More than 1,000 Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) teachers and support staff were taking classes of their own this week at Vincent and Hamilton high schools. The educators were taking part in expanded literacy and mathematics professional development ahead of the new school year, as MPS moves to accelerate reading proficiency for students across all grade levels. 

MPS Superintendent Brenda Casselius has made reading proficiency a top priority for the district since being appointed to lead the district last year. 

“Learning to read with confidence can change the trajectory of a child’s life,” Superintendent Cassellius said. “The Expect Great Things Instructional Summit reflects our belief that if our educators have access to the tools, training and resources to help our students read, we can change outcomes for students. This is our most important work and will ensure we are meeting the high expectations we have set.”

MPS’s literacy plan included new textbooks and curricular materials for kindergarten through grade 5, rolled out during the 2025-26 school year. High-quality instructional materials have been secured for English Language Arts, grades 9 to 12, starting this fall. 

The literacy plan is aligned to the science of reading, the leading research that informs how children learn to read. It also reflects the requirements of Wisconsin Act 20, the state law that aims to have all children reading at grade level by the 3rd grade.

The Instructional Summit, held on Tuesday, August 10, and Wednesday, August 11, was hosted by MPS and was free for MPS educators. Educators from charter and private schools could attend for a fee. The summit, open to teachers from kindergarten through grade 12, was designed to strengthen instruction of literacy and biliteracy as well as mathematics.

Also attending the summit were State Superintendent Jill Underly, PhD, along with Wisconsin’s Director of Literacy Kaylee Jackson and Assistant Deputy State Superintendent Sara Knueve. 

“Seeing the excitement from educators as they prepare for a new school year is a testament to the passion our teachers have, not only in our goal of improving literacy and math in Wisconsin but to welcome students back to a place where they feel welcome and safe,” Dr. Underly said on the state Department of Public Instruction’s Facebook page. 

MPS partnered with two education organizations for the Instructional Summit: CORE Learning for reading and language instruction, and UnboundEd for math instruction. 

CORE Learning led the literacy strand of the partnership — building teacher and leader knowledge of the science of reading and language development, and giving educators a shared, systematic understanding of how students learn to read and how that knowledge translates into daily instruction.

UnboundEd led the mathematics strand, supporting teachers and instructional leaders across the district with professional learning that strengthens grade-level math instruction and builds the coherence teachers need to move students confidently through the K–12 math sequence.

Together, those two strands gave Milwaukee teachers and school leaders a single, connected professional learning experience across the two content areas, supported by the same enterprise and grounded in the same commitment to every student.

“Our teachers are stepping into this school year supported in both literacy and mathematics, and our commitment is to ensure that support will be felt in every classroom,” said Ana Gabriela Bell Jiménez, MPS deputy chief academic officer.

Jennifer Mims-Howell, MPS’s chief academic officer, said the summit had a deliberate focus on meeting the needs of the district’s diverse student body, including English learners and students with individualized education plans (IEPs). 

“It is a meaningful investment in the instructional excellence we want for every MPS classroom,” she said. 

Photos courtesy of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction