Literacy crisis: State House hearing will determine if Massachusetts schools successfully teach students to read or not
First Appeared in Contrarian Boston 9.11.25
By David Mancuso
Fifty-eight percent of Massachusetts third graders can’t read at grade level.
Absurd but true.
On Tuesday, the Joint Committee on Education will hear testimony on what could be the most important bill that state lawmakers will debate this year.
“An Act to Promote High-quality Early Literacy Instruction and Improve Outcomes,” H698 represents what could be a major step by the Legislature in rightly taking ownership of the future for Massachusetts’ youngest students.
When it comes to teaching students how to read - the basic building block of all education - schools aren’t getting the job done themselves.
And that means someone has to step up and take charge.
“It’s not OK,” Rep. Simon Cataldo, sponsor of the bill told Contrarian Boston. “It’s something that needs to be changed right away.”
Bill co-sponsor, state Rep. Danillo Sena, echoed Cataldo: “This is a crisis, and we must be working to ensure that everyone has access to high-quality, effective literacy education.”
Cataldo, Sena, and their fellow supporters of the bill suggest the solution is requiring all districts to choose and implement a curriculum based on the “science of reading,” which is backed by evidence-based research spanning neuroscience, cognitive science, and developmental psychology.
Forty states already require schools to use the science of reading for literacy instruction.
Without action on Beacon Hill soon, Massachusetts will let yet another year go by as schools continue to use discredited methods of teaching reading, and students struggling with basic literacy fall even further behind.
Cataldo – a Democrat – told Contrarian Boston: “This is a really big problem we can’t blame on Trump; it’s a major civil rights issue that’s only our own fault.”
In 2024 Education Trust reported forty-seven percent of Massachusetts districts use low-quality curriculum to teach reading. Only 13.8 percent of those planned to change their curriculum.
If districts doubling down on failed methods to teach reading isn’t reason enough to pass what is colloquially being called “The Right to Read Act,” what is?
Superintendents who responded to Contrarian Boston’s questions fell in two general categories – those who offered full-throated support for the bill, and those who raised the perennial political platitude of the bill creating an “unfunded mandate.”
Cataldo dispatched the unfunded mandate mantra, complimenting Gov. Maura Healey for making $50 million available to districts to teach early literacy.
But, he added this: “No district should be able to say you need to provide more funding.”
Cataldo’s point: teaching reading is a foundational responsibility of public education. Literacy instruction should fall under the base funding provided to schools.
Here’s Sena: “The goal of this bill is simply to ensure all districts are using methods that are evidence-based."
Cataldo added: “This bill is giving districts the framework to (teach reading) the right way.”
The bill establishes standard-based guide rails to keep early literacy on track and instructs the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to hold them accountable for results.
H.698 is not about a state mandate, but rather an opportunity to collaborate on an agreed goal – early and sustainable literacy for our students. It does not mandate which science of reading-based curriculum that schools adopt, just that they actually use one.
The Massachusetts Teachers’ Association all too predictably opposes the bill, raising their perennial argument that it will “privatize” education and only enrich publishers of the science of reading curriculum.
Having taught in a Harlem classroom, Cataldo has the credibility to back up his proposal. His practical perspective is a refreshing take from a member of the Joint Committee on Education, which is too often inclined to support the demands of teachers’ unions before students’ needs.
Cataldo again: “The broad social contract of the Student Opportunity Act, the public and government to invest in public schools, is predicated on trust.”
In other words, the state spent $23 billion on education last year. If we can’t trust public schools to effectively teach students to read by third grade, what exactly can we trust them to do?
