Troy school district paid literacy consultants $173,000

The Troy School District spent $173,000 on literacy consulting for the 2023-24 school year while failing to apply for a literacy grant the state of Michigan offered to districts, according to information obtained through a public records request.

Michigan Capitol Confidential previously reported that Troy schools hired the for-profit consulting group Mossflower Reading and Writing Project, beginning in 2014. The consultancy uses the balanced literacy or “whole language” curriculum for literacy training, which was developed by Lucy Calkins and based at Columbia University in New York. Both Calkins and her curriculum had come under intense media and academic scrutiny by the time the district hired Mossflower. Columbia University shut down the program for inadequate performance.

At that time, Michigan’s 2024 State School Aid Act was offering $140 million in literacy grants to districts. Michele Maleszyk, a parent in the Troy district, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to district officials, asking for any records they had about the Michigan grant program. Officials responded that they had no documents about the program. The district confirmed told Michigan Capitol Confidential via email that it had not applied for the grant.

“It's unclear to me why the Troy School District continues to rely on Calkins’ methods, especially when the Michigan Department of Education supports structured literacy,” Maleszyk told CapCon in an email. “It’s also unclear why the Troy School District is not leveraging potential grants and taking advantage of these opportunities, especially given the potential budget deficit in the 2025-26 school year.”

In the 2014-15 school year, 84.6% of Troy third graders scored proficient in reading on the M-STEP, Michigan’s official standardized test. That number had dropped to 65.9% in the 2022-23 school year, according to official data.

District employees regularly review training materials, including those used by districts across the state and nation, Kendra Montante, Troy’s director of communications, told CapCon in an email.

“The decision to work with the Mossflower Reading and Writing Project is part of this ongoing process,” Montante wrote. “As for the state literacy grants, while we regularly apply for numerous grants to support our educational initiatives, we did not apply for the particular grant in question.”

The literacy consulting training from Mossflower costs between $2,400 and $2,600 per day for a consultant to visit, not including expenses. The contract provided an additional $33,000 of estimated expenses for travel, hotel, transportation and food.

There is a $600 per-day estimated expense noted in the contract. Alicia Luick, a consultant who visited Troy schools for two days of training, had expenses totaling $1,447.64. This came on top of a daily rate of $2,600. Luick’s two-day Hertz car rental came to $607.68. Her other expenses included:

• Marriott $341.64

• Lyft $164.60

• Airfare $273.80

• Meals: $60.15

Consultant Sara Mann’s expenses per day:

Day 1

• Meals: $54.59

• Hotel: $292.10

• Airfare: $370.50

• Uber $163.59

Day 2

• Meals $40.44

• Airfare $370.50

• Hotel $292.10

• Uber $190.00

The largest expense was $1,075.54 for one day of consulting, aside from the $2,600 fee for the in-school training.