Call to Action: Dane County Budget
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EAG Creates Literacy Justice Coalition Wisconsin
EAG Creates Literacy Justice Coalition Wisconsin
By Judy Fitzgerald, Tracy Frank, and Shel Gross
For the past few years, the Education Advocacy Group (EAG) of the Racial Justice for All Children Task Force (RJAC) has focused on early literacy education and identifying students with dyslexia as high priority ways to narrow the school-to-prison pipeline. For decades, many children have not been taught with practices supported by what scientists have learned from the neuropsychological research on reading. Children not reading at grade level fall further and further behind as the material becomes more complex, and this can result in behavior issues, withdrawal, and/or emotional turmoil. A substantial portion of juvenile detainees are functionally illiterate, as are about 75% of incarcerated individuals, making it harder for them to take part in employment opportunities or civil society.
With this knowledge, MOSES took an official position in favor of Act 20, also known as the Right-to-Read Bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Evers on July 19, 2023. The position’s first two sentences have been the guideposts for the EAG’s work:
- MOSES treasures the education and well-being of all our citizens, but most especially our treasured children.
- MOSES believes that schools should be held accountable for teaching children to read.
Act 20 changed the way that Wisconsin children are taught to read, to align with reading science. It also changed the way that teachers are trained, requiring them to have completed an approved course in the linguistic foundations of reading. Literacy coaches are prescribed for the lowest performing districts. Screening tests are required three times a year for grades K5-3, and the results are to be communicated to the parents or guardians. If a student scores in the lowest 25%, a diagnostic assessment must be performed and a personalized reading plan (PRP) provided to the parents or guardians. An Early Literacy Curriculum Council (ELCC) was formed to choose the most effective curricula for districts to adopt, so that they could receive up to 50% reimbursement for their cost outlay. Importantly, the new law also requires districts to screen for dyslexia, if requested by a parent, guardian, or teacher.
Due to a legal dispute between the governor and the legislature, the roughly $50 million allotted for implementation of Act 20 was not released until July 2025. But now the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) will be able to hire literacy coaches, reimburse districts for curriculum purchases, and support teacher training.
The delay did not keep RJAC from advocating for the local adoption of Act 20 measures over the past two years. We met with school board members, administrators, and DPI staff to learn about implementation and to hold all parties accountable for it.
When several members of RJAC provided in-person testimony in the summer of 2023 in support of Act 20, seeds for important relationships with other state literacy advocates and organizations were planted. The EAG recognized that though these groups share an interest in improving early literacy education and preservice teacher training, they might not be familiar with each other’s work. While organizations need to focus on their own core missions, MOSES understands that “organized people” are key to developing our power to impact policy. This understanding led Tracy Frank to create a listserv of literacy advocates and organizations devoted to raising literacy rates in Wisconsin.
Tracy led the first virtual meeting of the Literacy Justice Coalition Wisconsin on July 17, 2025, to learn what everyone was already doing and to plot future direction. Early childhood education, increasing the supply of tutors, and monitoring implementation of Act 20 were identified as crucial parts of the equation. Several coalition members want to hold an event in the fall to raise public awareness of the literacy crisis. When future legislation or funding is needed, the Literacy Justice Coalition Wisconsin is now in place to communicate and coordinate advocacy. If you would like to be added to the listserve or to work on the fall event, email Tracy Frank at jtracyfrank@me.com.
This fall, as every year, there are multiple reasons why many children enter the new school year already behind. Though teachers now are better trained in more effective methods, they still have the stress of teaching students with a variety of reading levels and resources in one classroom. Trained volunteer literacy tutors lessen a teacher’s load by working one-on-one with the students in the bottom half who do not qualify for the services of the reading interventionist or special education teacher. An effective, trained volunteer literacy tutor can help change the trajectory of a young person’s life, away from the illiteracy-to-prison pipeline.
While MOSES is primarily an advocacy organization, we know many members of MOSES member congregations are moved to provide direct service in a variety of ways. If that is you, check the sidebar and consider one of the many volunteer literacy tutor training opportunities in Madison.
Literacy Tutoring Opportunities
The following organizations provide training and placement for literacy tutors. We do not know the current status of training slots at each organization. If you would like to talk about tutoring in general please feel free to contact Judy Fitzgerald, judithfitzgerald@fsm.northwestern.edu or Tracy Frank, jtracyfrank@me.com.
Goodman Center – START Literacy Initiative
Iris Patterson: (608) 204-8014; ipatterson@goodmancenter.org
https://www.goodmancenter.org/children-teens/start-literacy
Children’s Dyslexia Center
Director Kelly Kuenzi: (608) 252-4922
https://www.childrensdyslexiacenters.org/services/
One City Schools: (608) 531-2128
Volunteer information here.
Note: Even though in-person tutor training took place in August, there are other ways to get involved if you are interested.
Schools of Hope: Madison
https://schoolsofhope.org/tutor/schools-of-hope-in-madison/
Schools of Hope provides tutors for:
Thoreau School – Madison
Fluency Tutor Program
(608) 204-6940
Lowell School – Madison
Literacy Tutor Program
(608) 204-6600
Youth Restorative Justice Summit
On February 28, Barbie Jackson and Shel Gross were given the opportunity to have a table at the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Youth Restorative Justice (RJ) Summit. At that table, they invited youth to respond to this question: What do you want the community to know about RJ? Here’s what the youth said:
Youth (teens) are leaders and facilitators.
RJ helps with voicing opinions.
RJ is a very welcoming place!
RJ is a learning experience.
Everyone should be understood.
Everyone belongs in and with RJ.
RJ is a good way to work things out.
RJ provides a safe place.
RJ is about communication, not just about punishment and taking sides.
Resolving conflict peacefully is a very helpful and essential part of school.
There is no right or wrong way to contribute to restoring justice. If you show up and put in the work, self-reflect, and practice kindness, you are doing enough.
RJ is learning about yourself, to better understand the world around you and how it affects you.
RJ works not only to resolve conflict, but to create family and community.
RJ is not just confined to a room, but incorporated through every day and action.
Everyone should be respectful!
RJ is like family to me, and it is very transformative.
RJ is so cool!
RJ is about beliefs, mindsets, and values as much as it is about practice.
RJ can be different for everyone.
RJ includes all genders, races, and identities.
Restorative Justice (RJ) and School Wellness
By Shel Gross
In my career as a lobbyist, I learned that the road to policy approval can be long and circuitous. I can point to policy “wins” that were 15 years in the making. While it wasn’t quite that long, the odyssey that led to the Leadership Board’s approval of the Racial Justice for All Children Task Force issue paper on Restorative Justice and School Wellness put me in mind of those days. Different interests and efforts mixed and matched over a number of years, resulting in something really quite simple in the end: we could use our presence on the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Superintendent’s Wellness Advisory (SWA) to promote a variety of topics important to MOSES members.
We identified six interrelated topics to promote: community engagement; mental health staffing and practices; restorative justice staffing and practices; transparent communications regarding disciplinary practices and outcomes; recruitment and retention of staff of color; and staff training in research-based approaches to reducing exclusionary discipline and enhancing student well-being.
The first landmark along this road was a March 2021 MOSES Position Statement in support of a set of MMSD Safety and Security Recommendations (which was, of course, preceded by the work needed to bring this forward). Among the recommendations were a three- to five-year plan for holistic implementation of restorative justice (RJ) in the MMSD and creation of the SWA to involve MMSD staff (including new RJ coordinators), community partners, families, and students in developing a plan for enhancing youth and community roles regarding school safety.
These concerns found a MOSES home in RJAC, which had been formed the previous year. They also became of increasing importance, given the MMSD Board’s decision to remove School Resource Officers (SROs) from Madison high schools, as well as the impacts of the pandemic on student and staff well-being. But while RJAC members increasingly engaged with MMSD around these wellness concerns, they still lacked organizational structure and focus.
Another landmark was a listening session that RJAC convened in January 2024, to learn what MOSES members felt were important elements of school safety. This was a response, in part, to recognition that MOSES members were divided over the issue of SROs, but that “school safety” consisted of much more than the presence or absence of police in schools. Over 40 people attended, and we heard a wide range of concerns and ideas. While an RJAC subgroup was able to organize these into five main areas, the task force was not able to prioritize them; all of them felt important, but “all of them” felt like too much for the task force to take on.
The throughline for all this work was Barbie Jackson. Barbie had brought forward the earlier position statement and was asked to join the SWA in November 2023. In May 2024, she started pulling together some folks from MOSES and RJAC to support her work with the SWA. As the group started looking in more detail at the SWA’s ambitious agenda, we noted that many of the issues raised in our January 2024 listening session were among them. At that point, we recognized that the SWA had given us the opportunity to work on our wide range of concerns in a manageable way. The Leadership Board’s approval of the issue paper on Restorative Justice and School Wellness then gave Barbie – and the group working with her – the ability to bring all of MOSES into this advocacy work.
It is critical to underscore that this work is consistent with the MOSES mission of eradicating the systems of mass incarceration. Involvement in this system often begins in the schools. As the issue paper notes:
MOSES affirms restorative justice and other wellness-enhancing practices to create an inclusive culture and climate that increases well-being for all students and reduces behaviors that currently lead to exclusionary practices, such as suspensions, expulsions, and police calls. MOSES opposes exclusionary discipline in Madison’s schools. We seek new ways to respond, rather than persisting in exclusionary discipline practices that frequently are preliminaries to criminalization.
And because these exclusionary practices fall disproportionately on Black and Brown students, these efforts are also a critical part of addressing the racial disparities inherent in these systems. They clearly align with the RJAC mission to eradicate the childhood-to-school-to-prison pipeline.
Now the work of taking specific actions begins. RJAC members will deepen partnerships with those MMSD administrators directly involved in the six topics we selected, prioritizing those we hope to act on in the near term as our first step. Our continued relationship with the SWA will help us build partnerships and actions for change.
Some Good News from the Sentencing Project
Submitted by Katie Mulligan
Youth arrests and incarceration increased in the closing decades of the 20th century but have fallen sharply since. Public opinion often lags behind these realities, wrongly assuming both that crime is perpetually increasing and that youth offending is routinely violent. In fact, youth offending is predominantly nonviolent, and the 21st century has seen significant declines in youth arrests and incarceration.
Between 2000 and 2022, the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities fell from 108,000 to 27,600: a 75% decline. But despite positive movement on important indicators, far too many youth – disproportionately youth of color – are still incarcerated.
Notes from the November 2024 Summit on Homelessness
By Patti LaCross
This year the Temporary Education Program leaders of MMSD and Sun Prairie Schools, in coordination with the Education+ Advocacy Group of the Homeless Services Consortium (HSC) in which I participate, expanded the annual Homeless Awareness effort to include other Dane County schools.
Here is some of what we heard that day:
- While the average US housing vacancy is 2%, Wisconsin’s is now less than ½%. Dane County has the largest housing gap in the state, already 11,000 short.
- Our driver of homelessness is not poverty so much as affordability. Milwaukee rents average $950/month for one bedroom, $1000/month for two bedrooms. Madison’s averages are $1430 for one bedroom and $1700 for two bedrooms, and rising. Wisconsin landlords aren’t held to a rent ceiling.
- This fall MMSD was serving over 800 students experiencing homelessness, with many more doubled-up, often precariously. In Sun Prairie those who renew their lease are paying $400 more per month, and shelters have a 300-person waitlist. Last year’s number of about 150 homeless students was doubling
- Outlying communities reported their first waves of homeless students, in single to double digits. With little capacity and no funding, they depend on churches to help. At least one community has developed a proactive policing policy to protect those unhoused.
Since then, on February 12 the HSC Education & Advocacy Committee endorsed a challenge by advocates to the management of the Beacon, which provides day shelter for the unhoused. They point out that access to housing navigation in that space would help guests move toward housing. The committee also raised concerns about whether Dane County’s practice of not asking or recording information about immigrant status may be challenged by the new federal administration. For more information check out the Dane County Homeless Justice Initiative.
Actions you are invited to take:
- National Low Income Housing Coalition – Regarding passage of a final fiscal
year 2025 spending bill: https://nlihc.quorum.us/campaign/81487/
- EndHomelessness.org – NAEH bill, ensuring funding for homeless and housing programs: https://endhomelessness.org/actions/ act-now-federal-homelessness-funding-still-at-risk/
- The Continuum of Care (CoC) funds support permanent housing through HUD (Federal Housing and Urban Development funds). These funds may be increasingly at risk if the new administration continues to cut the HUD budget and workforce.
Thanks for your interest and possible support! The Housing Group of the Racial Justice for All Children Taskforce welcomes you to join us on Zoom on the 3rd Tuesday of the month from 4:30 to 6pm. These are All Our Children!