New Report Shows Strong Literacy Growth is Possible if Pennsylvania Legislature Funds What Works
Profiles Four PA Districts Achieving Stronger-Than-Expected Reading Outcomes
May1, 2026, The Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition (PLC) released Proof Points: Lessons from School Districts Driving Literacy Growth, a new report documenting how four Pennsylvania school districts — Mohawk Area, Westmont Hilltop, Middletown Area, and Scranton — are producing stronger-than-expected reading outcomes despite serving student populations with high rates of economic disadvantage.
Developed in partnership with Teach Plus PA and the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), the report identifies what these districts did differently and makes the case that Pennsylvania must invest $50 million to help every district do the same.
“Proof Points is both a documentation of success and a call to action”, said Rachael Garnick, Teach Plus PA Coalition Manager and PLC leader. “Research shows that up to 95% of students can learn to read with the right instruction. The four districts in this report are proof that it’s already happening in Pennsylvania in communities that don’t have the luxury of waiting. Now it’s time for our legislature to invest in it to make this the statewide priority we need it to be.”
According to the 2024 Nation’s Report Card, only 33% of Pennsylvania’s fourth graders are reading proficiently — a 20-year low. For Black students, that number is 20%. For Hispanic students, 18%. For low-income students, 23%. New economic analysis puts the cost of this crisis at $113 billion in lost productivity every year.
In developing Proof Points, PLC and its research partners analyzed student achievement and growth data to identify districts producing stronger-than-predicted results before conducting in-depth interviews with teachers, principals, reading specialists, and superintendents to understand how they did it.
Across all four districts, the same conditions showed up. Every district:
Had to confront an honest reckoning with its own data before anything else could change
Moved from fragmented practices to aligned systems — and found that alignment had to be built deliberately, not declared
Discovered that strong Tier I instruction is the foundation — and that this realization arrived later than it should have
Identified coaching as the most impactful and most underfunded element of the work
Found that growth data told the real story — and that achievement data alone would have led them astray
The message for Pennsylvania is clear: the early literacy foundation is buildable, and districts are building it. But they need a statewide infrastructure to support them. The passage of Act 47 of 2025 was a big milestone that required evidence-based reading instruction, aligned teacher training, and enacted universal K–3 literacy screening across Pennsylvania. But, at this time, the law is unfunded.
Proof Points calls on the legislature to commit $50 million annually, targeted at the four conditions that made these districts successful:
- $22.5 million to train every K–3 teacher and school leader in evidence-based literacy instruction
- $17.5 million in curriculum grants for instructional materials aligned to the science of reading
- $7.5 million to build a statewide network of embedded literacy coaches
- $2.5 million for universal screening and the training educators need to act on the data
PLC is releasing the report alongside an event today at John F. Kennedy Elementary School alongside:
- State Representative Kyle Donahue
- State Representative Bridget Kosierowski
- State Senator Marty Flynn
- Amy Luyster, Vice President of Business and Workforce Development, Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce
- Ann Grebeck, Supervisor of Elementary Education, Scranton School District
- Kim Tesluk, Title I Reading Specialist, Scranton School District
- Tom Borthwick, President, Scranton School Board
- Sandie Lamana, Chairwoman, Lackawanna County Literacy Committee
About the Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition
The PA Literacy Coalition is a nonpartisan, cross-sector coalition committed to ending Pennsylvania’s literacy crisis by advancing a unified, coordinated voice to support evidence-based policy and sustained investment. For more information, visit www.paliteracy.org
About Teach Plus
The mission of Teach Plus is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students’ success. Since 2009, Teach Plus has developed thousands of teacher leaders across the country to exercise their leadership in shaping education policy and improving teaching and learning, to create an education system driven by access and excellence for all. For more information, visit www.teachplus.org.
Information provided to TVL by:
Mark Nicastre
