meaning from more complex texts on state literacy assessments — far fewer demonstrate proficiency. 

In other words, early success with word reading does not always translate into later success with comprehension. 

This mirrors national trends: relying on early literacy assessments indicates that 56% of K–2 students nationally are “on track” for learning to read, but only 31% of fourth graders performed at or above the proficient level on the 2024 NAEP reading assessment, a test that requires students to comprehend with greater depth.

What we found in our research, which included hours of classroom observation, was that only about one in five lessons gave students the chance to apply their phonics knowledge beyond single words to connected text: sentences, passages or stories that build reading fluency. And in more than half of lessons, teachers addressed word meaning just once or not at all.

In other words, students are learning how to blend sounds together to read words but not consistently how to make sense of them. We’ve made real progress on decoding, but the connections between decoding and meaning are often missing.

That stems, in part, from how early literacy instruction is structured and supported. Decoding and language comprehension are often taught in distinct lessons with different curricula, and teachers receive separate professional learning for each.

While this structure can support focused instruction, it can also give the false impression that meaning making does not belong in phonics lessons. At the same time, K–2 literacy data systems — including screeners and progress monitoring — tend to emphasize phonemic awareness and phonics, reinforcing the idea that those are the outcomes that matter.

The findings from this study point to an area for growth in foundational skills instruction that may help: bridging processes. These processes are the mechanisms that connect word recognition and language comprehension and should be incorporated into word recognition or phonics instruction, supporting students to build more meaning as they learn to decode. Two key bridging processes are vocabulary knowledge, which is understanding the meanings of words, and reading fluency or the ability to read connected text accurately and smoothly.

Without these bridging processes, decoding single words can be devoid of meaning.

Students may be able to sound out words yet still struggle to understand what they read. Importantly, bridging processes must be built into phonics instruction early on, and students should work on them throughout their early years of schooling, not just after they have successfully learned to decode words.

The encouraging news is that incorporating bridging processes does not require an overhaul of instruction or instructional systems. In many cases, bridging processes can be embedded into existing lessons in small but powerful ways.

Consider a phonics lesson on the two common sounds for double o, as in mood and look. A teacher might briefly define a target word — such as, “a brook is a small stream” — and show a picture of a brook before students practice reading it. Then she might instruct students to turn to a partner and share a sentence with the word brook.

This can take less than a minute but can anchor decoding in meaning, which is important for all students, especially for emergent multilingual students to expand their vocabulary as they are learning English. 

Similarly, building fluency doesn’t require a pivot away from explicit phonics instruction.

It requires ensuring that students regularly read sentences, passages and texts that incorporate the phonics patterns they are learning.��

For example, after decoding a list of words like book, cook, hood, soon, tool, and boot, students might read a simple sentence like, “We went to fish in the brook,” applying their phonics knowledge to connected text. Then they might read a short story about animals at a brook with several other double o words.

Our study found that such opportunities to build fluency were surprisingly rare and did not meaningfully increase from kindergarten through second grade. 

This is a missed opportunity. 

Stories and passages that use targeted phonics skills are often provided in early literacy curricula but are sometimes skipped due to pacing or a lack of understanding their importance. 

Fluency develops through practice with connected text; without it, students struggle to transition from decoding single words to understanding longer texts.

Bridging processes are critical for students to connect word recognition and language comprehension. Adequately addressing them requires more than individual teacher effort. District leaders must clearly assert that these processes are fundamental to foundational skills instruction and reflect this priority in curricula, professional learning and classroom observation tools.

District and school leaders should expand the data they use to capture a broader view of reading development, aligning tools with bridging processes and incorporating information beyond word recognition.

School leaders and instructional coaches should provide professional learning opportunities around bridging processes, leveraging existing structures like professional learning communities to teach educators how to embed vocabulary and fluency practice into phonics lessons without sacrificing instructional focus. 

This can be done through watching exemplar videos, conducting peer observations, lesson rehearsal and engaging in coaching conversations.

The promise of early literacy reform has always been that strong foundations would lead to strong readers. But developing students’ decoding skills alone is not enough.

If we continue to teach decoding and language comprehension as separate endeavors, the result will be the same: early gains that fade when students are asked to read and comprehend longer texts. But if we build the bridges through vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency practice and intentional meaning making in phonics instruction, we can change that trajectory.

SRI Education and �鶹��Ʒ both receive financial support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

In a survey of more than 1,200 K-3 educators in the fall of 2025, researchers at the Fordham Institute, an education reform nonprofit, found 30% of teachers don’t “favor phonics,” a major pillar in the science of reading that teaches students how letters represent sounds and how to blend those sounds together.

The number of teachers “less informed and committed” to the science of reading is even greater in high poverty schools, according to the .

“Despite everything that has been said and written in the past few years, nearly a third of teachers still put phonics and cueing on equal footing,” the report said, also finding “progress that has been made in some teachers in high-poverty, majority-nonwhite schools are still, on average, less informed about and committed to basic principles of the [science of reading] than teachers in whiter and/or more affluent settings.”

About half of all surveyed K-3 teachers said they teach with a “structured approach” which includes a mix of  “instruction in phonics, decoding, and related skills,” the report said, adding nearly one in three teachers use a “balanced approach,” where students are asked to figure out unfamiliar words through context clues or pictures – a practice known as cueing, which has been banned in some states. 

Thirty percent of teachers reported favoring both phonics and cueing for reading instruction and 2% said they preferred cueing over phonics, according to the report.

The report also found teacher belief and use of the science of reading is between nine to 15 percentage points lower in low-income schools compared to those in higher-resourced schools.

Researchers recognized schools have experienced “significant , , and even ‘,’” around the best way to teach kids to read for decades, which in part accounts for teacher hesitancy and/or inexperience with parts of the science of reading. 

As of late March, 42 states, and Washington D.C. have implemented laws around the science of reading, according to . But even with these initiatives, some teachers expressed concerns that the “pendulum swings too far to one side and we need balance.”

“While I support our current emphasis on phonics, I worry that kids are going to lose out with less comprehension and vocabulary instruction,” one teacher said in the report, with another adding “the pendulum swings like political winds. Let us teach. Please!” 

Others felt the shift toward the science of reading has led to “far more non-fiction texts” at the “expense of rich literature” and that “guided reading … is out, phonics-based small groups are in.”

For educators more positive about the science of reading, said the growing emphasis around phonics has “drastically changed how quickly students are able to learn to read,” according to the report. 

“They are happier learners because they aren’t as frustrated with reading,” one teacher said. Another added: “the shift to the science of reading has been huge … and has profound effects on teaching kids to read.”

The science of reading is rooted in : phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, but most of the conversation around the evidence-based approach has centered on phonics.

Hesitancy around the science of reading is concerning to researchers, said David Griffith, one of the report’s co-authors.

“Almost every literate person I’ve ever met remembers getting phonics,” Griffith said. “There is abundant evidence that phonics is successful, and what the research shows is that you need to know how to decode words in order to learn how to read. … If kids don’t learn to do this, then they won’t learn to read, and if they don’t learn to read, they won’t learn much else.” 

Griffith acknowledged teacher concerns about the trade-off of incorporating more phonics-based instruction and feeling students would miss out on comprehension, “but I would push back…  that there is some sort of balance that we need to strike in terms of helping kids learn to decode,” he said. “Kids need to learn to decode, and then once they’ve done that, there are many other things that we can start doing.”

Griffith also argued having more non-fiction texts in K-3 could level the playing field for students who may not have exposure to certain background knowledge or vocabulary that would make them successful early readers. Lacking this kind of curriculum and instruction has created disparities and affected skills like finding the main idea or inferring for many children, he said.

“A weak reader who knows about baseball will outperform a strong reader who doesn’t know anything about baseball,” Griffith said. “Your ability to draw inferences is entirely dependent on whether you understand what the passage is talking about and whether you have the right vocabulary.”

The report found more than 40% of teachers hadn’t “fully internalized the importance of knowledge and vocabulary to reading ���dz��������Բ����Dz�.”

The report found teacher knowledge around the science of reading is inconsistent.

Griffith said “the chaotic information environment that the typical teacher is subject to,” has been the biggest thing hindering implementation now.

“An older teacher tells you one thing. Your curriculum tells you something else,” he said. “You read an article online written by some think tank and it tells you a third thing. Teachers want to do the right thing, … [but there’s a] lack of clarity … about points that really should be clear.”

Teachers in higher-resourced schools scored slightly higher than average in their science of reading knowledge and commitment (in the 54th percentile), while those in low-resourced schools scored below average in the 44th percentile.

The report called it a “substantial difference that will have dire consequences for poor students should it persist,” that shows “the fragmented nature of curriculum adoption and the complexity of translating exposure to science of reading–aligned training into better practice.”

Griffith added that teacher turnover in those environments likely play a role.

“Teaching is just harder in high-poverty schools. There is less time to think, there’s less time to do research on the science of reading or anything else. There is probably not a long tradition of veteran teachers building strong curricula over multiple years,” he said.

Across the country, most K-3 teachers have received some type of professional development in the science of reading, the report also found. Those who have completed those courses have a better understanding of the evidence-based approach than those who rely on what they were taught in higher education and teacher preparation programs. 

Even though most educators receive professional development, researchers said teachers’ knowledge of the science of reading declined as the grade level increased, with kindergarten teachers “exhibiting the deepest knowledge and third-grade teachers exhibiting the least understanding.”

“These differences may reflect the fact that science of reading–aligned trainings and curricula often disproportionately target kindergarten, where a focus on decoding is particularly crucial. Still, given the number of third graders who are still struggling with decoding — and the continuing need to build knowledge and vocabulary in higher grades — the mediocre performance of teachers in higher grade levels is grounds for concern,” the report said.

Other findings from the report included how 93% of teachers use multiple reading curricula, some which still use practices like cueing. And that many teachers reported “limited insight into the needs of English learners and students with dyslexia.”

“If we could somehow improve the quality of pre-service preparation, we would really be making progress, because it is hard to change the practices of teachers who have been teaching for 15 to 20 years,” Griffith said. “It would be enormously helpful if teachers got the right message at the start of their careers.”

Fordham researchers called for colleges of education to require instruction aligned to the science of reading.

The report also found teachers in states with reading-aligned licensure tests had a deeper understanding of the evidence-based reading model, which became another recommendation for better implementation. Other suggestions included mandates around K-3 teacher training to be completed within their first three years in the classroom and a push for states to establish approved curriculum lists.

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.

Anna Gawf scans her third graders, sitting cross legged on purple carpet at in Springdale, Arkansas, to see if the concept sinks in. It’s a Tuesday in early April, and Gawf is prepping the class in reading comprehension for a state exam just a few weeks away.

While it’s a motto all four Hunt Elementary third grade teachers follow, they have achieved some high scores themselves. Hunt’s has some of the highest in the state, a measure of how well their students meet or exceed academic growth benchmarks in all subjects. 

Principal Michelle Doshier credits that success to the strategies the team created together. Three of the team members — Gawf, Jami Cheshier and Robyn Hubbard — have been with the school since Doshier helped open it 21 years ago. They came together as a third grade team five years ago, after teaching other grades. Teacher Lindsay Dees joined the team two years ago after working with adults in the district’s family literacy program.

“One of the things that is so great about them is [the fact that] Anna’s taught second grade and third grade, so she knows those grades really, really well. Robyn Hubbard has taught fifth, fourth, third and second, so [she] knows where they are and where they need to go,” Doshier said. “Jamie has taught kindergarten, first, second and now third — she takes a lot of the low-performing kids because she knows that foundation. And Lindsay brings lots of new, fresh ideas.”

The four teachers’ classrooms are located in a circle in a third-grade wing of Hunt Elementary. Students don’t stay in one classroom for the entire year, or even for the entire day. Instead, the four educators share students depending on their skill level. Children in Cheshier’s classroom might move to Gawf’s for reading instruction because they are more proficient than their classmates. 

Doshier said this practice is used in all grade levels. Some students will spend a part of their day in a lower or higher grade if that’s where they’re at in a certain subject. 

“We used to, I think, have the mindset of, ‘These are my little kiddos, or my 25 kids,’ and now it’s, ‘They’re all ours,’ ” Gawf said. “We want to see them all grow. For the bulk of the time, we do have our kids in our own classroom, but we do rotate so much. It’s nice to see other kids from other rooms and just know that you’re supporting your partner teacher.”

The third grade team meets regularly to review academic data and discuss which reading skills students need improvement on, such as understanding the main idea or articulating certain word sounds. Then, they decide which classroom the students belong in and whether they need higher-level reading instruction or interventions.

“I think we’ve done the best job ever this year of them really being all of our [students],” Hubbard said. “I’m noticing things like kids in my room have real relationships with [the other teachers]. They will say, ‘Hey, I drew this for Miss Gawf, can I go take it to her?’ Or they are making sure they say hi to Miss Dee every morning or telling me something Miss Cheshier said to them — they don’t just go to their classes. They really have relationships with all three of them.”

Administrators from other schools in the Springdale district, which serves nearly 22,000 students in northwest Arkansas, visit Hunt Elementary to observe strategies like those used in third grade. 

“It’s been a journey to get to this point,” Cheshier said. “Don’t think we don’t have really hard days.”

Teaching looks a lot different at Hunt Elementary now than it did when the school first opened, they said. Over the years, the percentage of English learners increased from roughly 5% to 35%, and more immigrant students are enrolling in third, fourth or fifth grade without many reading skills. In the last decade, the school’s poverty level from 39% in 2015 to 60% in 2025.

“My first year that Hunt was open, I taught third grade,” Hubbard said. “Back in those days, it was all about comprehension. And I never had taught a child how to read from the beginning until our population changed as drastically as it did. When I came back to third grade, I was now having to teach third graders how to read.”

Like teachers across the country, the third grade team has also dealt with a rise in student needs and behaviors since the pandemic. All four teachers recounted how last year’s class — which entered kindergarten during COVID — needed more support than any other group of students they’ve had in recent years. The children lacked social skills and required more discipline. 

“In families, everyone was stressed out about their own jobs, and the students missed out on a chunk of learning during COVID,” Dees said. “They didn’t learn the right skills.”

Doshier said children who were in third grade in 2024-25 also needed more academic support than normal, and they had the lowest reading proficiency rates in Hunt Elementary’s history, at 37%. Third grade reading proficiency was at 57% the year before.

Doshier said the team is working hard to build the current class’ reading proficiency so the rate can go back up.

The teachers’ work can also be seen through their average growth score that’s measured by the state. A score higher than 80 means that teacher’s students are growing academically, on average, more than expected. Anything below 80 means the kids are progressing more slowly than they should. 

Gawf, Hubbard and Cheshier have a three-year growth score average of 90 points or higher, according to school data. A have a three-year average greater than 82 points. Dees doesn’t have a three-year average score because she’s been at Hunt Elementary for only two years.

Arkansas lawmakers approved the in 2023 to reward high-performing educators. Teachers who have a three-year growth score average above 80 can earn up to $10,000 in annual bonuses.

“I was recently talking to a friend who’s from another school in Springdale, and she said, ‘Are you still at Hunt? Do you still love it?’ Yes and yes,” Hubbard said. “She said that Hunt is known around the district as being a well-oiled machine. That comes from the top. Our administrators are amazing, and all the teachers want to work for them, and we want to do our best for them, because they give us so much grace and so much freedom. It creates a really awesome culture.”

As of this year, say yes and impose some form of retention policy linked to a child’s reading scores, according to the advocacy group ExcelInEd. But the question of retention has been hotly debated as a tool to drive reading scores, with Ohio its version in 2023 and dropping its requirement in 2024.

On one side, research suggests that third grade reading scores are of a student’s likelihood of academic success through middle school and into high school. Children who behind in the early years to ever get back on track.

On the other hand, it feels harsh to hold students back and separate them from their peers based on the results of a test. Plus, there is good reason to suspect that the children who will actually be affected by such a policy will be Black and low-income.

But there’s one more argument that, in my opinion, tips the scales in favor of third grade reading laws. In threatening to hold students back if they haven’t been taught to read properly, states are warning the adults to make sure each child is on track in literacy.

When you start to see third grade retention policies as less of an intervention and more about how they change adult behavior, you can see it show up in the research literature. For example, from Michigan — a state where, thanks to various exemptions and remediation efforts, the number of kids who are actually retained is just — found positive effects of its third grade reading law even in districts that did not hold any students back. A Florida found that flagging a child for retention improved the academic outcomes of their younger siblings. One of the study’s authors that, “the high-stakes retention signal for the older siblings might inform parents and educators about the educational needs of the younger sibling and induce them to act.”

If the actual act of retention were the trick, these results should be impossible. As is, they imply that the laws are forcing adults to change their behaviors in ways that boost reading outcomes even for kids who were not retained. 

One of the most active champions of third grade reading laws is ExcelinEd’s Kymyona Burk, who implemented Mississippi’s third grade reading bill while serving as the state’s literacy director. Last year, she told , “Retention is not the goal of the retention policy. …The goal is for students to be identified early and receive the tutoring, the attention, the individualized reading plan to prevent a student from being retained.”

Notably, did not just threaten to hold kids back. It also required districts to administer a state-approved literacy exam to identify any children in grades K-3 who might have a reading deficiency. If a student is identified as being at risk, districts have to draft an individual reading plan outlining the child’s specific deficiencies and a plan to address them. Schools also have to notify parents if their son or daughter has a reading challenge and provide parents with “Read at Home” lessons including guided reading assignments.

Like other states, Mississippi’s law includes “good cause” exemptions, for students who are non-native English speakers who have been in the country for less than two years of instruction or who suffer from severe disabilities that prevent them from learning to read successfully.

For children who are held back, the requirements get even tighter. Schools are required to provide them with at least 90 minutes of research-based reading instruction per day, delivered through small-group lessons, tutors or summer or afterschool programs.

Some skeptics argue that Mississippi’s up the national fourth grade reading rankings was dubious, as some of the tested students were older because they had been held back in third grade (and thus given more instruction and time to mature). For example, three professional statisticians published in January noting that, “It is a fact of arithmetic that the mean score of any data set always increases if you delete some of the lowest scores.” It is true that Mississippi has more students than average who are for their grade (54% versus 39%). But Mississippi’s rate is the same as Oklahoma’s and South Dakota’s, and Mississippi has much better reading than those two states. Besides, Mississippi has held back more kids than other states — what changed was the formal tie to a child’s reading performance.

If anything, states with third grade reading retention policies like Mississippi’s are taking early reading challenges more seriously than states without one. After all, student literacy is not likely to magically improve without some rigorous intervention. What’s more likely is that doors of opportunity will slowly close to them over time as schools pass them along from grade to grade.

Third grade reading policies can certainly be harsh for the students who are subject to them. But they force schools to address each child’s reading problems before they have a chance to fester.

Disclosure: Chad Aldeman is a consultant with ExcelinEd on an unrelated project. 

Dacia Toll, co-CEO of and co-founder of , joins Michael Horn and Diane Tavenner to share how Coursemojo is using artificial intelligence to support students and teachers in English Language Arts. The conversation dives into how Coursemojo functions in real classrooms and the very human process it took to build the product itself.

Toll explains how she and her team started with the core curriculum — high quality instructional materials that build knowledge and vocabulary over time — in schools, then focused on how to ask students the right questions to gauge their understanding, give them the right feedback and then ask the right next question. They then figured out how to surface those insights for teachers in actionable ways. 

Listen below to hear about the professional development Coursemojo offers teachers and how AI makes it much easier to rapidly incorporate feedback and update the product, but, of course, with limitations.

Listen to the episode below. A full transcript follows.

Diane Tavenner: Hey, Michael.

Michael Horn: Hey, Diane. Good to see you and continue to crank on, uh, these, uh, AI tools that are starting to change what learning looks like in schools with you today.

Diane Tavenner: Today is gonna be a really fun one. I’m very excited to dive in with our guests today, but before we do that, this is our second time making this ask of our listeners, a second time in like seven seasons. And we never really thought this was important or quite frankly even thought about it, but it turns out it would be super helpful if you all could rate or review Class Disrupted wherever you’re listening to the podcast. And of course, please subscribe to it, and, and we’ve never asked you to do this because this is very much like a labor of love for us, but, but it turns out it kind of matters.

A little bit.

Michael Horn: Yeah, it’s absolutely true, Diane. And so a good way for other listeners to find out about it. And we of course get tons of private feedback from listeners, so we know you’re all out there. But, you know, if you can rate it, review it, subscribe it, you’ll help other people figure out as well what’s going on here. And while, as you said, this is a passion project for us, we do want it to matter and change the broader dialogue so people are having these conversations. And it turns out those, 5 stars, subscribe, beep, whatever it is. Those are a big deal, right, Diane?

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, they are. And then the last thing we’ll say about this is please keep telling us privately the things that we’re asking you to now say publicly, which is like what you like, who we should talk to, what’s working. We really do love the feedback and try to incorporate it every chance we get. And so please keep that, keep that coming.

Michael Horn: Keep it coming indeed. This is going to be a fun episode today though. It’s a friend of both of ours who, deep admiration for Dacia Toll, is our guest today. She’s a lifelong educator, school builder. She’s known for her work, obviously in 1999, founding principal of Amistad Academy in New Haven, Connecticut, dedicated to closing that achievement gap and then went on to found, of course, Achievement First. A network of many, I think 40-plus charter schools in the country, recognized nationwide as one of the highest performing school systems and so forth. And then in 2021, Dacia left Achievement First and soon after launched this company called Coursemojo, which we’re gonna get to talk about today. We’re gonna break it down.

It’s an AI-powered teaching assistant, but we’re gonna actually say what that in fact means, ‘cause it has very, very cool specific use cases that I think people are gonna enjoy learning about. And Dacia, thank you so much for being here. We’re thrilled to have you.

Dacia Toll: Very happy to be here with both of you guys.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, super happy. I will say that over the years I have learned so much from Dacia on so many fronts. And so I’m really grateful to be here with you.

Dacia Toll: Right back at you, Diane.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Horn: Well, I was gonna say, this is fun, right? We’ve all known each other and Dacia, you and Diane, you have something in common, which is you founded a school, then a CMO, and left a few years back and now both of you running edtech companies. We may come back to that. I should say you both raised venture funding. Like, there’s a lot of interesting things here. Listeners, of course, have a sense for why Diane made her job move, in my parlance. But why, why did you make yours? Like, what’s the founding story behind Coursemojo and the problem you were trying to solve by founding it?

Teaching, Outcomes, and Challenges

Dacia Toll: Yeah, so as you pointed out, I’ve been at this for a while now. I’ve spent a lot of time in my happy place, which is classrooms. Trying to figure out how to create the student experiences and the student outcomes, short-term, long-term, that we all want. And I do think we had a fair amount of, our students had a lot of success by at least the traditional measures. And then importantly, we always anchored in college graduation and launched into a career as part of what we were very focused on. But, it was hard. Like everything, you know, to really get a great teacher in every classroom with high-quality instructional materials and a strong classroom culture and relationships amongst kids and teachers and family and community connections. And then, I got inspired by Diane and tried to pull off project-based learning and expeditions and personal goals.

And sort of double down on, I don’t know, I don’t like calling them soft skills, but like the whole package, both as a parent, I now have teenage boys and as an educator.

Michael Horn: I always remember seeing your kid in the school, whereas you were making that transformation. It was so much fun to watch.

Dacia Toll: Yeah. Yeah. So yes, my own kids went to Achievement First schools. And so it’s just, it’s all very personal and I, I both believe as much as I did in the, in the possibility of success, but if we’re honest about it, it took so many things to line up to be successful. And I just, especially when AI emerged on the scene, I thought, wow, this, I’ve been frankly for most of that time an edtech skeptic. I think there have been lots of promises and it’s sort of overpromise, underdelivering is I think the pattern if you’re honest about most edtech. And AI felt different. Like we refer to it internally, I know others do as well as an electricity.

And you still have to build the light bulb or the power screwdriver or, you know, the tools that will leverage that electricity, but you are fundamentally working with something different now. And I found that inspiring. And so how, the problem we are focused on, it does feel like it’s been a lifelong effort, is, uh, reading achievement. Like, as you guys know, the NAEP scores in 8th grade are at the lowest level in 30 years. It does really feel like too many kids are falling off a cliff when it comes to basics of reading and writing. We could debate whether we think that’s still gonna matter in an AI-powered future. I do. And so it, and it feels really urgent.

And so we are, we have two big north star goals. We are trying to improve reading achievement. Specifically, we focus at the middle school level, although we’re now expanding to grades 3 through 10 next year. And then second, on teacher efficacy leading to teacher retention. Like we want more great people to stay in this profession. I think a lot of AI tools are trying to save teachers’ time. We certainly do that too, but we think we are in this profession because we wanna serve kids well, and that what will motivate you is if you feel like I’m doing a really good job at this thing that I care a lot about.

Michael Horn: So let’s dig in then, and just Coursemojo, obviously that tool, as you were saying, that you built using the electricity of AI to help solve that reading problem and boost teacher effectiveness. How do you describe what it does today in middle schools? What is Coursemojo?

Dacia Toll: So, there’s a student-facing side and a teacher-facing side. On the st— well, let me just say, take one quick step back before I dive in. You guys have been having so many fascinating conversations. Thank you for that. and people should like and subscribe and rate.

Michael Horn: Thank you.

Dacia Toll: Favorably, but what I, you know, I think it’s Bob Hughes and others who’ve talked about like multiple levels of AI in schools or models or paradigms. There, there is the one that I think is happening the most, which is finding efficiencies in small ways for teachers, whether that’s grading or on the operational side. And I’m, again, that’s great, but it’s sort of at the margins. And supplemental or not actually touching students at all. Then there’s this second model, which is more transformational when it comes to the teaching and learning experience. I think that’s at the moment where Coursemojo sits. And then there’s the third model, which is the AI-native schools. And I did listen to your episode with John Danner, and that I think is so.

AI’s Impact on Future Schools

Dacia Toll: And my personal belief as somebody who spent a lot of time in schools is that some people will want to and be able to make a leap to an AI-native school that’s an entirely different design, including in the, the goals that it’s trying to achieve with young people. But I think a lot of folks are gonna, hopefully make this transition into the model 2, work where it is meaningfully, it’s transformative in terms of what the experience is like, but it’s not a different universe. It’s like you’re still in schools, you’re still trying to do the core jobs, many of which I think are still important, although we could have that conversation if you wanted. So we’re going into the ELA classroom as it current — mostly as it currently exists, where you, especially in middle school, generally have content expert teachers who are trying to help kids improve their critical thinking about text and their writing skills, discourse, collaboration among students. And we start with the high-quality instructional materials. As you all know, it’s been one of the, I think, most positive steps forward to really have a quality curriculum that’s anchored in building knowledge, vocabulary, and reading skill over time. But that’s another one of those things that we all believe in, but is hard to execute effectively. And as a result, we have not universally seen the gains that we all believe we could. So we start there.

The first thing our team does is identify the hardest thinking part of every lesson. Which we know from the national research on these core curricula is often the part that gets a little watered down or skipped. Teachers run out of time, or frankly, they’re worried about the diversity of learners that exist. I think there’s on average a 5-grade-level span in a typical middle school classroom right now, so you can understand why teachers are anxious about giving the rigor of the text and task. So we identify the hardest thinking part of the lesson. Then for that part, not the entire thing, but for that 25-minute chunk. That’s where, for the kids, as a student said to me, it’s like the handout is talking to me. So it’s the same rich, wonderful text we’re already trying to read.

Adaptive Learning for Collaboration

Dacia Toll: It’s the same analysis questions we’re already supposed to be grappling with, but now kids are in partners or small groups, and we can come back to why that’s important to us, but they’re talking and then typing, and Mojo is like a learning buddy in that context. And what happens is Mojo figures out what the kid knows or doesn’t know about in response to that question, and then affirms, gives a little moment of metacognition if they need it, if they’re, if they’re struggling at like an insight, and then gives them the next just right question. And we could get back to why all three of those steps I think are important, but that’s something we worked on over time to make sure, we’re not trying to replace the teacher, but we’re trying to, as our great teachers have said, I can’t be in 27 places at once. So how can we get as close as possible in what a good teacher would do when a kid’s struggling, with a rich, meaningful question. So the kids are working. Meanwhile, the teacher has a live dashboard that shows every student’s level of understanding for every question. And so every class is wonderfully different, but In general, 85% of kids are humming with their partner and with Mojo, but the teacher knows right away the 15% of kids who are struggling for whatever reason, could be motivational, could be comprehension, and directs their effort and then sort of tees up for them what’s the gap between what the student’s current response and the criteria for success for that question. And so the teacher can, does, go around the room, conference one-on-one or with the entire small group, and push them forward as well. So we don’t think the AI’s gonna get every kid exactly where they need to be for deep understanding.

And in fact, we very meaningfully want the teacher to be focused strategically on what they can uniquely do well. So that happens for about 12 to 15 minutes that the kids are working on these close, generally close read questions, could be writing, and then the teacher goes over to, pushes a button and Mojo tees up the two biggest misconceptions in the class right now, and a suggested discussion question. So the teacher reviews them. We always want the teacher to make the choice about what’s the best use of time. Then the teacher pauses the class and facilitates a class discussion, not about every single question, but about the thing that is most holding kids back, often cuts across questions. And what we found is, I think it’s 85% of kids say they’re more likely to participate in class after having worked with Mojo. So on both the student side, they’re encouraged to participate. And then on the teacher’s side, they’re more confident because they kind of know what to go after.

And I think this just hits on another point. There are AI-powered learning experiences that are silent solo.

Diane Tavenner: Tons of them.

Dacia Toll: We, for a whole bunch of reasons, we’re talking about core Tier 1 instruction. We want it to be as beautiful as what these curriculum materials and teacher vision calls for, with more discourse, not less. And then again, there’s a lot we don’t know about the future for these young people, but we know we’re going to need our human skills more than ever. So that ability to work together, both in a full group setting and a partner setting, is really important. Anyway, and then finally it does end with an exit ticket, which is kids do independently, often writing. What’s different now is kids get, in every phase of this, kids get multiple rounds of feedback and then they revise their thinking and they revise their writing to make it better. And we know that also, like, if you don’t, I think about all the grading I did over the years and like, you just grade and the kids don’t.

You have to revise.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah.

Dacia Toll: So that’s inherent. And then there’s celebrations throughout. And Mojo also can make, it pulls exemplary student work, highlights kids who should be shouted out. So that’s the long whirlwind tour as to what it looks like.

Diane Tavenner: It’s awesome. Thank you for making it so concrete.

Michael Horn: Yes.

Reimagining Teaching with AI

Diane Tavenner: Literally taking us into a classroom about, and you know, anyone who’s been in a classroom, an English language arts classroom, what I taught certainly, like what you’re describing is what I aspired to do as a teacher, right? But I had to use my whiteboard or in the old days, my chalkboard. And I would, what I would call bumblebee around the classroom. Like you’re just trying to like bumblebee around so the kids are supposedly doing what they’re doing, but you’re not giving any feedback. You don’t actually know if they’re getting it or not, you know, like and so, it is making, well, in my words, it’s making the mere mortal be able to be the sort of superhuman teacher that we all want and imagine. And it’s just like my partner in doing that, right? I can be everywhere all at once and, and I, you know, have this brain working next to me and whatnot. What I know is that well, What I know from you in our previous conversations, and this is where I’d love to dig in and get a little bit nerdy right now, is I don’t— Michael and I keep pressing people to say like, what do you mean when you say by AI? You know, AI, because I think most people think that’s like, you know, logging into ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini and just asking a question. And you have gone through an extraordinary amount of work with AI to enable everything you just described. So will you take us sort of under the hood a little bit?

Talk about the type of work your team had to do to train the AI and get it to do the things you’re talking about and for you to feel good about it.

Dacia Toll: Yeah. This is something I both think AI is a game-changing electricity and I’m sort of frequently disappointed from a pedagogical perspective, even with the general large language models in terms of how well they evaluate student responses and how poorly generally they do at coming up with the next just right question. They’re so wired to give away the answer that it really is not the best pedagogical experience at this point. But what we do is, so first we start with the text and the questions, but then that’s nowhere near enough. It’s about how the AI, what the AI uses to evaluate the student response. And what they’re using is not just the knowledge of the unit and the unique text complexity and the lesson objectives for the day, but rather we have programmed in question-specific criteria. So they know if you’re analyzing this beautiful Langston Hughes poem and you’re answering this question that you need to— it’s maybe a vocabulary and context question— you need to know both what the word means and you need to know what it means in the context of this beautiful extended metaphor. and there’s not one right answer.

This is what’s complicated about the criteria of success, but there is a universe of good answers. There is a universe of typical kid confused answers, and that can be constantly refined. Like as kids teach us new insights into, you know, something like poetry, we can upgrade and do in real time. But so they’re criteria-specific questions, criteria, I’m sorry, question-specific criteria for success, which to my knowledge, I don’t know that anybody else is doing. Because it takes a lot of work on the front end.

Michael Horn: Now, I was gonna say, like, you have to go deep into these texts, right? I mean, just describe a little bit of that creation process also.

Dacia Toll: Yeah. And then there’s a whole other reading framework, but we can get to that. So yes, initially it required some of the best teachers we know on staff to do that kind of level of intellectual prep that you would do. Basically, what constitutes an exemplary answer? What are the transferable criteria of that great answer? So originally we human-powered it. Now we have so many examples of excellent human-powered criteria and have trained an AI authoring platform, which is internal-facing only, to give us a good rough draft. But we are still having humans do a gut check basically on, on— we could talk about what that looks like, but there are multiple steps. It’s like dominoes that the AI agent will tee up different things, and we still want those excellent teachers to go through and check.

Complexity of Reading Challenges

Dacia Toll: But so that’s what’s happening on the question-specific criteria. The other thing that we found is essential, which is why I really do believe for at least a long time, the specialized products are gonna outperform the general, like thin-layer products. And so we are very clearly geeking out on reading. It’s, as we know, reading is not math, and it’s not as simple. Like when a kid is struggling to understand a poem and to identify the central idea, it’s rarely that the problem is the skill of identifying the central idea. It’s almost always that there’s something else about the way that text complexity that is getting in the way, or it could be a fluency issue or background knowledge or a vocabulary issue, and we sometimes wanna say, oh, it’s a main idea problem, which then leads people to go outside the curriculum and do a bunch of main idea practice, which we know does not work. So like there are a set of ways in which we now have a whole reading framework that we’ve developed with, the good folks from Anet, Whitney Weldon, a whole bunch of reading experts, and it sort of honors the complexity of reading.

So Mojo’s looking at the criteria-specific success, it’s looking at the reading framework, and it’s trying to figure out what does this kid likely not understand about this? And that’s where there’s now this light bulb step that gives them like a little hint, and then it asks them the next just right question. And that is actually pulled from a bank of suggestions that is also, was initially human-authored, is now AI-authored specific to that question. So that’s not even tuning or training. It’s that the AI in real time is consulting with a set of resources and trying to pull the exact right instructional move for that kid. Would it be helpful to give an example or

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, well, because these have been created by expert teachers, vetted by expert teachers.And so like, I think the thing I want to, and Michael helped me here with the language, but like, there’s a lot of people, I would say the majority of people who are doing AI products are literally just putting like a wrapper around the language model right.

Michael Horn: With a bunch of instructions of guardrails around the context window.

Dacia Toll: It’s like prompt engineering, maybe.

Michael Horn: Yeah, not the training you just described.

Diane Tavenner: No, they haven’t literally taken expert professionals to work hand in hand with the AI to then produce this new experience, if you will, that brings the best of both of those. And so please do give us an example. I think it’s super helpful.

Dacia Toll: Well, I was in a classroom last week in Colorado, and the kids were analyzing a poem, and the question from the curriculum was, what role do lines 6 and 7 play in this poem? And these 7th graders were like, I really have almost no idea. So to the best of their ability, They are, they sort of, most of them tried to say what was going on in lines 6 and 7. And so what Mojo does is like, OK, affirm, first of all, good job, you know, in your own words explaining what’s happening in lines 6 and 7. But then the light bulb step comes. This question is actually asking you about the author’s craft and an intentional choice the author made to include these lines. Follow-up question: how would this poem be different without lines 6 and 7? That is like a — both the kid is like, oh, I didn’t even understand that this was about a choice the author was making, like author’s craft, and then I did — now I’m like guided into a process of actually trying to figure this out. And then if they struggle with that, Moja will say, well, what happens before and what happens after, you know, there’s like a set of additional questions that come out that what new teachers have told us, it’s one of the greatest compliments, is they do the Mojo activity before the kids so that they understand how to ask a scaffolded question without totally draining the rigor out of the thinking work that’s required, or how to give bite-sized feedback.

So that’s what we’re trying to do.

Diane Tavenner: Dacia, let’s stay here for a minute, as like a lifelong English language arts teacher. I wonder if I know some people will hear this and be like, who the heck cares if that author, like what their purpose was in those two lines? Like why, why are kids even learning this? Can’t we just teach them to read? So let’s spend a minute on how that transfers into the world and why that is so important and how, yeah, let’s start there. And then yeah.

Dacia Toll: Well, there’s so many layers to your question. And I’d love for you as a lifelong ELA teacher to offer your own point of view as well. But I think first we have the question, do kids in this new future still need to learn to read and write? And my, my strong conviction is yes, they do. Like, we’re going to be processing lots of information, but as we all know, there’s no firm line between listening, reading, and writing. It’s all the same cognitive process with each of them reinforcing the other. So learning to read is also a way in which, even if we believe AI is going to talk to us in the future, I think there’s still like the vocabulary and the, and the sort of way sentences get put together to effectively or ineffectively convey meaning. So that’s one. It’s like we could talk more about that. But I also think, I actually do believe we should be letting kids write more advanced pieces using AI.

That’s a whole separate other question. But if they haven’t learned to write themselves, I think that is a very dangerous place to start.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah.

Dacia Tol: So, that’s one. Second, it’s really just critical thinking.

Diane Tavenner: Well, that’s where I’m going. Like everyone’s talking about cognitive offloading and the lack of critical thinking and what you just literally put your finger on that activity is, oh. I can question or get curious about what an author’s intention was and why they did something. And that applies to every article. It applies to the —

Michael Horn: Well, it applies to the AI reading output you’re getting, right?

Diane Tavenner: Literally. Like, that is —

Dacia Toll: It applies to art. I mean, it applies to human interactions. Like, why is this person doing or saying what they’re doing in the way they are doing or saying it? And what does that reveal about them, their purpose? The message they’re trying to convey. Yeah, I think, I mean, just to, in defense of productive struggle, the brain, that’s the way we learn. Like if we don’t attend and focus and think and productively struggle, now there’s a zone in which that’s productive versus unproductive. But, and that’s part of what I think AI can help us get more kids like in their zone. But you have to, you have to remember. And forget and recall.

And these are the ways that the neural pathways get formed in our brain.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. And I think your ability to like bring this into the classroom every day where it’s like, let’s just imagine now these young people every day in their class, they’re just doing this type of work over and over and over and over again. It is a muscle. You have to work it out. You have to build it. You have to practice it. You know, it will go away if you don’t use it. And as much as we’ve aspired for classrooms to look like this all day, every day, they, they for the most part don’t and haven’t.

And I’m not putting blame on anyone because it’s just so hard to do. And I think that’s why you call AI electricity, because it actually enables that, right?

Balancing Curriculum and Students

Dacia Toll: Well, I think so. Again, part of what we’re doing is going into the. Part of what you asked again, what set me on the journey, one teacher said to me, she said, am I supposed to teach the rigor of the curriculum or the kids in front of me? And the answer is both, but back to the whole thing being a little hard. Yeah. Like, she’s not wrong that bridging that, much less bridging that for 26 wonderfully unique individuals is very hard. And I think what too often we see happening in classrooms is the teacher, one of two things happens. Either they are so worried about kids struggling, and they’re not wrong, left to their own devices with that question, I watched it. A lot of kids out of the gate didn’t know what to do with that question. And so, the teacher holds it for the whole class and they ask the question and maybe, maybe 3 kids answer and then they move on.

And then the next question, same thing. And frankly, intellectual engagement is optional. For the other 24 kids in the room. And some of them are probably paying attention. Some of them, this is middle school, may not be or they’re going in and out of attention. The other option is I give it to them on a handout and kids are set to struggle and they put down the best answer they can. They put down the literal comprehension of those lines of poetry and then they move on.

Diane Tavenner: Yep.

Dacia Toll: The difference now is every kid is answering every single question. And intellectually grappling with it, and they’re getting real-time feedback that allows them to revise their thinking and their writing, and they get closer to encoding success before they move on. Cognitively, that’s a very different experience. Yeah.

Michael Horn: Yeah. I was gonna say the headline I’m taking away from this, right, is everyone’s worried right now about AI and cognitive offloading. You actually have used it to do the exact opposite, which is to make sure no one escapes this cognitive work and struggle, which is a significantly different use of use case of AI, but it’s significantly different use case of the classroom in a lot of average schools across the country right now. It leads into the question I have, which I’m just curious, like, is it hard for schools to figure out how to use Coursemojo? What does that on-ramp look like? Do they think of it as AI? Do they think of it as like an engaging digital learning activity? Are you, are you getting caught up in the backlash against edtech and the overpromising and underdelivering? Like, how is that all playing out?

Dacia Toll: Yeah. I personally lead a lot of teacher PD. I just love doing it and I learn a lot from it and it’s kind of fun to show up and we have a phenomenal partnership with Jackson, Mississippi and I was their leading teacher PD and they’re so nice. Like teachers are so nice. They come in, they, but the truth is they’re looking at me like, who is this lady? And it didn’t help that all they were told is like, come and learn about a new AI tool aligned to the curriculum. Like, That does not inspire confidence in the vast majority of teachers. And one of the things that’s wonderful is they actually have a significant number of experienced teachers. So it was actually teachers who had been teaching for a while and they start out a little side-eyed, like they’re nice, but they’re like, eh, skeptical.

And the first thing we do, like within the first 15 minutes of the PD, is they become students in a Mojo-powered classroom. And it’s often a text because it’s a curriculum that they’ve taught. And we start normally with, you know, we give, serve up a very challenging one. I remember in this case it was historical fiction about westward expansion, and they were like, “Ooh, the kids really struggled with this one.” And 5th grade. And then the teachers get into it and they realize how delightful it is. I mean, one thing I do really want to emphasize is we care a lot about joy and you should love reading. This should not be, yes, it’s cognitive and you have to productively struggle. But we are often like Mojo and the, and the way it’s organized, we’re taking delight in the text and the insights and the combination of affirmation.

And then when you get a partially correct or fully correct answer, Mojo has like just little emojis, like hundreds of them that sort of like your message the same way it would on social media or texting. And the kids love that. Like, oh, I got the little man on the surfboard or the muscle. And, and then if you get a 3 out of 3 on your writing after multiple rounds of revision, you get different gifts. And I saw a llama on a surfboard yesterday. And like, it’s the digital sticker. Like, we don’t overly gamify. They’ll never be playing Asteroid Blasters or whatever in reading class, but We believe in recognizing quality thinking and quality work, you know, the same way a great teacher does that praise.

And we make it easy for teachers to celebrate kids too. That’s even more meaningful. But the point is the teachers start out in this skeptical place and then they experience it and they experience the delight of my ability to identify who needs help and make my way over to them or facilitate the class discussion. And the other thing I would say is because they have this live dashboard teachers have told us they’re more comfortable letting kids work together in partners in small groups. Which I also think is something that I’m anxious about is there’s not enough of in classes in this, especially in this AI future. And because now they have, as a teacher said to me, eyes everywhere. They know immediately if that group in the back that’s gotten good at looking like they’re working is not actually working. So that’s important.

Improving Instructional Effectiveness

Dacia Toll: I think in terms of what’s hard, we also have the pleasure of working in New York City, and I was walking classrooms there with some coaches, and we were identifying that some of the small group work could be more effective. They were just happy it was happening, but they want— with it, it could be more effective, and that the full class discussion could also be more effective. Those are things they said their work— I mean, New York City has seen great gains with New York City Reads. But that’s the thing, that’s what they’re working on already. Like that’s the same way we’re all trying to improve effective instruction. Yeah. And I think the feeling was in the moment Mojo is nudging those behaviors to be enabling and nudging, but that there still is a level of teacher training and expertise that has to run alongside. So we’re asking ourselves, how could we support that even more in the context of the product with suggestions and sort of additional insight in real time.

But that’s really the hard part. I would say logging in is smooth and easy because of all single sign-ins. The dashboard is clear and intuitive. It’s colors that direct you where you need to go. So that’s not the hard part. It’s teaching and helping. We’re giving an alley-oop, but the teacher still has to execute some of those, those effectiveness moves.

Diane Tavenner: Dacia, along those lines, I think about this often, and I don’t want to give you heart palpitations because it gives me heart palpitations, but if you were back leading a network of schools again, like we, we used to, and I know neither of us, that’s not our chapter of life right now, but if you were there at this moment, what other opportunities besides this one, because clearly this is a need and you’re passionate about, like what else are you seeing in the world that you would be hopping on and wanting to bring into your schools and your network? What’s the sort of low-hanging fruit that you’d be going after?

Dacia Toll: Yeah, well, I think those are two different questions. Low-hanging fruit versus, I mean, what you inspired me to do, Diane, oh my gosh, more than a decade ago, was to create a whole new school model. And I do think back to this model 1, model 2, model 3. I mean, we’re all finding incredible efficiencies just by using AI and finance, the operations that there’s so many ways in which we should be doing that. And I am for saving teachers’ time. I’m most interested in the space I’m in, which is like, how do we improve the core teaching and learning? And I think those have to be in some level student-facing because, yeah. And I know there’s been some resistance to that and it has to be safe and, and pedagogically strong, but I would be trying to create a new model as well.

AI-Powered Learning Transformation

Dacia Toll: And I think that I don’t think it, you take it, you know, what we did inspired by you was first one school and then three schools. But I have the pleasure of being a part of a CIPRI fellowship, and they asked us to redesign, you know, to design a school, if we could, or a school model based on what we know now. And I do think the emphasis— I still believe knowledge matters. I still believe core skills matter. And the emphasis has shifted for me, like entrepreneurship, creativity, the human connection skills, leadership, judgment, ethics. And I think because we can potentially have the AI-powered learning experiences be so much more effective, I think that opens up more time for, I know a personal favorite of yours, project-based learning. I think there’s a way for AI to be embedded coaches in projects so that we, they were always so darn hard to pull off. But I think what’s exciting to me about this chapter, and the first thing we’re always talking to district leaders about and they’re talking to each other about is, Start with what’s your vision? What are your goals? What’s your vision? What are your values? And now increasingly AI can power a lot of that.

Now it takes this kind of specific design the way we’ve done it. I don’t mean to imply like you can go to ChatGPT and it will run your school for you. Like that is not how it’s gonna work. But if you decide we’re committed to project-based learning based on a knowledge graph, that can be powered now. And I’m hopeful that there’ll be more and more products that are trying to bring more and more of these experiences to life.

Michael Horn: Let me ask one last question. And Diane, I want you to answer this as well. So it’s a question for both of you. You didn’t wanna give yourself PTSD on running a network again. But, but, you know, we’ve talked about it, like you both founded schools, you both founded charter networks, you both had distinctive philosophies, enjoyed success. You both left, founded edtech companies. I’m just, I’d love to hear one reflection that you both have from being on the other side, if you will, on the edtech company side, or a company that provides to schools. You can view it either way.

One reflection that your school network founder self would have been surprised by at the time. Both of you, I’d love to hear your reflections.

Dacia Toll: Do you want to go first, Diane?

Diane Tavenner: I’m thinking, I’m thinking.

Dacia Toll: I will just say. There’s so many things, but what I was, it took a while for me to build new muscles, frankly, because initially what, what, particularly when you were running a system that got into a certain size, like as you said, we were 41 schools when I left, you had to set these big multi-year priorities and goals and you had to go after them in a sustained focus kind of way. And it was a lot about. Keeping this large organization aligned around the pursuit of those goals and cascading communication and systems to support this. And this is fast and iterative and responsive. And if we had tried to write a 2-year product roadmap, it would’ve been so painfully wrong. And so we start with vision and values. I’m not saying you don’t start with vision and values.

But then part of why I’m spending so much time in schools right now is watching and listening to kids and teachers and both what’s causing them friction in the moment and what their aspirations are. Like, what are they trying to get done they can’t get done? And then that literally dictates our product roadmap in the most wonderful way. And it’s really a code— we consider our school partners co-designers with us. Like it is that we’re running design input sessions with them about next future-facing things. Like it is fun and then the tech is just moving so fast.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah.

Dacia Toll: So like our ability to now have an agent that takes the do, all the work from today and creates your do now for you the next day in all of these things, like this is now that’s so different than it was 4 months ago.

Michael Horn: Wow.

Diane Tavenner: Wow. Yeah. That, that totally resonates with me, sort of the misalignment between how quickly well-run schools and systems can run and how fast you know, actually I should say how slowly that moves, even though you think it’s moving so fast as a school or network leader. And then this outside world is just going at a different rate and pace. And the co-building obviously resonates. I think what I think we’re in this moment in time right now where it’s really, I appreciate school and network leaders who are trying to think about streamlining and focusing and only partnering with so many people and not having a million platforms and how does it all integrate and whatnot. And I think the truth is that’s just not the reality yet. I think we should be striving to get there, but if we don’t kind of open ourselves up to what Dacia’s doing in this one little space and what other people— how do we actually ever pull together a model that has the best in class of everything versus just sort of this one generic, not good at anything approach? And so there’s a real tension there I’m feeling.

And on the tech founder side now, I’m like, how do I collaborate with, how do I build a community on our side that makes it more thoughtful and doable for the schools? And then on the school side, I would invite them to think about how do we, you know, sort of work more expansively right now while we collectively, you know, bring into the, our space all the possibility and then move to, I think, more coherent and elegant models over time. I’m not sure that was a-

Michael Horn: No it’s one of the hypotheses when we started Entangled Ventures back in 2015 or whatever it was, that and this was higher ed, but it was similar, which is like, you know, Arizona State University is getting pitches from like how many hundreds of companies every single day. They throw up their hands and they’re like, I won’t say the name of a textbook publisher, but we’ll go with them. We know every product is sort of mediocre, but like they’ve got everything. It’s just simpler. Right. And how do you bring forth a portfolio of, of best in class to an organization to simplify procurement and all that messiness?

Diane Tavenner: Yeah.

Michael Horn: But also give them confidence that they’re getting the best.

Dacia Toll: Well, I would say two things on that front. I don’t envy the tsunami of pitches that land in, I mean, I, it’s bad for me that the amount of AI-powered marketing now that lands in my inbox. And so this is, I think, a huge issue. And the more that others can step in and help school leaders make sense of all the different use cases, and again, what’s aligned to their vision and values. And then we haven’t talked yet about outcomes, but the North Star for us, as somebody who’s focused on ELA achievement, is, is ELA achievement improving? And we have actually a number of outcomes-based contracts aligned to that, which I know can be scary.

Michael Horn: So you’ve put your money, but you’ve put your money where your mouth is.

Dacia Toll: Yes.

Michael Horn: Yeah.

ELA Improvement with Mojo

Dacia Toll: And, and it’s, and we have seen, thankfully, huge improvements. I mean, as somebody who spent my entire life trying to improve ELA achievement and, and actually somewhat and successfully improving, it was always like 3 percentage points a year as reflected on the imperfect but consequential state tests. And we’ve seen across multiple partners, 6, 8, 10 percentage points on state tests in a single year. And, that’s not normal when it comes to— and, I think on some level, maybe it’s not surprising because we’re getting every kid to do the cognitive thinking. Those results are based on using Mojo 2 to 3 times per week. And, in general, we have much higher uptake and usage because it’s a core tier 1 because it’s everything else. But, I think it’s only Amira and Coursemojo on the reading side that have multiple independent efficacy studies. So, that’s not even just us, that’s ESSA Tier 2 research studies now that show that.

And I think people say, maybe this is why Diane and I, coming from the seats we were in, they said sometimes ed tech folks like, it’s too soon to evaluate impact. And I’m like, I just— kids are spending an entire year of their life in one of the most consequential classes of ELA, and we’re saying we can’t evaluate impact? Like, yes, the product is very different at the end of the year, thanks to all the feedback we’ve gotten along the way, but we still had this precious time with kids. Did it or did it not improve the core thing we’re trying to go after together? So, yeah.

Michael Horn: No, I think that’s very well said. All right.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah.

Michael Horn: Let’s wrap the conversation. We could clearly talk to you for a long time, but we’ve got one more segment before we do that.

Michael Horn: And before we let you go, Dacia, the fun segment we always have is something we’ve been reading, watching, listening to.

We try to get outside of education, but as Diane and I often note, we fail probably about half the time. So we’ll let you go wherever, wherever you go on this.

Dacia Toll: I am reading and thinking and listening to a lot of education-focused stuff. I would say one quick on the work thing, Lenny’s podcast has taught a tremendous amount about— I, as somebody who was making a transition into product and tech, I feel like it’s my weekly tutorial. But I also, we mentioned my teenage boys, so I try to spend some of that time with them and they’re getting me into anime. And so I just finished Death Note.

Michael Horn: That I didn’t have that on my checklist for you. OK.

Dacia Toll: No. Well, I, I have never watched anime before, but if it’s an opportunity for me to hang out with teenagers and then and you know, they’re pretty great stories of like heroes and even more, they’re kind of into the anti-hero, which then leads to a whole bunch of good conversations.

Diane Tavenner: That’s awesome. I love that. Anything that I can connect with my kiddos on is definitely something I will do. In this particular case today, I’m going to recommend a documentary film which is nominated for an Oscar, and this was my husband’s pitch to me, which was, I will say, not very compelling, which is there’s this new film out and it’s about death, and I really want to watch it. And then I think you’ll like it because apparently you also laugh at it. And I was like, wow, that’s not compelling at all. But it turns out that Come See Me in the Good Light is actually an extraordinary film.

Diane Tavenner: And it is the relationship of two poets who have these really interesting backstories and, and one of them is diagnosed with cancer. And I think he was wrong. I don’t think it’s about death. I think it’s about living and it’s a really beautiful film for this moment in time. So I recommend it.

Michael Horn: I was gonna say it sounded like a Shelly Kagan Yale, sort of course, the way you started to pitch it and then you changed that up on us. But I’m going to go a totally different direction because you’re outpacing me at the moment, Diane. But as I said in our last episode, it’s America’s 250th. And I’m going to give my brother a shameless plug on this one. I know we both read a lot on, you know, outside of our day jobs, but this one’s a little bit more personal because it’s my brother, Jonathan Horn. He’s been writing This Week in American History for the Free Press. It’s a weekly column, comes out on Wednesdays. It’s a fresh look at history that 

I’ve really enjoyed.

He names events happening around the country to commemorate, celebrate the 250th, including an event in Dorchester near me, which has helped us plan some outings with my kids, which has been super fun. But it was actually his piece on Thomas Jefferson a few weeks back that I highly recommend to all of our friends for its bigger messages and perspectives on the state of our union then, but also the state of our union now. And so highly recommend.

And I’ll just say, Dacia, huge thank you again. This was a fantastic conversation. We’re lucky you’re working on this. And for all of you, our listeners, keep the feedback coming both publicly and privately, and we’ll see you next time on Class Disrupted.

This episode is sponsored by LearnerStudio.

“It is painful,” he said, “and some of you have moved two to three times to find a school for your child.”

His passion for the issue was one of the reasons he wanted to chair the education committee when Republicans took control of the Senate in 2024. That same year, he issued pointing to the nation’s sagging performance in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and advocated for more phonics-based instruction. His staff is now working on a far-reaching literacy bill that would ensure federal funds are spent on the programs that follow the science of reading.

But Cassidy might not be in Congress to see the culmination of his efforts. In his race for re-election, he faces three primary challengers, including Rep. Julie Letlow, who, unlike Cassidy, has secured President Donald Trump’s endorsement. 

Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming and Mark Spencer, who calls himself a “guns and Bible conservative” are also on the ballot May 16, but the real race is between Cassidy, Fleming and Letlow. the vote could be close.

“This is a three-way race and anything can happen,” said Robert Hogan, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. It’s rare for an incumbent senator to lose in a primary. The last one was moderate Republican of Indiana in 2012. At this point, Hogan said, there’s no guarantee Cassidy will even get to a runoff.

The first sign that Cassidy’s bid for a third term was in trouble came when he voted in 2021 to of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 that year. “The country is more important than any one person,” he said in a brief statement at the time. As Trump eyed his return to the White House, Louisiana lawmakers in 2024 changed the election law so that only registered party members or those who are unaffiliated can vote in a party’s primary. Previously, open primaries allowed Cassidy to pick up support from voters on the left. 

The move, Hogan said, was meant to squeeze out so-called RINOS, or Republicans-in-name-only. To MAGA Republicans, Bill Cassidy hasn’t been loyal enough. 

Gov. Jeff Landry, who , has complained that Cassidy supported “liberal Obama judges” and listened to “Never Trumpers.” While Cassidy, a physician, voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, he continues to express disagreement with Kennedy’s statements that cast doubt on vaccine safety.

“Life is lived forward, and so what I have to do is do my best to reassure the American people that vaccines are safe,” he last fall without answering whether he regretted voting in favor of the secretary’s nomination. The two clashed again over vaccine research when Kennedy testified before the committee. Those who support Kennedy’s positions on public health issues are .

‘The same language’

On other issues, the incumbent continues to voice his allegiance to Trump’s agenda. He launched an investigation into Massachusetts over allowing a trans female to compete on a girls’ track team. The president “signed an executive order to restore fairness for women and girls. I’m demanding that states comply,” he posted on X.

Following Trump’s State of the Union address in February, all the ways he has “worked with President Trump.” But to Trump, it appears, the vote to impeach is all that matters.

“This administration is completely blinded by their need for retribution at any cost,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, who has been pushing for updating federal policy on literacy. Cassidy, she said, is “100% principally aligned” with what Education Secretary Linda McMahon wants to accomplish, but the administration “doesn’t think very strategically around those things.”

Three years ago, Rodrigues didn’t consider Cassidy an ally. 

He was among the five GOP senators in late 2022 who objected to her involvement in a parent council launched by former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The organizations chosen to participate, they argued, were “liberal advocacy groups” out to “nationalize our education systems.” 

But Rodrigues and Cassidy found common ground on solving the nation’s literacy crisis. He has greeted busloads of parents that the advocacy organization has brought to Capitol Hill over the years to share their stories.��

“It was almost like he connected with his people,” she said, “because they all spoke the same language.”

Letlow, first elected to the House in 2020, has also focused on parents’ concerns. she backed in 2023 aimed to give parents more say over curriculum and library materials, require schools to notify parents about violent incidents at schools and increase transparency into district budgets. The bill passed the House, but never received a vote in the Senate.

A former university administrator, Letlow supports Trump’s plan to . But her stance on diversity, equity and inclusion before she entered politics gave Cassidy a reason to question whether she’s sufficiently loyal to Trump.

Conservative news outlets dug up a of Letlow interviewing to be president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe in which she said it was “shameful” that the institution didn’t have more women faculty members. While she didn’t get the job, she said establishing a DEI office would have been one of her first moves. 

She has since , saying that DEI efforts were “hijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination.”

Fleming, a former Congressman and then Trump adviser, as a “proven MAGA conservative” who didn’t “cut and run” from the administration after Jan. 6.

The Louisiana Senate seat is considered safe for Republicans. Whoever emerges as the party’s nominee is expected to win the general election in November. But neither Letlow nor Fleming would be in line to chair the education committee. 

If Cassidy loses and the GOP stays in control of the Senate, that job would likely go to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said David Cleary, a former Republican education staffer for the Senate and now a principal with The Group, a Washington lobbying firm. 

Those with more seniority than her would be highly unlikely to give up their current leadership posts, Cleary said. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky chairs the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, if she wins re-election in November, “would never” leave her position as chair of the appropriations committee, he said.

Murkowski, considered a GOP moderate, to shutter the Education Department. In March, she with Cassidy to make it easier for students to find funds for college. 

But the window to get a literacy bill passed could close if Cassidy doesn’t return to the Senate next year, said Rodrigues with the National Parents Union. “It’s going to be kind of back to the drawing board.”

On the surface, this legislation is ambitious, but for Black children living in book deserts, it does not go far enough. 

According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, only of children’s books feature Black protagonists. So, even if a Black child receives a book from an organization funded by this $100 million, it’s unlikely that book will have a protagonist that looks like him or her.

Black children everywhere deserve high-quality books with Black characters that speak directly to their dreams.

Reimagining this legislation for Black children, I’m reminded of former President Barack Obama’s vision of the “.” My “should be” world is one where Black children enjoy an abundance of high-quality books with protagonists of African descent whose stories nurture the visions for their lives.

Access to these types of books should not be a luxury or an afterthought; it is foundational to the education of Black children. Without these stories, Black children are robbed of critical into their potential. When they see their future selves, they can take small and big steps toward who they will become.

Years ago, I attended a meeting of literacy organizations in Pittsburgh, where I have lived for close to 20 years. Their leaders cited the cost of books with Black protagonists as a barrier to purchasing them. Curious, I researched prices and discovered that while a high-quality book like King of Kindergarten by Derrick Barnes cost $10, a lower-quality book such as Tarantula vs. Scorpion cost only $4.

The gap is not just about price — it’s about quality.

I’ve seen firsthand when I attend community events how some literacy organizations flood Black communities with low-quality books with strategic consistency. Meaning, they have a narrow focus on books that encourage reading rather than inspire Black children to see books as tools to develop vision for their life. These organizations do so to get books in the hands of families because that is one of the programmatic measures of impact in the industry.

These low-quality books feature cartoon, two-dimensional and animal characters, along with weak storylines. They may excite young readers for a moment but offer little to no insight into how children can develop into their future selves.

, an at Central Michigan University, asserted that Black boys living in book deserts need “access to books which reflect their experiences and motivation in the form of purposeful and leisure reading.” Her assertion similarly speaks to Black girls’ experiences.

I define high-quality books as having dynamic characters of African descent, robust storylines and insights that inspire young readers. Picture book biographies are among my favorite types of books of this kind.�� 

When it comes to Black kids, there must not be any compromise. We should follow the example of , the founder of the Manchester Craftsman Guild. He provided subsidized meals to students attending his organization’s educational programs because he believed good food is not just for rich people, but it’s for everybody. Similarly, I believe high-quality books should not be just for rich people; they should be for everybody, especially Black children living in working-class communities.��

Years ago, my wife and I hosted a pop-up bookshop at a local organization in Pittsburgh during Black History Month. A young girl approached our table and asked for a book about Black history. My wife showed her several books, while the girl’s tutor explained that she lived in a home where the adults did not read. The tutor said the girl’s family was not going to buy any books. As the tutor and the girl left the store, my wife put the books in a bag and handed them to me, asking me to give them to the girl. I hurried after them and gave her the bag.

A year later, I saw the tutor again, and she told me the books we gave her had a profound impact on the girl. The tutor has since purchased more books for her, as an investment in the girl’s dreams and future.

My call to action is for literacy organization leaders who conduct book giveaways to consider the following when purchasing books for Black kids. First, examine the types of books your organization is providing. Are you giving children high-quality books that inspire them to think about their dreams? Second, what larger theme(s) are your books speaking to? Third, high-quality books serve as tools that kids can grow with and glean important insights from over the years. Fourth, high-quality books have illustrations that allow the reader to follow the story as if they were an active character in it. Lastly, high-quality books leave an imprint on the reader’s heart, making them want to read them to their children when they grow up. 

Ultimately, when purchasing books for Black children, don’t frame the choices as a matter of quantity versus quality. Think of each book as an investment in Black children’s dreams — because it truly is.

You cannot claim to support literacy while slashing the very programs that help children become readers, stay healthy and succeed in school.

For more than two decades, I have worked alongside families as a social worker, nonprofit leader and education advocate. Today, I lead Families In Schools, a nonprofit that equips parents with the tools, knowledge and confidence to support their children’s learning. I have seen firsthand what happens when families have the support they need — and what happens when they do not.

The parents we work with remind me of my own parents. My father came to this country through the Bracero program and, like so many parents, trusted public schools to create opportunities for his children. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. That should not be the exception for children in communities like mine.

I benefited from programs that helped me succeed. Today, too many families risk losing those same opportunities.

The president’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget proposal would take 17 education programs that families rely on and roll them into a single block grant, cutting their funding from $6.47 billion to just $2 billion.

This is not reform. It is a dismantling.

Under this proposal, funding would no longer be dedicated to specific programs. Instead, states would receive significantly reduced amounts of money, with broad discretion over how it is spent. There would be no requirement to maintain investments in afterschool activities that keep children safe while parents work, college access programs like TRIO and Gear UP, community schools, family engagement efforts, academic supports and services for homeless children.

Programs like these aid more than 26 million students from low-income families. With reduced funding and no dedicated protections, they would be pitted against one another, and many would be at risk of disappearing altogether. But these programs are not extras; they are lifelines.

Families and educators know exactly what these cuts could mean.

They could mean parents working a second job scrambling to find somewhere safe for their child to go after school. They could mean English learners losing critical assistance in the classroom, or community schools having to cut back on health care, counseling, food assistance and other basic services that enable children to learn.

And they could mean family engagement — one of the most powerful drivers of student success — being pushed even further to the margins.

Parents are children’s first teachers and their most fierce and stalwart advocates. Literacy development begins at birth, in play and conversation with caregivers. Kids learn to love reading when people they love read to them. If they are struggling or falling behind, it’s usually the parents or caregivers who fight to make sure they get the help they need, whether that means demanding testing, changing schools or finding tutoring and afterschool activities. Children do not learn in a vacuum. They learn best when their families have the tools, information and resources to be active partners in their education.

The programs on the chopping block have been in place for decades, and they define “evidence-based.” They have been evaluated, showing improvements in attendance, academic outcomes and the ability of families to better support their children’s success.

Walking away from them puts that progress at risk.

States and local districts cannot absorb cuts of this . Families cannot simply make up the difference with time they do not have, money they cannot spare or resources that may not exist.

Parents, educators and policymakers all want children to read, succeed in school and build better futures for themselves. But literacy cannot just be a slogan, and literacy skills cannot be learned if children’s overall developmental needs are not met.

If children are truly to succeed, Congress should reject the president’s proposed cuts and protect the programs students and families rely on every day.

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

A nonprofit organization created by the California State Library to improve childhood literacy has spent more than $1 million in taxpayer money but has yet to put a single book in the hands of a child.

Lawmakers grilled State Librarian Greg Lucas and other officials about the organization’s spending in , with one lawmaker saying it raises “serious questions.”

Lucas, however, blamed the shortcomings on the fact that legislators themselves pulled the organization’s funding prematurely. After the hearing, he told CalMatters in a statement that “every taxpayer dollar spent on this program is fully accounted for.”

In total, lawmakers allocated $70 million in 2022 to improve children’s love of reading with the intent of giving some of the money to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and some of it to a local organization.

The California-based Strong Reader Partnership was formed by the state library as the local partner, and it was originally set to receive $19 million. But in 2024, with very little of the money spent, lawmakers redirected the money to the Dollywood Foundation, which oversees Parton’s Imagination Library. Ultimately, the project has been able to meet many of its goals, the Dollywood Foundation this year. In all, it has served more than 160,000 children in California and distributed  nearly 3 million books. The foundation is administering the program but not donating any money toward the project.

Although the $1 million spent by the Strong Reader Partnership is small, relative to the total project budget, Sen. , a Pasadena Democrat, and Sen. , a Bakersfield Republican, said in the hearing that it’s their job to ensure it was still spent correctly, especially since the money was designated for children.

In the hearing, Pérez and Grove questioned the Strong Reader Partnership’s finances, repeatedly stating that its accounting practices and business activities were ineffective, negligent or potentially in violation of its state contract. Grove pressed Lucas about why he created a separate nonprofit instead of giving the money directly to the Dollywood Foundation, even though she herself required the state library to do so.

In 2022 Grove authored that created the program. The bill required “the State Librarian to coordinate with a nonprofit entity, as specified, that is organized solely to promote and encourage reading by the children of the state.” The Dollywood Foundation, which is national and based in Tennessee, was not eligible to be that nonprofit entity.

When CalMatters asked Grove why she is criticizing the state library’s formation of a nonprofit when her bill required it, she responded by email but didn’t answer the question. Instead, she reiterated her criticisms of the Strong Reader Partnership, saying that its money was “squandered away without putting books in kids’ hands.”

Letters to lawmakers

State lawmakers first questioned the Imagination Library project in 2024, when budget officials, faced with closing a nearly $50 billion , told lawmakers that most of the money for the program remained unspent nearly two years after its launch. That year, the governor keeping the money intact but requiring 90% of it go directly to the Dollywood Foundation instead of the Strong Reader Partnership or any local nonprofit. The foundation did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about its relationship with the Strong Reader Partnership.

Sonya Harris, executive director of the Strong Reader Partnership at the time, that 2024 bill and said she sent letters to legislators opposing it.

Lawmakers said speaking about the bill was a violation of her contract. “You’re attempting to influence legislation when it’s explicitly stated that you are not supposed to use state taxpayer dollars to do so. Do you agree?” asked Pérez during the April 7 hearing. Harris didn’t answer the question.

Also during the hearing, Pérez repeatedly questioned the organization’s financial management, referencing instances when checks bounced, reports were not completed or documents arrived months after lawmakers had requested them. “As far as I can see here, there (were) no local partnerships that you all established in order to facilitate this program over a two-year period,” she said. “We are not able to understand what you did with these dollars and that’s the whole purpose of this hearing.”

Contracting with nonprofits comes with risks

The roughly $1 million in state funds that went to the Strong Reader Partnership is  less than a thousandth of 1% of the state’s  total spending, but that’s not the point, Pérez said

“Comments have been made about the amount of money that this is, and that it might be small relative to the budget,” she said before closing out the hearing. “But for me, as a public servant, I take this very seriously. We need to ensure that when we’re making a commitment to provide something as simple as books to children, that we’re actually delivering on that commitment.”

State and local lawmakers routinely sign contracts and grant money to businesses, including many nonprofit organizations, to enact public services or programs. In the process, taxpayers “lose transparency,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, a group that opposes higher taxes. “Why is the state government or the local government turning them over to nonprofits instead of having their massive bureaucracies handle these things where someone is accountable?”

Shelley said the responsibility lies both with the nonprofits and the Legislature, especially in this instance, because Grove’s bill required the California State Library to work with a local nonprofit.

Normally, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association is strongly aligned with Grove. Last year, the organization gave her based on her voting record on tax-related issues.

This article was and was republished under the license.