Maryland Reads: new state reading report warns tens of thousands of students lack proficiency, urges coaching and data-driven action

Trish Brennan Gack, executive director of Maryland Reads, presented the State of Reading in Maryland 2025 report to the State Board on April 30, urging data-driven interventions and expanded coaching to reverse decade-long declines in proficiency.

Key findings: the report synthesizes NAEP and MCAP results and county-level breakdowns. Brennan Gack reported that state reading and math proficiency fell while state funding increased 37% over a 10-year period. According to 2024 MCAP figures presented at the meeting, 32,538 fourth-graders and 34,381 eighth-graders were not proficient in reading — a total of 66,919 students in the two tested grades.

Implications and recommendations: Maryland Reads calls for more targeted use of data, local and state coaching investments and monitoring to accelerate improvements. Brennan Gack said coaching has evidence of impact and lamented that legislative funding requests for coaching did not pass this session, requiring the group to revise its messages to reflect the session’s outcomes.

Local variation: the report breaks results out by county and shows declines in about half of districts’ fourth-grade scores; some high-performing districts fell while some low-performing districts showed increases, evidencing shifting local patterns that the report recommends district-by-district analysis to understand.

Next steps: Maryland Reads invited board members and policymakers to the report’s county-level data and recommended aligning funding and coaching investments with the data reveal to accelerate progress toward higher proficiency.