There exist passionate debates about the best way to teach children to read. Since the Bush administration, school districts receiving federal funds have been required to have research evidence justifying their methods of teaching reading, and in recent years the need for evidence-based practices have intensified with the "Science of Reading" movement. Last year the country's largest school system changed from balanced reading to three other programs for teaching children to read. In this study we examined the empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of the three newly adopted reading programs for the country's largest school system. Our study consisted of website review of the research evidence provided by the three publishing companies regarding the effectiveness of their reading programs. Borrowing from studies of program effectiveness, we applied three criteria for analyzing the quality of research used by the publishers to document their program effectiveness. These criteria were the following: (1) Comparative clinical trials; (2) replication of results and (3) publication of evidence in professional journals. The results of our analyses indicated that only one of the selected reading programs was supported with empirical evidence meeting our criteria regarding program effectiveness. We argue that teachers, not programs, are what best affects children's learning to read. Overly simplified and politicized methods of teaching reading lacking empirical evidence of effectiveness are unlikely to accomplish this important goal.