Reading scores plummeted as Michigan schools adopted now-discredited curriculum

For three years, Midland Public Schools has used a discredited reading and writing curriculum.

M-STEP scores for English Language Arts in the Midland district have worsened over time. In 2019. 61.2% of students scored proficient or advanced. But the most recent number was 50.6%. The drop of nearly 11 percentage points is almost twice the drop seen statewide.

The district, in announcing a new reading curriculum in May 2021, said the Lucy Calkins teaching method was “highly respected in the field.”

Midland schools started using the reading and writing curriculum in the 2021-2022 school year. At the time, the district said the Units of Study Program was supported by over 30 years of research.

Within a year of Midland’s announcement, Calkins made a retreat from her long-time curriculum, The New York Times reported. In 2023, Columbia University shut down the Teachers College project that housed her reading work

Yet the Midland district continues to use the Calkins Units of Study program.

Calkins developed the Units of Study in 2003. It sometimes displaced phonics-based reading curricula with what it called “whole language literacy,” later rebranded as “balanced literacy.”

“We will be using the Lucy Calkins Units of Study in Phonics to guide our daily phonics instruction,” the Midland district said in a notice sent to parents of elementary school students.

The district did not respond to an email seeking comment.

A Units of Study curriculum has been in place at Ann Arbor Public Schools, according to the district’s website. In an email to Michigan Capitol Confidential, however, a spokesperson said the district is phasing out the curriculum and will use the Science of Reading.

“We do not use Units of Study by Lucy Calkins and have largely phased out the use of [Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrator] units that were loosely based on her work,” said Andrew Cluley, director of communications for Ann Arbor Public Schools. “Any elements of the MAISA units still in use are implemented with practices aligned to the science of reading. These units will be completely phased out by next school year.”

The Michigan Senate passed bills this term that would require public school districts to use a curriculum based on research on the science of reading.

Senate bills 567 and 568 await a vote in the House Education Committee. Sens. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, and Ruth Johnson, R-Holly, bill sponsors, did not respond to a request for comment.

“The curriculum refers to instructional approaches that are supported by brain research on the cognitive processes involved in learning to read,” said Molly Macek, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The instruction generally refers to phonics-based instruction, she added. Macek laid out problems with the Calkins curriculum in an October 2023 CapCon commentary that also discussed the value of phonics.

(Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify the bills passed by the Michigan Senate and the development date of the Units of Study.)