LETTER: Legislature acted on reading to confront crisis in literacy

To Ozaukee Press:

Wisconsin faces an ongoing literacy crisis, and there are passionate advocates on all sides of the issue. Ultimately, everyone wants to do what’s best for students. That’s why the Right to Read Act passed the Senate and Assembly with bipartisan support.

A critic of the early literacy bill who wrote in a letter to the editor published in Ozaukee Press that it’s “breathtaking” that the state Legislature decided to address Wisconsin’s literacy crisis rather than listening to “the experts.”

What I find breathtaking is that 67% of Wisconsin’s fourth graders cannot read at grade level. It’s breathtaking that Wisconsin has the nation’s largest racial achievement gap in literacy. It’s breathtaking that 8% of Black students in Milwaukee are reading at grade level.

If these are the results from our current “experts,” then we need to listen to different experts. The Legislature worked with several reform-minded reading advocates to move AB 321 in the same direction as 31 other states of varying political persuasions.

The status quo is not working. When kids cannot read, they are set up for long-term failure in adulthood. The Right to Read Act provides necessary support and resources for both students and teachers to move the needle in the right direction toward improving the state’s appalling literacy rates.

State Sen. Duey Stroebel

Cedarburg