STATEMENT: PDE Action Supports Senator Cruz and Schatz’ Improving America’s Literacy Act

Parents Defending Education Action is proud to support Improving America’s Literacy Act, S. 5110, sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Brian Schatz.

The June release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress long-term trend assessment revealed that the middle school reading score posted in 2025 was not significantly different from the average score reported during the Nixon administration. Much of the failure of public schools to demonstrate sustained gains in reading performance stems from their failure to adhere to the science of reading.

Make no mistake about it. The science of reading is settled.

While the three-cueing model and similar context-based literacy techniques have gained widespread acceptance in public school classrooms, the overwhelming consensus among cognitive scientists and literacy researchers is that those approaches do more harm than good, particularly for struggling readers.

Improving America’s Literacy Act would wisely prohibit distribution of comprehensive literacy and school Improvement grant dollars to state education agencies that endorse detrimental literacy methods such as three-cueing. Additionally, we applaud the provision that empowers the Institute of Education Sciences to assist state and local education agencies in identifying and evaluating evidence-based literacy strategies that have proven to be successful in states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. Improving America’s Literacy Act is common-sense, bipartisan legislation that recognizes that instructional strategies and materials focused on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension simply work best for our public school students and federal education expenditures should reflect that fact.

Terry Stoops

Director of Government Affairs

Parents Defending Education Action