How well is your school district teaching basic reading? What instruction materials are they using to teach it? Communities now have new tools to help answer that question.
25 Investigates first told you in February, reading levels have reached a crisis level in Massachusetts.
Advocates say it points to a failing system.
“We are in a crisis, and I don’t use that term loosely,” said Jennifer Davis executive director of the Worcester Education Collaborative.
“No one’s talking about this,” said Lisa Lazare, executive director of Educators for Excellence Massachusetts.
Education advocates continue sounding the alarm about Massachusetts children struggling to read.
As 25 Investigates has reported, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2024, 60% of Massachusetts 4th graders were reading below grade level.
The numbers are even more stark for certain student groups. 78% of black 4th-grade students, 79% of Hispanic students, and 80% of students considered economically disadvantaged are reading below grade level in the Commonwealth.
Reading scores right after 3rd grade are a critical benchmark says Davis Carey.
“That is the point in a child’s learning that the curriculum changes from learning how to read to reading, for learning, for reading, for content,” she told Boston 25′s Kerry Kavanaugh.
“There is the assumption that the bare minimum that your child is getting in school is the ability to read. And so, a lot of families don’t necessarily recognize how dire of a situation we are in,” Lazare said.
New online resources are hoping to change that.
Created by the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership [MEEP] and EdTrust, the Massachusetts Early Literacy Dashboard is designed to help parents and caretakers navigate the system and understand what’s happening in their school district.
On the site, you can find your district in a drop-down menu. Then you’ll identify literacy score trends and how their reading curriculum stacks up and if the district has invested in improving that curriculum.
“In 2023, nearly half of the districts, yes, were using low-quality literacy curricula that included discredited literacy strategies,’ Lazare said.
Lazare says low-quality reading curriculum is part of the problem. She also points to colleges and universities that aren’t prioritizing reading instruction when they train teachers. On top of that, there are mental health challenges, chronic absenteeism, teacher shortages and turnover.
“It could feel incredibly isolating as a parent to think that your child is the one that is struggling, not recognizing that this is a systemic issue. It’s not just your child,” said Lazare.
Davis Carey says with a crisis of this magnitude, it will take all hands on deck to solve it.
“That this is not something that we can just say to the Governor’s office and the legislature, ‘You do it.’ Or that we can say to the district and the schools, ‘you do it’. This really is something that we all have to have a hand in,” said Davis Carey.
“This is not a narrative about your child and their ability to learn,” said Lazare. “This is more a bigger conversation about how our system is failing us.”
Advocates say it can be really isolating for families to think their child is the only one struggling. They believe the dashboard will help them realize this really is a systemic issue.
MEEP along with more than two dozen social justice groups have launched a campaign to empower families to better understand that systemic issue.
The coalition of advocates has also created tool kits to help families advocate for better policy within their districts.
There is also a step-by-step guide to help families determine where their child is at academically and how to raise concerns.
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