Racial Justice for All Children Task Force Advocates for Children
The mission of the Racial Justice for All Children (RJAC) Task Force is to eradicate the childhood-to-school-to-prison pipeline. We seek to further MOSES’s mission — to dismantle the systems of mass incarceration and mass supervision and to eradicate the racial disparities in our community that contribute to them — by interrupting systemic processes that contribute to youth involvement in the juvenile justice system, and by building systems and practices that promote healthy youth development. We carry out our mission through our three working groups: Education Advocacy (EAG), the Housing Group (HG), and Restorative Justice and School Wellness (RJ/SW).
In 2025, MOSES approved two new issue papers for RJAC. This year we also developed new partnerships that have the potential to help move our issues forward. Our work includes state-level and local political advocacy, as well as grassroots efforts.
Education Advocacy Group (EAG)
Illiteracy is associated with both juvenile and adult criminal-legal system involvement. The ability to read is a prerequisite for success in our society today. For these reasons, implementation of WI 2023 Act 20, the Right to Read bill, has continued to be a major focus of the EAG’s advocacy.
During the first half of the year, we met and had follow-up contact with Cindy Green, assistant superintendent for Curriculum and Learning with the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD), to talk about implementation of the new early literacy curriculum and other requirements related to Act 20. We discussed what was going well – the large number of staff who have been trained in the new elementary literacy curriculum – and what has not been going so well – the overall demand this places on staff, and the lack of state funding support. We also discussed where the EAG might have advocacy opportunities.
RJAC continues to look for opportunities to support how parents are informed about their expectations and rights under Act 20. We are concerned that the information sent to parents about students who require personalized reading plans may be challenging for some parents to understand. We were pleased to hear that MMSD plans to retain smaller class sizes at the K-1 levels, which teachers say helps them implement the new literacy curriculum. We are also exploring whether parents are getting all the information about dyslexia that is required under Act 20; Cindy reported very few requests for diagnostic assessments for dyslexia. We wonder whether parents are being adequately informed about what to look for in their children.
In further support of Act 20, RJAC advocated at the state level to ensure that the $50 million allocated as part of the Act was released to hire literacy coaches and fund curriculum purchases. The funds had been withheld by the Joint Committee on Finance, pending settlement of a lawsuit between the Legislature and the Governor. RJAC was successful in getting this issue included in the booklet for Madison Advocacy Day, so that WISDOM members could highlight this concern when they spoke with their legislators. These efforts were ultimately successful.
In the second half of 2025, the EAG focused on forming the Wisconsin Literacy Justice Coalition (WLJC). EAG chair Tracy Frank led this effort by reaching out to about 50 individuals and groups who have been advocating in various ways for literacy improvement. We invited them to consider how we all might better communicate and collaborate in our advocacy. In July, we convened an online meeting to kick off the WLJC. About 15 individuals participated by sharing their priorities, which include continued advocacy around Act 20 and promoting tutoring for students who need extra support that teachers do not have time to provide. Tracy Frank and Judy Fitzgerald were then instrumental in developing an informational event, scheduled for January 2026, to recruit tutors for existing, well-designed tutoring programs.
The Housing Group (HG)
The housing issue paper approved by MOSES this year was quite clear: Housing justice is racial justice for children. Housing justice removes one of the earliest and most devastating barriers to education access, emotional development, and community belonging for Black and brown youth. The issue paper highlights three main areas of advocacy:
- Supporting the work of the Youth Action Board (YAB), OutReach, and Urban Triage to ensure that youth homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrecurring in our community.
The YAB is a group within the Homelessness Services Consortium (HSC), made up of youth who have lived with housing insecurity. Two YAB representatives attended our March meeting to share information about their work. The YAB is leading Dane County’s participation in the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project (YHDP). The YHDP provides system navigation to young people ages 17-24. It has developed the first young-adult drop-in center and the first joint transitional housing-rapid rehousing project for this population.
Our relationship with the YAB led to a significant advocacy effort at the end of the year, when HUD released a new notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) that significantly changed the requirements for their Continuum of Care grants, the program under which the YHDP is funded. The HG spearheaded a Call to Action, asking MOSES members to contact their members of Congress. As of the time this article was being prepared, HUD had “rescinded” their NOFO in response to grassroots advocacy and two lawsuits, including one in which the State of Wisconsin was a partner. But the ultimate fate of these funds remains unclear.
- Joining other local entities advocating that Madison and Dane County create additional income-based, affordable housing options for low-income families.
The expansion of federally funded public housing ended decades ago. But opportunities remain to work with our local governments to expand truly affordable housing for both single individuals and families. Both Dane County and the City of Madison have funds to support the expansion of affordable housing, and the HG will be exploring how to best advocate in this area. We have been actively partnering with the Dane County Housing Justice Initiative in this effort.
- Advocating for policies and practices to support low-income residents of private developments that provide “affordable” units.
Having affordable housing in place is not the end of the story. Many families who live in affordable units struggle to maintain this housing. The HG believes that the managers of these units can do more to support these families. This can be as easy as allowing kids to print out homework on the office printer or providing resources folks can call for help; i.e., respecting and empowering residents. The manager of one housing development has provided resources and programming such as parent-infant support, visits from the Pinney Library Bookmobile, men’s and women’s support groups, crafting, music, and other opportunities. The HG wants to identify more of these practices and share them with other developers.
HG chair Patti La Cross continues to be involved with the HSC. Her new co-chair, John Lemke, is working to connect with the Affordable Housing Action Alliance. A number of HG members attended the HSC’s annual Homelessness Summit this year. In October, HG members met via Zoom with folks from JONAH, the WISDOM affiliate in Eau Claire, to learn about their impressive efforts to support affordable housing in their community. We anticipate further connections with JONAH and are hoping to connect with other WISDOM affiliates working on these concerns.
Toward the end of the year, the HG learned of a complaint against the MMSD being filed with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) by the Kennedy Elementary PTO. The complaint stated that the MMSD was failing in its responsibility to provide necessary transportation for students residing at the Salvation Army Family Shelter; Kennedy is their neighborhood school. The complaint demonstrated that when transportation was not provided, kids from the shelter missed 23 more days of school per year. Messiah Lutheran Church, a MOSES member, has been supporting the costs of this transportation for several years. Patti met with folks from Kennedy and Messiah Lutheran and created a letter of support that MOSES sent to the DPI. Unfortunately, the DPI determined that the PTO did not have standing to submit the complaint, so the Kennedy PTO folks are considering their next steps.
Restorative Justice and School Wellness Group (RJ/SW)
MOSES also approved a new issue paper on RJ/SW. The issue paper notes that:
- The school-to-prison pipeline is fed by exclusionary discipline and criminalization of youth in our schools.
- We need to create a school culture and climate that reduces the likelihood of behaviors that have traditionally led to exclusionary discipline and criminalization.
The issue paper supports advocacy with the MMSD, especially through the Superintendent’s Wellness Advisory Group, of which RJ/SW chair Barbie Jackson is a member. The issues identified reflect, to a large degree, the issues that were raised at a January 2024 MOSES listening session on school safety. One example of the need for advocacy is the stated goal of having two Restorative Justice coordinators at each of the four comprehensive high schools. That goal has been identified as completed, although the District has only one RJ coordinator at each school. We hope that our conversations in the Wellness Advisory Group will clarify how the District envisions its work in these areas and will also allow us to push it to do more.
RJ/SW members met with Gina Aguglia, co-director of MMSD’s Office of School Safety. One area of discussion centered on the District’s policies and responses regarding immigration. We learned that the District does not keep information on students’ immigration status and so has nothing to share with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Gina reported that ICE has not made any attempts to enter schools to apprehend youth. The second area of discussion focused on obtaining information about police calls at schools. Gina will be providing us with information, although she underscored that many factors impact how we might understand the data.
RJ/SW members met with a number of MMSD administrative staff in December to review concerns about suspensions, the use of restorative justice, and mental health efforts. Prior to the meeting, Pam Oliver did an extensive analysis of MMSD’s suspension data, which highlighted the racial disparities in suspensions as well as the extremely high suspension rates in some of the middle schools. MMSD highlighted similar information in an Instructional Work Group meeting just prior to our meeting with them. There was considerable discussion about this data and the implications for restorative justice efforts. We tabled discussion on mental health concerns, pending presentations that will be made to the Instructional Work Group at their January 2026 meeting.
If you are interested in getting involved in any of these work groups, check out the RJAC “want ads” in the October/November MOSES newsletter.