EducationSuperHighway

The Problem

America is in a literacy crisis. Two-thirds of US students cannot read at grade level by the end of third grade. This is the moment when school shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. The gap is most acute in low-income communities and disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx students, but it spans every state, district, and zip code. The literacy gap follows students for life, affecting their education, income, and opportunity.

Research from Johns Hopkins University shows that 85% of students reading at grade level by the end of first grade stay on track through third grade, compared with just 12% of those who fall behind. Decades of research in the Science of Reading show that most students below grade level have specific, addressable decoding gaps that can be closed with targeted, evidence-based tutoring. With the right support, every child can become a confident, fluent reader.

The Solution

In 2013, only 10% of students had access to digital learning in their classrooms. Today, thanks to an unprecedented, bipartisan effort by federal, state, and school district leaders, supported by EducationSuperHighway (ESH) 1.0 and advocacy organizations, the classroom connectivity gap is now closed. Having brought high-speed internet to 47 million students in 99.3% of America’s public schools and to 5 million low-income households through ESH 2.0, they are now turning those connections into opportunity by solving the nation’s literacy crisis.

Today, ESH 3.0 is building the national funding infrastructure: the policy advocacy, state and donor partnerships, and accountability mechanisms that enable proven tutoring providers to scale and reach every first-grader who needs them. Funding proven, one-on-one tutoring for first-grade students reading below grade level in public schools is the key to ending America’s literacy crisis. As a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO), EducationSuperHighway is powering the initiative through the Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC) — a new federal tax credit that, starting January 1, 2027, will allow any US taxpayer to redirect $1,700 of their federal tax bill to an SGO at zero net cost to them. This is the largest federal scholarship tax credit in US history, and EducationSuperHighway is building the most ambitious literacy funding campaign in the country to put it to work.

EducationSuperHighway uses EFTC funds to deliver tutoring scholarships to public school first-grade students who are falling behind. Each scholarship is a full year of daily one-to-one literacy tutoring, 15 minutes per session, enough to produce measurable, lasting gains in phonics, decoding, and fluency. Tutoring providers delivering this model have increased the share of first-graders reading at grade level from 6% to 48% in a single year, meaning struggling readers are eight times as likely to learn to read on time.

Impact

ESH 1.0 closed the K-12 broadband gap: 99.3% of America’s public schools and 47 million students connected.

ESH 2.0 connected 5 million low-income households to affordable broadband.

ESH 3.0 partnered with governors’ offices in 31 states to help secure EFTC Scholarship Granting Organization approvals and expand access to literacy scholarship programs.