Blank Pages, Blank Promises: DPI Does an ‘About-face’ on Literacy Funding

There is a particular cruelty in making a promise to children, then quietly taking it back.

In late April, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction made headlines with an announcement that felt like something to celebrate over 50 schools across the state would receive funding to improve literacy through the placement of literacy coaches, supported by a more than $9 million initiative approved by the Joint Committee on Finance. Several Milwaukee Public Schools were named among the recipients. Communities that have fought for years to see real investment in our children’s reading futures were, for a moment, hopeful.

That hope didn’t last long.

Within weeks, that commitment has effectively been walked back when it comes to the Milwaukee Reading Coalition’s involvement — a reversal that should alarm every parent, pastor, teacher, and taxpayer in this city. And to make matters worse, the DPI’s Act 20 FAQ page — the public’s primary window into how this landmark literacy law is being implemented — has been disabled. You try to find answers, and you hit a wall. The community has a right to ask: why?

Let’s start with the numbers, because they demand our full attention.

In Milwaukee, only 9% of fourth-grade students meet grade-level expectations for reading. That figure comes from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, which ranks Milwaukee’s fourth-grade reading scores among the lowest of any urban district in the nation. Even fewer of Milwaukee’s Black fourth-grade students are considered proficient. Read that again. Nine percent. In a city of this size, of this richness, of this potential — nine percent.

A November 2025 report found that about 36% of Wisconsin’s youngest students were performing below the 25th percentile for reading. Statewide, we are failing our children at scale.

This is not a Wisconsin problem in isolation. Nationally, 54% of adults have a literacy level below a sixth-grade standard, according to the National Literacy Institute. One in five U.S. adults is considered functionally illiterate — unable to complete basic reading tasks — and low literacy costs the U.S. economy up to $2.2 trillion annually in lost productivity. Closer to home, one in seven Wisconsin adults struggles with low literacy — barely able to understand short sentences, fill out forms, or follow printed instructions. These are not abstractions. These are our neighbors, our family members, people who were once the children sitting in the very classrooms we are now debating.

Wisconsin’s Act 20, passed with rare bipartisan support in 2023 (I was happy to serve as one of the legislators that supported this iconic legislation), was supposed to change the trajectory. The law requires schools to provide science-based reading instruction and establishes a framework for new literacy programs, with $50 million budgeted for implementation. The Milwaukee Reading Coalition — a coalition of educators, civic leaders, and advocates who set aside longstanding divisions to unite around one mission — brought together more than 75 Milwaukee leaders, including MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius and Mayor Cavalier Johnson, to address the reality that only about 3,000 of Milwaukee’s 31,000 kindergarten-through-third-grade students are meeting reading targets.

That kind of unity is rare and fragile. It must be protected, not undermined.

Howard Fuller, the longtime education activist and former MPS superintendent co-chairing the coalition, has been clear that reading coaches are the linchpin — but only if teachers have first been trained in how to teach reading using the science-based methods the law requires. The coalition’s entire model is built on that sequencing: train the teachers, support them with coaches, and watch outcomes improve. Pulling the funding rug out from under that model doesn’t just delay progress — it dismantles the infrastructure of trust that took decades to build.

What makes this reversal particularly troubling is the silence surrounding it. The DPI’s Act 20 FAQ page — a resource that schools, teachers, and parents have relied on to understand how coaches would be deployed, how funding would work, and what districts could expect — is now disabled. Reading achievement in Wisconsin has not improved in 25 years. That is not a policy footnote. That is a generational failure. And when the agency responsible for turning that around begins hiding the roadmap, the community has every right to demand transparency.

Teachers in Milwaukee schools did not ask for this fight. They enrolled in professional development. They changed their curriculum. They showed up. They deserve coaches who can walk alongside them as they make what is, for many, a fundamental shift in how they teach. Removing that support mid-course is not just an administrative inconvenience — it is a breach of faith with the very educators who are trying hardest to serve our most vulnerable students.

Our children cannot wait for political disputes to resolve themselves. Some states have historically used elementary reading test scores to project how many prison beds will be needed in future years. That is the stakes. That is what low literacy does to a community when left unaddressed.

So we ask again: Why has the Act 20 FAQ page gone dark? Why has DPI reversed course on the Milwaukee Reading Coalition’s role in coaching implementation? Who made that decision, and on whose behalf?

The Milwaukee community deserves answers. Our children deserve more than promises that disappear when no one is looking.