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Wisconsin Data Exposes the Teacher-Training Gap Behind Your Child’s Reading Results

Wisconsin FORT data shows teacher prep programs producing reading-science pass rates from 25% to 100%. The state has a science-of-reading law. But a mandate only reaches children when their teacher knows what it means. Here are the two questions every parent needs to ask.

Laura Lurns Last updated · 9 min read
Wisconsin Data Exposes the Teacher-Training Gap Behind Your Child’s Reading Results

Wisconsin passed a science-of-reading law in 2023 requiring science-based literacy instruction in every classroom. Then researchers measured what the teachers delivering that instruction actually know. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty’s new report, “The FORT Gap,” tested teacher candidates across state university programs on the Foundations of Reading Test (FORT) and found pass rates ranging from 25% to 100% depending on the program. Statewide, one in four Wisconsin teacher candidates fails that test. In Massachusetts, the national literacy leader, only one in ten fails it. Wisconsin ranks 30th out of 35 states in reading growth and 33rd in math growth (2022–2025 NAEP). A law mandating science-based reading instruction assumes the teacher standing in front of your child knows what that means. The FORT data shows how often that assumption is wrong.

Wisconsin’s new FORT Gap report shows teacher prep programs with reading-science pass rates from 25% to 100%. Here are the questions parents are asking about what that means for their child.

Common questions

What is the Foundations of Reading Test (FORT) and why does it matter?
The FORT is a teacher licensure exam required in Wisconsin for elementary, middle school, and special education teachers. It measures whether a teacher candidate understands the five components the National Reading Panel identified as the evidence base for reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. A teacher who cannot pass the FORT lacks foundational knowledge of how reading works scientifically. WILL’s report found Wisconsin programs producing pass rates as low as 25% and as high as 100%, meaning the knowledge your child’s teacher brings to the classroom depends significantly on which university trained them.
My state passed a science-of-reading law. Why might my child still be getting outdated reading instruction?
A law mandating science-based reading instruction tells teachers what to do. It does not give them the knowledge to do it if they were never trained in the science. Teacher preparation programs that graduate candidates at 25% FORT pass rates are producing teachers who lack the foundational reading science the law requires. Until accountability reaches those programs, the law’s mandate meets a knowledge gap at the classroom door. That is exactly what the Wisconsin data documents, and it applies anywhere teacher preparation programs are not held publicly accountable for reading-science outcomes.
What should I ask my child’s teacher or school about reading instruction?
Two questions matter most. First: “When my child encounters a word they don’t recognize, what are they taught to do?” The science-backed answer is to decode: look at the letters, apply letter-sound knowledge, and work through the word. If the answer involves looking at pictures, guessing from context, or skipping ahead, that is three-cueing, and the evidence is clear it trains guessing rather than reading. Second: “What reading program does this school use, and is it a structured literacy program?” Structured literacy programs teach phonemic awareness and phonics explicitly and sequentially, which is the approach the evidence supports. A parent screener is a free first step to understand where your child stands. A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing, or medical cause, a professional evaluation is the route to those supports.
Is this the teacher’s fault?
No. A teacher trained at a program with a 25% FORT pass rate was not given the knowledge the evidence requires. They were certified without being tested on whether they understood the science of reading. The accountability gap belongs to teacher preparation programs, not to individual educators who went through them. That distinction matters because the solution is transparency and accountability for those programs, not blame aimed at the teachers they produced. What every parent can do now is ask the two questions above and use the answers to advocate for their child’s instruction.
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Wisconsin data: teacher prep programs range from 25% to 100% on a reading-science test. The state has a science-of-reading law. The law can't reach your child's classroom if their teacher was never trained in the science.

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What the Wisconsin Education Comeback report found

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty launched the Wisconsin Education Comeback series on June 18, 2026, as a comprehensive reform roadmap for the next governor and legislature. The series opens with “The FORT Gap: How Inconsistent Teacher Preparation Is Fueling Wisconsin’s Literacy and Educator Crises,” authored by WILL Research Director Will Flanders. The FORT (Foundations of Reading Test) is required for teacher licensure in Wisconsin for elementary education, middle school education, and special education. It tests the five core components the National Reading Panel identified in 2000 as the evidence base for reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Flanders’ analysis found that FORT pass rates vary dramatically across Wisconsin university preparation programs, from a high of 100% to a low of 25%. Statewide, roughly one in four Wisconsin teacher candidates fails the FORT on their first attempt. That compares to roughly one in ten in Massachusetts, which has required a comparable reading foundations test for decades and consistently leads the nation in reading outcomes. The report’s proposed fix is accountability through transparency: annual public reporting of each university program’s FORT pass rates, disaggregated by candidate demographics, attempt history, and preparation pathway, so policymakers, prospective teachers, and parents understand which programs prepare teachers in the science of reading and which do not.

The Education Comeback roadmap identifies this teacher-preparation gap as the root of Wisconsin’s persistent reading underperformance, and outlines eight changes to make Wisconsin a national model, including returning to science-backed methods of teaching reading and realigning teacher certification incentives.

Wisconsin Data Exposes the Teacher-Training Gap Behind Your Child’s Reading Results

Why a law cannot teach reading when the teacher was not trained in the science

The science of reading has been documented for decades. The National Reading Panel’s landmark 2000 report established that systematic, explicit phonics instruction is the evidence-based approach to reading acquisition. Cognitive psychologist Keith Rayner’s decades of eye-tracking research showed that skilled readers process nearly every letter on a page. Guessing words from pictures and context is what struggling readers do. That approach does not transform into decoding as children improve. Cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg, in Language at the Speed of Sight, calls the three-cueing system built on context guessing “descriptive of how poor readers read.” Emily Hanford’s 2019 APM Reports investigation Sold a Story documented how that approach became entrenched in teacher training programs despite three decades of contrary evidence, and how states only began passing corrective laws after a national investigative podcast forced the conversation in 2019.

The FORT gap reveals the mechanism that allows an outdated method to survive a law that bans it. Wisconsin’s Act 20 (2023) requires science-based literacy instruction. But a classroom mandate is only as strong as the teacher carrying it out. A teacher trained at a 25%-pass-rate program carries different knowledge of phonemic awareness and systematic decoding than one trained at a 100%-pass-rate program. Both receive the same legal mandate. Only one of them knows what it requires in practice. The real obstacle is not the law and not the teacher: it is the system of teacher preparation that has certified educators without testing whether they understand how reading actually works. That system is what the FORT data makes visible.

The comparison with Massachusetts is not incidental. Massachusetts has required a rigorous reading foundations test for teacher candidates for years, and the results are a 10% failure rate and national reading leadership. The lesson is not that Wisconsin needs a different law. It is that accountability for teacher preparation programs changes what teachers know before they walk into a classroom.

Key takeaways

  1. Wisconsin teacher prep programs range from 25% to 100% on a basic reading-science test: WILL's FORT Gap report found statewide, one in four Wisconsin teacher candidates fails the Foundations of Reading Test, compared to one in ten in Massachusetts, the national literacy leader.
  2. A law mandating science-based reading instruction only works if teachers know the science: Wisconsin's Act 20 (2023) requires evidence-based literacy instruction, but teacher preparation programs that graduate candidates who cannot pass a foundational reading test undermine the mandate before a child reads a single word.
  3. The science of reading has been settled since 2000; teacher prep accountability has not: The National Reading Panel (2000) established explicit, systematic phonics instruction as the evidence base. Cognitive scientist Seidenberg and Rayner's eye-tracking research confirm that guessing from context describes how struggling readers read, not how skilled readers do.

What this means for your child today, regardless of your state

If your child’s state has passed a science-of-reading law, the Wisconsin data surfaces a question that the law itself does not answer: who trained your child’s teacher, and did that program actually teach the science? The gap between Wisconsin’s best and worst programs runs from 25% to 100% pass rates. That variation exists in teacher preparation programs across the country. A mandate on classrooms does not reach a teacher who was never trained in what the mandate requires.

Two questions cut through the uncertainty. First: when your child encounters a word they do not recognize, what are they taught to do? If the answer involves looking at the picture, guessing what makes sense, or thinking about what would fit grammatically, that is three-cueing instruction, and the science is clear that it trains guessing, not decoding. The evidence-based answer is to look at the letters, apply what you know about sounds, and work through the word. Second: what reading program does the school use? Structured literacy programs (the term the International Dyslexia Association uses for science-aligned instruction) teach phonemic awareness and phonics explicitly, sequentially, and systematically. That distinction is the one the Wisconsin FORT measures, and it is the one most parents have never been told to ask about.

A free parent screener at Learning Success is one starting point for understanding where your child stands with reading skills. A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child needs formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing, or medical cause for their difficulties, a professional evaluation is the only route to those supports.

Thirty years of research established that children who guess words from pictures are performing reading, not building it. The villain in this story is not a teacher. It is a teacher preparation system that has certified educators without testing whether they understand the science of how reading works, then sent them into classrooms carrying a mandate they were never equipped to execute. Accountability for that system is what changes what happens at your child’s desk. Use the free parent screener at learningsuccess.ai to see where your child stands. It is a starting point, not a diagnosis; for formal accommodations, a professional evaluation is the route.

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References

Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert Writes about the learning brain for parents who want plain answers. Every article is grounded in current neuroscience and classroom practice.

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