A group of Massachusetts parents filed against the publishers and creators of popular reading curricula Wednesday, arguing that the materials were not backed by science and 鈥渦ndermined the future of students across the Commonwealth.鈥�
The suit, filed in the Massachusetts Superior Court by two parents from separate families, alleges that programs based on the research of education professors Lucy Calkins, and Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, were sold using deceptive and fraudulent marketing that inaccurately labeled them as research-based while ignoring a scientific consensus on the need for step-by-step, explicit phonics instruction to teach students how to read.
The plaintiffs seek class-action status, which would allow other affected Massachusetts families to join. The suit asks for punitive and compensatory compensation and an court order 鈥渞equiring defendants to warn schools and families of the defects in their literacy product.鈥�
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 controversial, and this isn鈥檛 up for debate,鈥� said Ben Elga, the executive director of Catalyst Law, a legal group representing families in the suit. 鈥淔or decades, the defendants鈥� curricula diminished or outright excluded this basic building block to teaching students how to read.鈥�
The curricula, published by Greenwood Publishing Group, Heinemann Publishing, and HMH (formerly Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) caused significant harm to generations of students by emphasizing techniques like cueing, which ask students to 鈥済uess鈥� words based on context, the lawsuit says.
The suit cites the conclusions of the National 69传媒 Panel commissioned by Congress in 1997, which in a 2000 report asserted that evidence-based reading programs should be centered on systematic, explicit phonics instruction alongside developing children鈥檚 vocabulary and comprehension abilities.
鈥淒efendants denigrated phonics at worst and paid mere lip service to phonics at best,鈥� the suit says. 鈥淚n all events, defendants failed to warn parents or school districts that their alleged literacy training products did not include meaningful phonics instruction, the one thing essential to literacy success.鈥�
Literacy lawsuits evolve to focus on curriculum
Other literacy lawsuits have targeted school systems in places like Detroit and California, arguing that Michigan and California鈥檚 failure to teach some students to read violated their constitutional rights. In 2020, California agreed to a $53 million settlement in such a case, and Michigan agreed to provide Detroit schools with $94.4 million in aid for literacy programs.
Unlike those suits, the apparent first-of-its kind filing in Massachusetts targets the curricula itself.
The publishers are listed as defendants alongside Calkins, Fountas, Pinnell, and Teachers College at Columbia University, where Calkins developed her approach. None of the researchers, publishers, or universities named in the lawsuit responded to requests for comment Wednesday by press time.
The legal action comes amid a nationwide push to reform literacy instruction and an accompanying storm of media scrutiny of the programs named in the suit. According to an Education Week analysis, 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or implemented new policies related to evidence-based reading instruction since 2013.
Massachusetts is one of the 10 states that has not taken such an action, said Elga, who left the door open to filing similar actions in other states.
Forty-four percent of Massachusetts 3rd graders met or exceeded English-language arts expectations on state tests in 2023,
69传媒 from low-income families fared even worse because they could not afford things like supplemental tutoring and out-of-school supports needed to bolster their reading abilities, the plaintiffs said.
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 some luxury we are asking for,鈥� said Karrie Conley, one of the parent plaintiffs. 鈥淭his is reading. This is the skill that unlocks the entire world for our children.鈥�
Conley transferred her two children to private schools and sought private tutoring after they were taught cueing through Heinemann鈥檚 Units of Study in their public school, resulting in delays that 鈥渨ent unnoticed for years,鈥� the suit says.
While Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell have revised their curriculum, some educators have said that the changes are not sufficient. Teachers College cut ties with Calkins鈥� 69传媒 and Writing Workshop in 2023, and Calkins began a new similarly themed literacy center,
Calkins argued in a 2022 Education Week opinion essay that, while phonics is important, it is not a panacea.
鈥淚t can be tempting to cast blame rather than to focus on the real work that needs to be done to advance children鈥檚 learning,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淭he message that has been pushed out by some phonics advocates, and that has trickled down to parents and even some educators, is an oversimplified one: If only teachers would teach phonics exclusively, then presto, all the reading problems in the world would vanish.鈥�
That essay was met with a flood of criticism from skeptical readers.
鈥淚 trusted that these so-called experts were actually experts,鈥� Conley said Wednesday. 鈥淭here have been too many tears and too many restless nights, but I am proud to be here today to do something about it.鈥�
What will the lawsuit mean for the 鈥榮cience of reading鈥� movement?
Both Calkins鈥� curriculum and those created by Fountas and Pinnell were the focus of 鈥淪old A Story,鈥� the award-winning podcast by APM Reports that detailed the genesis of the cueing method鈥攊n which students were sometimes prompted to read from context or picture clues, not always from sounds and letters.
But many of the teaching principles that undergird those materials have a much longer history. The grew out of the 1960s-born whole-language movement, a philosophy that emphasized meaning but in practice subordinated the teaching of sound-letter relationships.
Those ideas were carried on not only through curricula, but also through formal and informal professional development programs and have long been taught in teacher-preparation programs. They even appeared on teachers鈥� licensing exams.
Several of the reading laws that states have passed in recent years explicitly banned the use of cueing as a method for learning to read鈥攁 prohibition that itself faces a legal challenge in at least one state, Ohio.
Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California鈥檚 Rossier School of Education who has studied curriculum, said in a Bluesky social media posting that he worried that the lawsuit could lead to 鈥渢errible unintended consequences.鈥�
The lawsuit relies on the idea of research-based curriculum, but the differences in how evidence develops in medicine and education 鈥渋s pretty stark,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 picture lots of individual teachers getting sued because kids鈥� outcomes aren鈥檛 good / parents don鈥檛 like what schools and teachers did.鈥�
And one reading researcher, Claude Goldenberg, an emeritus professor of education at Stanford University, worried that the lawsuit could undo opportunities to come to agreement on the factors that matter for student success in reading.
鈥淎lthough I can understand parents feeling they鈥檝e been duped by publishers and authors, I worry that these lawsuits will make partisans in the never-ending and despicable reading wars dig in further,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he only real solution is for the education profession, particularly those who profess expertise in reading education, to call out the misinformation and downright falsehoods鈥攚hich by the way exist on many sides of the wars, not just the one this suit is aimed at.鈥�
