“Reading wars” have been fought for decades, with debates over best practices and claims of inequities. The outcry against the widely used Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study curriculum out of Columbia University’s Teachers College and the popular 2022 “Sold A Story” podcast about the curriculum’s failings reinflamed the debate nationally. In Needham, this came in the form of a group of parents who, spurred in part by the podcast, formed the Needham Literacy Coalition to call for change in the district’s practices.
But the district was already working on it.
“Literacy has always been important and of high priority to the district,” said Carmen Williams, assistant superintendent for instruction and innovation who oversees all curriculum. She has been involved in the rigorous review of reading practices in the schools since she was hired in 2022, Williams said, but Director of Literacy Lisa Messina has been addressing concerns since she came to Needham in 2013.
Despite the district leaders’ repeated meetings with parents to explain that most of the action they are pushing for is well underway, the coalition has continued to call for petition signatures and encourage parents to speak at School Committee meetings. Literacy even became the platform for some School Committee candidates.
The coalition’s persistence in the face of explanations, factual evidence and a traceable timeline has confused and frustrated educators at every level including classroom teachers, literacy specialists, district leaders and the School Committee.
Julia Reichheld, a 30-year veteran teacher in Needham with more than 20 years as a literacy specialist at Broadmeadow Elementary School, said she has never before seen such a reaction from parents. “I think the feedback across the district is pure disappointment,” she said. “It’s a groundswell of anger and mistrust that’s really not grounded in fact or reality. I think people are willing, of course, to acknowledge where there are things to be improved, and that’s why the pilot process began and has been as thorough as it has been.”
Compared to other districts, said Reichheld, Needham is unique in how respectfully and collaboratively administrators, teachers and the union work together.
“This [movement] feels not grounded, not researched, not respectful, and in the end not purposeful,” she said. “[Distributing] negative materials to manipulate people isn’t healthy, it’s not productive, it’s not meaningful and not getting to the goal of getting all students in Needham to be engaged readers, writers, thinkers and communicators. We all want that. Why can’t we work on that in a healthier, more collaborative process?”
The Observer sent several requests to individual members of the coalition as well as to the group’s main email requesting an interview. The coalition replied saying it responds “as a coalition,” and signed the email “NLC.” Though informed that the Needham Observer will in some circumstances allow sources to remain unnamed (though not unknown to the reporter), the coalition did not provide an interview but sent the following statement:
We, as the Needham Literacy Coalition, are a group of parents advocating for Needham Public Schools to replace the core literacy curriculum, Units of Study, with a reading and writing program aligned to literacy research. We have nearly 400 signatures on our petition to replace Units of Study with a high-quality standards-aligned curriculum as defined by DESE.
As a coalition we fully support our Needham Teachers.
We are hopeful that the result of the literacy pilot will be implementation of one of the two high-quality curricula (Fishtank or ARC) for our children, along with adequate training and support for our teachers who are working so hard to help our children succeed.
We are committed to working collaboratively with the district to advocate for the best educational outcomes for all students in Needham.
As of Monday morning, the Needham Literacy Coalition petition had 395 signatures, 67% of them from ZIP codes in Needham and Dedham; 33% of signatures are from outside the area. On the hosting website, it is unclear what the split is between Needham and Dedham ZIP codes.
Continuing evolution
The work to evaluate, improve and implement a new curriculum in Needham began years before the literacy coalition formed last fall.
At the same time national ire toward Lucy Calkins was growing, Needham’s regular review of its literacy curriculum and classroom practices was underway. Messina said in 2017, she and her team were investigating better early screening assessments.
Being concerned and emotional about their children’s success in reading is natural for parents, said Messina. Having a daughter with double-deficit dyslexia in a nearby public school system, she has firsthand experience. “I understand that, that’s why I’m in this. The most important thing we can be investing in is our kids. Fear and frustration, particularly with students who have learning issues, that’s hard and all of that is very valid.”
The work of evaluating and selecting literacy curricula, training teachers and coaches, and keeping up with the research has been Messina’s life work for 30 years. She’s taught literacy classes at both Stanford’s and Harvard’s graduate schools of education, and has worked on projects to evaluate curriculum for outside agencies such as The Bill Gates Foundation.
In Needham, she is responsible for the process of assessing and piloting highly ranked programs to see how students in the district respond.
After vetting numerous top tier options — including those approved by the independent nonprofit EdReports and then highly rated by the state’s Curriculum Ratings by Teachers — Messina brought more than 10 curricula with varied approaches to her team. After reviewing each one, the team selected six. All teachers in the district were presented with those final options, and those who were interested volunteered to select one curriculum to pilot in their classroom. Of those, four options were chosen and were implemented at the start of this school year in classrooms around the district, and part way through the year a fifth option was offered to teachers as well. The programs represent different models and include the revised Units of Study.
“Many districts tried to jump at this right away without doing their homework,” said Williams of schools that hastily replaced curriculum. “And they’re experiencing buyer’s remorse.”
Classes with pilot programs are being reviewed by a committee of educators and school leaders at all levels across the district. Using the CuRaTe rubric, this group will analyze materials, feedback from the pilot teams, student work and class instruction, and will review teacher input. Along with data analysis, feedback from the community science and social studies coordinators for alignment to their curricula, and a community forum, the district will make a final determination next year and plans to roll a new curriculum out in the fall of 2026.
“We’re not interested in going fast,” said Williams, explaining that a thorough, rigorous process is exactly what will render the evidence base for which the coalition calls. “We’re interested in going deep and making sure that our quality instruction is in place no matter what curriculum supports the teaching.”
School Committee Chair Liz Lee said districts that have not done their due diligence and quickly implemented programs are finding that pieces of those programs are not effective. “Then you’ve spent time, money, training and you’ve ended up with something that works in some places and doesn’t work in other places,” she said. “So you can either do it fast and fix it on the other side, or you can do it right the first time and get something that’s really going to work for our kids and stand the test of time.”
Debunking the claims
Over the past several months, concerned parents have regularly made public comments at bimonthly School Committee meetings, sent correspondence to district leaders and the School Committee, and have encouraged others to do the same. They call for replacing “current curricula with high quality, budget friendly, grant eligible curricula,” and “provide strong professional development for our teachers while maintaining a supportive environment as they make this shift.”
Williams said that’s exactly what’s happening. She stressed the district has always prioritized and invested in teacher training and support. “The materials do not teach kids, teachers teach kids.” she said. “So as we invest in teacher learning and professional development in their coaching and helping them to monitor their growth, our instruction will be much better.”
The coalition has been vocal about its displeasure with the district’s use of what they call a “banned curriculum,” saying they want “the adoption of evidence-based curricula that meet DESE’s rigorous standards, such as Arc Core, Fishtank Plus, or EL Education,” according to its website.
Arc Core and Fishtank Plus are being tested in the pilot.
The coalition also strongly advocates for a “knowledge building” curriculum. In Needham, however, Williams said ensuring that a reading program also covers subject areas such as science and social studies isn’t the primary focus.
“We have a Science Center and we have a very robust elementary science curriculum that is kit-based and lab-based, and our students go on field trips,” said Williams. “And as a district our vision of ‘A Portrait of a Needham Graduate’ focuses on interdisciplinary learning experiences. So many districts have decided to abandon some of their core science and social studies curriculum for one-stop shopping and knowledge building. We are not making that decision. We want a robust reading program, and we want to maintain our rigorous hands-on science program.”
Having texts that align with other subjects being taught is one thing, requiring them to teach that subject is another.
Confusion over different Units of Study
The crux of the coalition’s messaging is two-fold: Remove any use of Units of Study and implement a new curriculum by September.
In Needham, Units of Study has always been paired with the phonics-based FUNdations curriculum that has been in place for almost two decades. Units of Study was added as another layer of instruction.
Melanie Sullivan, who has been a literacy coach at the Eliot Elementary School since 2018 and taught lower elementary students there for almost 25 years, said Units of Study in reading was never meant to stand alone as a complete curriculum, it was meant to be taught alongside a phonics program.
Sullivan is supporting Eliot teachers who are piloting either Collaborative Classroom or the revised Units of Study. She said the most critical improvement in Units of Study has been the removal of “cueing,” or using context and pictures to help decode a word in lieu of looking at letters and decoding their sounds. “Students always need to use meaning,” she said. “But not to solve words.”
However, she said, there have been gross exaggerations in claims. “If a kid saw an alligator in a picture and the word was alligator and the kid said ‘crocodile,’ no one was OK with that,” she said. “Nobody was encouraging that. Everybody I know believes in phonics; phonics has always, always been crucial. In terms of what’s going on here, there are a lot of misunderstandings.”
Sullivan said the new Units has made significant improvements, beginning with eliminating cueing, adding a phonics component and adding a set of decodable books that she is particularly excited about. “Years ago I thought decodables were evil,” she said. “These are so interesting.” She said the students love them because each unit comes as a six-part series with engaging characters and a storyline. As their phonics base increases, so does the difficulty of the texts.
Should the School Committee step in?
Since December, coalition members have beseeched the School Committee to take action, calling for a Department of Secondary Education-approved curriculum to replace all versions of Units of Study.
“There’s not a list of DESE-approved curriculum. That doesn’t exist,” said Katherine Tarca, DESE’s director of literacy and humanities. “Districts can choose their own curriculum.”
According to Massachusetts state law, curriculum selection does not fall under the auspices of school committees and boards unless it “constitutes a significant shift in the educational direction for the district.”
For more than 35 years, Needham’s School Committee policy has been that “all instructional programs will be reviewed and evaluated systematically and periodically under the direction of the superintendent.” The School Committee, along with hiring and firing the superintendent and overseeing the budget, is responsible for setting the vision and looking long term, but it leaves the operational side, like choosing a curriculum, to the experts, said Lee.
In Needham, Superintendent Dan Gutekanst oversees those decisions under advisement of classroom teachers, subject coaches and department heads who are best suited to provide evidence and feedback on the efficacy of teaching practices.
Parents speak up
Cassandra Hoffman was one of eight residents who shared prepared statements about literacy at the Feb. 25 School Committee meeting.
After praising the schools and teachers in general, she said she has two children at Eliot School who have struggled with reading while the school continued using the same curriculum.
“We are still not using a highly rated, evidenced-based, knowledge-building curriculum,” Hoffman said. “We’re using a program currently in my kindergartner’s class, Units of Study, that is known to be flawed, not supported or rated by DESE, and not eligible for continued grant funding. And yet are we supposed to hope for the best? Trust the process? Advocate for structured tier three intervention? Start saving now for a tutor? Uproot our family to a district that believes in evidence-based literacy curriculum?”
Another parent, Nina Drummond, has been extensively involved in the PTC at Broadmeadow School.
“I am an active and deeply committed member of the public schools community,” she said. “Each of my three children learns uniquely from one another. However, the one commonality they all share is that they have each struggled to meet literacy standards at various times and in various ways.
“My husband and I are baffled and confounded as to what is going on and why this is so hard for these bright children. In recent months, as I have learned more about the controversy surrounding the Needham Public School’s chosen literacy programming, as well as our dismal MCAS results, I’ve started to wonder if our literacy program is the cause.”
Drummond said she had attempted to find out just how the revised Units of Study, the curriculum her children were being taught in the pilot, had been changed but not received clear answers. Ultimately, she said, “I question the Needham Public Schools’ continued use of this unsupported program that has been banned elsewhere and urge the adoption and swift implementation of a DESE-supported and evidence-based literacy program for our students.”
“Of course we want to do more for our students,” said Lee, who holds a doctorate in education and authored the book “Parents as Advocates.” “Of course we want every student to succeed to the best of their ability. And it’s also true that right now when you compare us state-wise, nationally, globally, we are killing it.”
There is an oft-quoted statistic that 1 in 3 Needham students falls below grade level on the third grade MCAS English Language Arts test — a statistic that has been consistent for at least a decade. Overall, Massachusetts has one of the highest standards of proficiency in the entire world, Lee said.
The statistic that 1 in 3 children fall below the benchmark of “meeting or exceeding standards” on the third-grade MCAS is misleading, said Lynn Gotwals, a former Mitchell Elementary School teacher. “What does that mean for the third below? Are kids just below? If they are in third grade, are they at March of third grade? Are they in September of third grade … second grade … non-readers?”
The third grade ELA MCAS scores reflect three areas of competency together: language, reading and writing. Because the score is a combined metric, it does not necessarily accurately depict one specific deficit.
Gotwals said teachers can make those distinctions by looking more closely at each test. “Those kids that are just below the line are going to catch up.” All students take the MCAS — including those with known dyslexia and other learning disabilities — so those scores don’t give an accurate assessment of the curriculum itself, she said.
In elementary school, students develop at different times, said Gotwals, but that doesn’t mean a child that is below grade level at one point will remain there. “Somebody that has a hard time reading in first grade isn’t necessarily the kid that will have trouble reading in second grade or fourth grade.” She said if people use tests as the sole barometer of success, they’re missing the full picture of a child.
According to DESE representatives, “As a district, looking at all subjects and grades, DESE has designated Needham ‘not requiring assistance or intervention’ since 2018.”
“The district can do better, especially in certain areas,” said Lee. “And it is also true that a lot of what has been said is really not accurate at all. We have to have a really nuanced conversation of what is working and what’s not working, otherwise we’re going to lose the kids that need our support most of all.”
No quick fix
Williams said her biggest frustration with the conversation is a lack of understanding that it’s not as simple as executing the coalition’s three-point plan. “We have a diverse teaching force with different levels of experience and backgrounds and we’re trying to meet the needs of diverse students in a forever changing world,” she said. “It’s kind of insulting to think that all you need to do is pick a program.”
With a doctorate in educational leadership and author of “System Wise: Continuous Instructional Improvement at Scale,” Williams literally wrote the book on how this process should work.
“That oversimplifies what curriculum does and how curriculum is taught and how curriculum is onboarded,” said Lee. She said it is critical to understand that even though programs have evidence-based teaching practices, they may not work in every classroom when implemented. “EdReports and DESE don’t test whether programs themselves are effective,” she said. “These programs are not all interchangeable. It’s really important that we find the right fit.”
Lee encourages parents with concerns to do research, find the data, and ask questions because it is a complicated and confusing process. “When you take something as big and as complicated as the implementation of a curriculum for five elementary schools, it’s really important that you don’t oversimplify it.”
Not one-size-fits-all
Literacy curriculum — and curriculum in general — is not one-size-fits-all. “There’s no one way to teach reading to kids,” said Eliot’s Melanie Sullivan. “There’s no perfect box, no perfect curriculum. What we’ve been working on here for years now is the teacher training in the science of reading so they can be more knowledgeable and be more skilled teachers of reading, and that’s what makes the difference. I care what program we use, but it’s the teachers who make the difference.”
Jennifer Hedstrom, who is in her 15th year teaching second grade at Newman Elementary, is piloting a program called Benchmark Advanced, one of the so-called knowledge-based options. She said that although she has not been exposed to any pushback or questioning from parents, she does know colleagues around the district have. “I know some parents have opinions about certain curriculum that is being piloted. I know that it’s coming from parents wanting what’s best for their children,” she said. “I hope Needham parents know that teachers also want what’s best for students, and that’s why we’re taking the time to really look at these programs and think critically about whether the program is the best fit for our students.”
Hedstrom said she believes piloting multiple options will lead to an outcome that proves their thorough and thoughtful review. “I’ve committed a year to this curriculum, but in the end I just want what’s going to be best for these students, even if it’s not the one that I’ve piloted,” she said.
“The way this controversy has been portrayed is this all-or-nothing thinking,” said Sullivan. She believes the by-design fear and emotion in the “Sold a Story” podcast has exacerbated an already fraught educational system.
Paired with the ubiquitous and growing mistrust of experts, educators who have consistently put the best interest of children first are left hurt, confused and wondering when their knowledge base will be fully usurped by those with Ph.D.s in social media and podcasts.
“I just don’t understand why they don’t trust us,” said one district first grade teacher.
Frederica Saylor Lalonde is the mother of four boys in the Needham Public Schools from third grade to high school junior, plus an NHS graduate now a college freshman, all with varied success in literacy, and one of whom has dyslexia.
This story was updated Tuesday, April 1.
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