Today I was hoping the Trump regime would comply with court orders to provide SNAP benefits to 42 million low-income Americans when someone called to ask me about Coalition of Billionaires Masquerades as Mass Reads Coalition. Then it hit me: SNAP is helping to fund the Mass Reads Coalition! That is because the Walton Family…
Category: Science of Reading
Coalition of Billionaires Masquerades as Mass Reads Coalition
A Coalition of Billionaires masquerading as the Mass Reads Coalition is lobbying the legislature to pass a corporate coveted reading bill. It is mostly a familiar gaggle of privateering interest groups underwritten by the Boston Foundation, Barr Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. At the Mass Reads website, you will find the Coalition of Billionaires…
My Letter to Rep. Simon Cataldo on Science of Reading
September 18, 2025 The Honorable Simon Cataldo General Court of Massachusetts State House, Boston, MA 02133 Re: EDUCATION COMMITTEE TESTIMONY, H. 698, and S. 338 Dear Representative Cataldo: I understand that at the hearing on H. 698 and S. 338 on Tuesday you indicated that you had heard from only proponents of the legislation and…
My Testimony on Science of Reading Legislation
Dear Chairperson Lewis, Chairperson Gordon, and Committee Members: My name is Maruice T. Cunningham, and I am a retired professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. In 2016 I became curious about the dark money being spent on Question 2 to expand charter schools in Massachusetts, upward of $20 million in…
Expert Douses Boston Globe’s “Science of Reading” Advocacy
The Boston Globe did another editorial hyping “science of reading” legislation and I don’t know anything about literacy instruction but neither does the Globe so I thought I’d introduce someone who does. Dr. Elena Aydarova is an assistant professor in the Educational Policy studies department at the University of Wisconsin Madison and an actual expert…