The Lawsuit
In December, 2024, two Massachusetts families filed a class action "literacy lawsuit" against the creators and the publishers of educational materials that emphasized "whole-word" reading instruction and deemphasized phonics.
The defendants named were...
LUCY CALKINS; IRENE FOUNTAS; GAY SU PINNELL; RWPN, LLC, d/b/a THE READING & WRITING PROJECT AT MOSSFLOWER, LLC;
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF TEACHERS COLLEGE,COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; FOUNTAS AND PINNELL, LLC; GREENWOOD PUBLISHING GROUP, LLC, d/b/a HEINEMANN PUBLISHING; and HMH EDUCATION CO.,
1. Plaintiffs bring this case in response to the deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of products and services which are undermining a fundamental social good: literacy.
2. For more than half a century, it has been widely understood that systematic and explicit phonemic awareness and phonics instruction are critical to success in learning to read. As the National Reading Panel commissioned by Congress in 1997 confirmed, all credible education and literacy research shows that daily phonics instruction is necessary for literacy success.
3. Ignoring that scientific consensus, Defendants - the creators, publishers, and promoters of reading curricula and related services peddled a raft of products and curricula that sought to diminish and even exclude systematic and daily phonics instruction. Defendants denigrated phonics at worst and paid mere lip service to phonics at best. In 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.
4. Defendants claimed that their literacy offerings were backed by or grounded in“research.” But the research is overwhelmingly to the contrary. Indeed, the few studies thatDefendants have cited in support of their approaches are unreliable, methodologically flawed, and lack sound theoretical or empirical foundations. Defendants likewise attempted to boost their credibility by selling literacy assessments created to “validate” their own products. But those assessments measured a child’s ability to read about as accurately as a coinflip.
5. For years, Defendants hawked their defective goods and services to school districts throughout the country, including throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This fraudulent and deceptive campaign has had devastating consequences. In 2023, for example, less than half of all Massachusetts third graders satisfied the Commonwealth’s expectations for performance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System English Language Arts exam. Students from minority groups or with learning disabilities fared even worse. Along with the direct impacts on children, families across the Commonwealth have scurried to procure remedial literacy instruction, the cost of which is out of reach for many. Even when families can afford remedial support, it often comes too late, sabotaging children’s educational development, career prospects, and fundamental sense of self-worth.
6. Accordingly, Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and a class of students injured in Massachusetts by Defendants’ deceptively marketed and defective early-literacy products, sue to obtain long overdue accountability, remedy the harms from Defendants’ conduct, and secure immediate relief.
Read the entire complaint here:
