For decades, publishers have made millions selling faulty literacy products lacking proven, scientifically backed phonics instruction MASSACHUSE

Massachusetts Families File Major Class Action Lawsuit Challenging Deceptive, Discredited Reading Curricula

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2024-12-29 00:30:03

 For decades, publishers have made millions selling faulty literacy products lacking proven, scientifically backed phonics instruction

MASSACHUSETTS — Three Massachusetts children and their parents filed a major class action lawsuit Wednesday challenging the deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of faulty literacy curricula that have undermined the future of students across the Commonwealth.

The lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts Superior Court by Justice Catalyst Law and Kaplan & Grady, seeks substantial relief for the generations of students and families across Massachusetts harmed by the defendant publishers and authors’ discredited literacy products and deceptive marketing. The suit also seeks a court order requiring defendants to warn schools and families of the defects in their literacy products and other relief to fully remedy the situation so school districts have quality literacy instruction materials.

The lawsuit represents the latest challenge to the controversial, discredited early-literacy products sold and marketed by such figures as Lucy Calkins, Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell under the banners of the Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishing companies. Since the mid-1990s, the defendants have made millions of dollars selling early-literacy products to thousands of school districts across the country, falsely marketing them as backed by and based in “research” and “data.” In recent years, Calkins, Fountas, Pinnell and their peers have faced a widespread backlash after a series of scientific studies and media reports revealed that their curricula have fundamentally failed to teach children to read.

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