Budget Breakdown: How the FY26 School Aid Budget is Supporting Early Readers

Michigan has an early literacy crisis, and for many years, Michigan’s youngest learners have not received the help they need to become strong readers. That was made clear in Michigan’s 2024-2025 M-STEP results, which demonstrated wide opportunity gaps among Michigan’s students and underscored the urgent need to prioritize support for our students and schools.

Consider that an analysis by EdTrust-Midwest showed that more than half of third grade students (55.7%) from higher-income backgrounds scored proficient or advanced in reading, while only 25.7% of students from low-income backgrounds scored proficient or advanced. The analysis also revealed deep opportunity gaps for Black and Latino students, as well as multilingual learners, and students with disabilities, who scored significantly lower than their white peers on the third grade reading assessment.

The good news is that the legislature is now taking active steps to reverse this trend, starting with passage of last year’s landmark Reading for All legislation to support students with dyslexia. In addition to improving ways to identify students with dyslexia, this new law also embeds the science of reading into the supports given to struggling readers.

Building upon that law, lawmakers recently included funding to improve early literacy in the FY26 state budget that passed last month. The budget includes $10 million for LETRS training, which provides professional development for teachers based on the science of reading. It is critical to equip teachers with these skills and empower them to become stronger teachers, and training teachers in the science of reading is a key component of the Reading for All legislation.

To address the lack of high-quality reading curriculum used across the state, lawmakers also included $70 million to provide local districts with grants to purchase literacy tools that have been vetted by MDE’s Committee for Literacy Achievement. This committee, established last year, created a ranked list of evidence-based literacy curriculum, interventions, and professional development options for districts to purchase. Last year, MDE awarded grants to 561 local school districts.

Additionally, the legislature included $42 million for literacy coaches. Created under the Read by Grade Three law, these coaches are hired by the Intermediate School Districts (ISDs) to provide resources and training to local teachers. This funding ensures that each ISD is staffed with at least three literacy coaches.

Michigan lawmakers deserve credit for making these investments. They come at a critical time as Michigan lags leading states in early reading performance. This funding, along with Reading for All legislation, puts Michigan on the right path towards ensuring that all students can learn to read and reach their full potential.

This is part of a series by EdTrust-Midwest digging into the details of the FY 26 School Aid Budget.