There’s been no shortage of research exploring how American public schools were, as Emily Hanford coined it, “sold a story” about how to teach young children to read. Now we know: students don’t  naturally “pick up” reading skills through “whole language” or “balanced literacy”; instead, many need the basics of phonemic awareness (the ability to hear different sounds), phonics ( the ability to sound out words), fluency (being able to read accurately at an appropriate rate), vocabulary skills, and reading comprehension.

We know the key ingredients to teach kids to read. But are we doing anything about it? 

The answer varies from from state to state, according to a new report from FutureEd called “The Reading Revolution: How States are Scaling Literacy Reform.” This research looks at each state’s policies and practices to determine which are in “the vanguard of today’s reading revolution” and which are trailing behind. At the core of the analysis is the understanding that “with the right ingredients, change can happen on a large scale, smart policy can drive higher performance, and bipartisan school reform is possible even in today’s fraught political climate.”

FutureEd’s policy analyst Bella DiMarco created a rubric of three elements necessary for states to teach reading properly: Curriculum and Instruction, Professional Development, and Teacher Prep and Licensure. The full report lists each state and how it is meeting 

How is New Jersey doing?

In comparison to other states, not so well. Forget about the head-of-the-herd states like Mississippi and Tennessee: 37 states require all educator prep programs to teach the science of literacy and 28 states require elementary school teachers to pass reading knowledge tests. Texas even created a new test, The Science of Teaching Reading (STR) Exam

Yet we are one of only seven states that has failed to achieve any reforms in how we oversee reading instruction (The others are California, Maine, Montana, New York, Oregon, and South Dakota.)

This shouldn’t be so hard. FutureEd offers examples from multiple states that have successfully achieved buy-in from legislators, state departments, teacher prep programs, and teachers themselves, with particular emphasis on Mississippi and Tennessee where, recent NAEP data shows, students are making up lost ground faster than anywhere else. Regular readers will remember that just last month the National Council for Teacher Quality ranked New Jersey teacher prep programs the worst in the country for preparing future teachers to apply the science of reading to instruction. Earlier this year ExcelinEd said the New Jersey Department of Education has failed to adopt “minimal fundamental literacy principles.”

This isn’t brain surgery; it’s common sense. As PaulaWhite of JerseyCAN explains here, the Murphy Administration could set things right by incentivizing or mandating that districts adopt reading programs that actually teach children how to read. Could there be any purer form of educational equity?