Welcome back to the Learning Curve podcast.

I'm your co-host, Alicia Thomas Sarsie, and excited to have a guest co-host with me today. A good friend and ally in this work, Mary Tamer. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Alicia. I am so pleased to be able to join you today, and I really appreciate the invitation.

Of course, and we have a great topic today, so I can't think of a better co-host.

But before we jump in, why don't you remind our listeners who you are and what you do?

Sure.

I am based here in Boston, Massachusetts, and I run a statewide organization called Mass Potential. I am the founder

and executive director, and we are all about catalyzing statewide educational improvement

across the K-12 spectrum. Ooh, I love that word catalyzing.

Well, we'll talk more about that. Yes, I love it.

Yes, it's been a good run here so far.

Right now we have a literacy bill that is in play that would mandate research and evidence-based instruction here in Massachusetts.

And we have a unanimous vote in the House and Senate and are very excited for this bill to become law. Wow, congratulations. Talk about hit the ground

running. Yes, exactly. I love that. Well, congrats. I look forward to reading and hearing more about

that as all of us, I think, are trying to get to the right place on this literacy piece. Some of us have

done it well and some of us have

a lot of work to do. So I'm confident, though, that what's in your bill and what's happening

in Massachusetts will be great. We hope so. We're working hard on the implementation already.

Very good. Very good. Well, we've got a great show today. I feel like this is a show dedicated

to Massachusetts, and that's a good thing,

because when you are constantly in the top five, often number one, that's a good thing that we

can continue to learn from. So again, excited to have you. Before we get to our guests, though,

we have some stories in the news to talk about. So I'll go first and I would love to hear what you're reading these days.

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