Education Crisis: Literacy Rates Plummet as Classrooms Prioritize Ideology Over Core Skills

By Sarah Mitchell, Education Correspondent November 8, 2025

WASHINGTON — As fourth-grade reading proficiency hovers at a dismal 31% nationwide — the lowest in two decades — a growing chorus of parents, educators, and policymakers is demanding a return to fundamentals: reading, writing, and arithmetic. The 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report, released last week, delivered a stark warning: nearly seven in ten eighth-graders cannot read at grade level, with proficiency gaps between white and Black students widening to 26 percentage points.

Yet in districts across the country, instructional time once devoted to phonics and composition is being displaced by mandatory lessons on gender identity, sexual orientation, and social justice theory — often starting in kindergarten.

“Children are being asked to analyze privilege and deconstruct gender before they can decode a sentence,” said Dr. Emily Thompson, a former New York City principal and co-author of the 2024 report Lost Learning: The Cost of Ideological Curriculum. “We are sacrificing foundational skills for political messaging.”

The tension came into sharp focus this fall when the Los Angeles Unified School District rolled out its “Inclusive Curriculum Framework,” requiring all elementary teachers to integrate LGBTQ+ themes into language arts. A sample lesson plan for second grade asks students to “explore how families can look different” using picture books featuring same-sex parents and non-binary characters. Similar mandates now exist in 14 states, including California, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Critics argue the shift is not merely additive but subtractive. A 2025 RAND Corporation study found that schools allocating more than 15% of instructional time to social-emotional learning (SEL) and identity-based content saw reading gains 40% lower than peers focused on structured literacy. In San Francisco, where ethnic studies — including queer theory — is required for high school graduation, eighth-grade reading proficiency stands at 28%, six points below the national average.

Meanwhile, states that have doubled down on evidence-based reading instruction are seeing dramatic turnarounds. Mississippi, long ranked last in education, now leads the nation in fourth-grade reading gains after implementing a phonics-first mandate in 2019. The state’s “Literacy-Based Promotion Act” requires third graders to pass a reading gate before promotion — a policy credited with lifting Black student proficiency by 18 points in six years.

“Mississippi proved you don’t need rainbow posters to teach kids to read,” said Carey Wright, former state superintendent and architect of the reform. “You need daily, explicit instruction in sound-letter relationships. Everything else is noise.”

The debate is not confined to statehouses. The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), co-chaired by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has proposed tying $18 billion in federal Title I funds to adoption of “high-dosage literacy tutoring” and banning non-academic social curricula in grades K-5. A draft executive order, leaked last month, would prohibit federal dollars from supporting “gender ideology instruction” in elementary schools.

“Parents send their kids to school to learn how to read, not to be recruited into activism,” Ramaswamy said in a statement. “We’re putting literacy first.”

Parental backlash has already reshaped policy in red and purple states. Florida’s 2022 Parental Rights in Education Act — derided by critics as “Don’t Say Gay” — restricted sexual orientation and gender identity instruction in kindergarten through third grade. Since then, the state’s fourth-grade reading scores have risen 7%, outpacing national trends.

But progressive districts remain defiant. In Seattle, teachers are required to “affirm transgender and non-binary identities” as part of annual equity training. A 2025 internal audit revealed that middle school English classes spent an average of 22 instructional days on identity-themed units — time that could have covered three full units of grammar and essay writing.

The human cost is measurable. In Chicago, where only 21% of eighth graders read proficiently, high school freshmen routinely enter remedial English despite passing middle school. A 2024 survey by the Chicago Teachers Union found that 68% of secondary English teachers felt unprepared to teach writing due to lack of foundational training — and time.

“Teachers want to teach writing,” said union president Stacy Davis Gates. “But when 40% of planning time is consumed by compliance with equity audits, something has to give. And it’s always the basics.”

Even some Democratic leaders are sounding the alarm. Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a Barack Obama appointee, warned in a 2024 op-ed: “We cannot afford to let ideology crowd out literacy. If a child can’t read, they can’t access any curriculum — progressive or otherwise.”

Public opinion aligns with the push for reform. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in October 2025 found that 68% of parents — including 52% of Democrats — want schools to prioritize core academic skills over social issues. Only 14% supported teaching gender identity in elementary school.

Classroom teachers, often caught in the crossfire, are speaking out anonymously. “I have 27 minutes of reading instruction per day,” said a third-grade teacher in Portland, Oregon. “Last week, we spent two days on a ‘pronoun practice’ worksheet. My lowest readers are still guessing at three-letter words.”

The path forward, experts say, lies in evidence, not ideology. Structured literacy programs — like Orton-Gillingham and Fundations — have success rates above 80% when implemented with fidelity. High-dosage tutoring, where struggling readers receive 30 minutes of daily one-on-one support, has closed achievement gaps by 60% in pilot programs.

“Every minute spent debating curriculum wars is a minute not spent teaching a child to read,” said Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, whose state saw a 12-point reading gain after adopting a phonics mandate. “The data is clear. The politics should be, too.”

As the 2026 midterms approach, education is emerging as a defining issue. Candidates in Virginia and New Jersey — where Democrats retained governorships this week — campaigned heavily on “back to basics” platforms, promising to audit instructional time and redirect professional development funds to literacy coaching.

For parents like Maria Gonzalez of Miami, the stakes are personal. Her son, a second grader, came home last month asking why his classmate “doesn’t have a gender.” “I want him to know his letters,” she said. “The rest can wait.”

In an era of declining test scores and rising culture wars, one truth remains: a child who cannot read the textbook cannot learn from it — no matter how inclusive the cover.