Literacy reform bill stirs debate
Lexington school chief ’s letter calls change ‘illogical’
Educator unions and school officials are pushing back against legislation that would change the state’s approach to teaching literacy that recently advanced in the Legislature, arguing that it would prevent teachers from making the best decisions for their students.
The bill would grant the state unprecedented authority over school districts’ reading curriculums and may require districts to replace curricular materials that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education deems “low quality” because they include discredited teaching methods.
Many of those districts are in the Boston suburbs.
Advocates of the bill, meanwhile, are criticizing opponents for promoting what they say is misinformation about the legislation.
The lobbying from each side comes as lawmakers on the House and Senate Ways and Means committees decide whether to move the legislation on for full floor votes in each chamber before the legislative session ends July 31. National observers are watching to see whether Massachusetts will join dozens of other states in passing a law to require “evidencebased” reading instruction.
Opponents of the legislation want local districts to continue to have complete say over which curriculums schools use, even if the materials are not state-supported. More than 300 “concerned educators,” including nearly 50 superintendents, signed a Feb. 5 letter, which was addressed to state officials, opposing the bill.
Both the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents also oppose the legislation. The groups
have said it would force districts to adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach to reading instruction, something the bill’s supporters adamantly deny.
Supporters of the legislation point to Massachusetts’ underwhelming reading scores and say it’s time for the state to intervene. A Globe investigation found roughly half of all Massachusetts districts last school year were using a K-3 reading curriculum the state called “low quality.”
One of those districts is Lexington, whose superintendent has emerged as a vocal critic of the legislation.
Lexington uses Units of Study, a curriculum that has received poor reviews from EdReports, a North Carolinabased nonprofit that evaluates teaching materials. Units of Study was poorly rated, in part, because materials teach students to use pictures, rather than phonics rules, in tackling unfamiliar words.
“Can you imagine in Lexington, the gold standard, our children are being taught to read with non-evidence-based teaching methods?” Jessica Quattrocchi, cochair of the Lexington Special Education Parent Advisory Council, said during a Feb. 13 School Committee meeting.
Superintendent Julie Hackett, who wrote the Jan. 5 letter opposing the curriculum legislation, said during the virtual School Committee meeting that absent “irrefutable gains” credited to other curriculums, it would be “illogical” for the district to change its approach.
“We think it’s best to leave educational decisions to local educators who understand the needs of their students,” she said.
Hackett, who was named the Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year in 2018, did not return a request for comment. In her letter, she questioned the validity of the EdReports rating, which was determined by a panel of educators. According to budget documents, all Lexington K-2 classrooms will be using a revised version of Units of Study, which places a greater emphasis on phonics than its predecessor, by the end of the school year. That version hasn’t been reviewed by EdReports.
Former Lexington Public Schools parent Nicole Locher, who also spoke at the Feb. 13 meeting, took particular issue with a one-page document Hackett attached to her letter opposing the legislation. It included the sentence: “School systems are being asked to trade in their classroom libraries and adopt a one-size-fits-all reading curriculum.”
“There is no dystopian government on Beacon Hill that is going to take away local control or ban classroom libraries,” Locher told School Committee members. “Please, I beg you steer clear of this false information and fear-mongering that is frightening parents and teachers.”
State Senator Jason Lewis, cochair for the Joint Committee on Education and a proponent of the legislation, said he also took issue with other aspects of the Lexington document, which is titled “The Four Fallacies of the Media’s Representation of Literacy/the New Reading wars.”
The document criticizes the use of “proficiency” on standardized tests in measuring students’ basic reading skills on the grounds that the metric is being used to paint the picture of a literacy crisis that doesn’t exist.
“We can certainly argue and debate over the definition, but I think that misses the point,” Lewis said. “It’s overwhelmingly clear that too many students, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, don’t have the literacy skills we want them to have.”
Hackett’s letter also compared literacy reform laws passed elsewhere in the country with book ban legislation.
“These are troubling developments, and we worry about the future of education for the children in Massachusetts and beyond,” she wrote in her letter, noting there have been “nearly 300 bills that have attempted to restrict access to books and discussions of race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities in K-12 classrooms.”
None of those bills has been filed in Massachusetts.
‘We think it’s best to leave educational decisions to local educators who understand the needs of their students.’
JULIE HACKETT, Lexington Public Schools superintendent, who wrote a letter opposing the curriculum legislation