January 17, 2024, Boston, MA – National Parents Union President, Keri Rodrigues, issued the following statement concerning Governor Healey’s announcement to invest and help Massachusetts students learn to read:
“The reading crisis in Massachusetts has impacted every single community across the state – and we are thrilled that Governor Healy has decided to confront this challenge head on in an effort to ensure that every child in the Commonwealth is given the right to read proficiently. Literacy is the gateway to economic mobility and opportunity – and without it, we sentence our children to a lifetime of hardship and struggle. Tonight’s announcement of Literacy Launch is a courageous step in the right direction and provides the clear vision and leadership we need to inspire everyone – from educators to superintendents, from policymakers to elected officials – to finally prioritize and invest in our children’s right to read.
We are proud to have been fighting relentlessly alongside families throughout the state to make this initiative a reality and now we will work to ensure that the critical pieces – including a menu of literacy curriculum options that are based in the science of reading; screening for literacy to determine level of proficiency and necessary interventions; high impact tutoring and ongoing professional development for teachers – are adequately funded and fully implemented in order to get us to the outcomes we must achieve for our children. We have lost too many who have fallen through the cracks due to our failure to act based on the science of what we know works – the time to be bold and courageous on the part of our children is now.”
ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARENTS UNION
With nearly 1,500 affiliated parent organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, the National Parents Union is the united, independent voice of modern American families. We channel the power of parents into powerful policies that improve the lives of children, families and communities across the United States. https://nationalparentsunion.org/