Why Do Some People Say There's No Reading Crisis?

The Washington Post recently ran an op-ed arguing that, as the headline put it, “There is no reading crisis in the U.S.” While this argument isn’t new, it may be a sign of continuing pushback to the movement for systematic instruction in phonics.

The op-ed, written by a professor of education named Paul L. Thomas, argues that policymakers and journalists have misinterpreted data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which tests American students every two years in reading. They’re confusing NAEP “proficiency” level with “grade level,” Thomas writes, when in fact NAEP proficiency is a higher standard.

It's true those measures are different. For the record, NAEP proficiency is defined as “competency over challenging subject matter.” NAEP “basic,” which is considered equivalent to grade level in most states, is defined as “partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade.”

Thomas says NAEP proficiency is an unrealistic standard and therefore we shouldn’t be alarmed that two-thirds of students are falling below it. He contends that we should be looking to the percentage who score below basic instead: around one third. That, he writes, is “a figure that is concerning but does not constitute a widespread reading crisis.”

As I wrote in a letter to the editor of the Post—one of three that were published challenging Thomas’s assertions—I beg to differ. Even if you accept Thomas’s point that NAEP basic is the right standard, the one third of students who score below it constitute a lot of kids—about 16 million, according to my calculations.

We’ve made no progress in decreasing that number in decades, and in recent years it’s even increased, with a full 40 percent of fourth-graders scoring below basic in 2024 (that’s about 1.4 million children). The NAEP is supposed to test reading comprehension, but the evidence we have suggests that many kids in that category are struggling simply to decipher the words. Why is that not a crisis?

Ignoring the Opportunity Gap?

Thomas argues that the focus on NAEP proficiency “has allowed the country to ignore what is urgent: addressing the opportunity gap that negatively impacts Black and Brown students, impoverished students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.”

That’s a mystifying claim. In fact, NAEP scores, which are broken down by those categories, have helped focus attention on the fact that students in those groups suffer