The Boston Globe editorial board with a full-throated endorsement of the literacy bill that will erode local control on curriculum.

Plus advocacy for teacher prep reform, as contemplated by the House version.

Amen.

From the Editorial Board:

“But it is also important that the final bill include a provision that is currently only in the House version. That provision, outlined in Section 8 of the bill, would require the state education commissioner to ensure that all teacher preparation programs train teachers in evidence-based reading instruction. The commissioner could withhold approval of programs that did not provide instruction in what are considered the key components of evidenced-based reading, including phonics and vocabulary building.

A 2023 study of 19 teacher preparation programs in Massachusetts underscored the need for this requirement. That study, conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality, gave grades of D or F to 15 of those 19 programs for their literacy training, while only 3 received an A or better. Several of the state’s largest teacher preparation programs, including at Boston University, Lesley University, and UMass Boston, were among the programs receiving failing or close-to-failing grades. (A number of teacher preparation programs refused to provide data to the council. And for a new report due in June, UMass Amherst claimed that its reading curricula was proprietary information, a view that was sharply questioned by the Commonwealth’s supervisor of public records, documents show.)

Ron Noble, chief of teacher prep for the national council, said in an interview that the low-performing programs were either failing to instruct teachers in the key principles of evidence-based literacy instruction, or were still including instruction in discredited strategies. The result has been that even as more districts adopt high-quality curricula, many teachers continue to lack understanding of how to teach it.

“That’s why we’re excited by this bill because it addresses both sides of that equation,” Noble said of the House bill. “This is the missing piece of the policy landscape.””

My own take on the bill is here: