How it took a lawsuit to guarantee students in California’s poorest schools a right to read

AN 11-YEAR-OLD BOY writing a fifth-grade book report on “The Cat in the Hat,” a book meant for kindergartners. A second-grade girl stuck at a preschool reading level. Students who break down in tears when asked to read aloud in class.

While some might blame teachers or schools for such woeful reading skills, the attorneys who represented these children in the groundbreaking 2017 lawsuit known as the Ella T. case blamed the state of California. They argued that the state had long known of the literacy crisis, and its grim impact on the lives of children, but had done little to solve it, essentially denying these children their civil right to literacy under the state constitution.