Partisan gridlock hasn’t just held up Pennsylvania’s budget for a humiliating and damaging three months: It has also kept popular, effective, bipartisan literacy legislation from passing.

This is particularly frustrating because science-of-reading policies have been shown to significantly reduce racial and socioeconomic educational disparities.

While California’s legislature unanimously passed a “science of reading” bill in recent weeks, Pennsylvania’s versions — which would fund training in evidence-backed phonics-based literacy curricula for teachers — have yet to get a vote in either chamber of the General Assembly. This remains the case despite the fact that both the House and Senate versions of the bill have substantial bipartisan support.

The push for consistent curricula and high

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