200 Madison teachers haven’t finished state mandated reading training | Education

A majority of the Madison school district’s teachers are now trained in reading instruction under a 2023 state law that overhauled Wisconsin’s approach to literacy education.

But 179 of the district’s teachers have yet to complete the training and another 25 have yet to start, according to district officials.

The training is mandatory for certain educators and administrators in Wisconsin under Act 20, which state lawmakers passed two years ago with the goal of improving reading scores. The law embraces a literacy teaching approach often called the “science of reading” that focuses on phonics — how words look and sound — as the basis of teaching kids how to read.

Like other states, the law marked Wisconsin’s move away from a teaching method known as “balanced literacy” that focuses more on context cues and sentence structure. While mainstream for decades, the method has drawn intensifying criticism about its effectiveness in recent years.

Act 20 has required some Wisconsin schools to adopt a new literacy curriculum, though the Madison Metropolitan School District began moving toward a science of reading approach a few years earlier. The School Board then voted in 2022 to purchase new reading materials under the method.

Despite Madison’s earlier transition than other school districts, Act 20 requires school boards and independent charter schools to ensure that teachers, reading specialists and principals for kindergarten through third grade have received reading instruction training in alignment with the law.

Asked by the Cap Times this month about the school district’s progress on fulfilling the requirements, district officials said 703 teachers had enrolled in the training as of the 2025-26 school year. Out of those enrolled, about 524 educators — or 75% — had completed the training. The district said 25 teachers hadn’t started or enrolled yet.

More than 140 school administrators, including principals and reading specialists, had also enrolled in the training and 58 of them had completed it. All required administrators have started or completed the training, district officials said.

Act 20 required teachers to enroll in the training by July 1 this year, and it required administrators to complete it by the same date or within six months of being hired, according to the Department of Public Instruction. However, lawmakers did not include a mechanism in Act 20 to enforce the mandate.

The Department of Public Instruction encourages public schools and independent charters to track their progress.

The school district’s figures and state estimates suggest Madison teachers are ahead of their peers elsewhere in the state on completing the training. About 59% of teachers statewide completed the training as of July, according to a DPI survey.

Madison school district officials said about 41% of administrators finished the requirement, compared to about 92% of administrators statewide in the DPI survey.

“The strong completion rate among administrators underscores the commitment schools and districts are making to ensure every child becomes a successful reader,” said Chris Bucher, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Instruction. “The percentage of teachers who have either completed or are currently enrolled in training reflects meaningful progress toward meeting professional development requirements.”

The full picture of teachers and administrators completing the training remains unclear. About one-fourth of school districts in the state didn’t respond to the Department of Public Instruction’s survey, according to a list of respondents provided to the Cap Times by the agency.

The list of unresponsive districts includes the Madison school district. Ian Folger, a spokesperson for the district, said Madison schools didn’t respond because the point of contact for DPI was on leave at the time of the department’s initial and follow-up outreach. He emphasized that training is being monitored internally. 

“DPI knew that we began this process of learning three years prior to the state’s adoption and implementation of Act 20 requirements, and that we maintain internal monitoring systems at multiple points to ensure that staff complete all required training,” Folger wrote in a statement.

As part of the state budget approved by lawmakers this summer, the state will fully reimburse the costs for teachers and administrators to take the required training. Funding for the reimbursements and other Act 20 measures was previously held up over a legal dispute between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“Districts across the state are taking the implementation of Act 20 seriously,” Bucher said. “We are encouraged by the progress being made.”

Erin Gretzinger is an education reporter for the Cap Times. Erin writes about schools serving young children and teens in the Madison region. Email story ideas and tips to Erin at [email protected].

Please consider supporting Erin’s work by becoming a Cap Times member or sponsor. Sustaining local journalism in Madison depends on readers like you.