Troy Schools Spent $118K on Literacy Consultants for a Curriculum the State Has Retired

Troy School District spent approximately $118,400 during the 2025–26 school year to train teachers in Units of Study, a literacy curriculum Michigan has retired and that does not appear on the state's approved list under a 2024 law. Under Public Act 146 of 2024, school districts must ensure reading instruction and curriculum materials are evidence-based beginning in the 2027–28 school year. The six-figure investment raises questions about whether district leaders prepared students for Michigan's new standards or spent taxpayer dollars on a program that will not be compliant in just over a year.

The payments went to consultants from the Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower, Lucy Calkins' literacy organization that creates the Units of Study curriculum series for reading, writing, and phonics for K–8 students. Calkins is a literacy scholar and professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the founding director of the organization. The payment covered professional development sessions for teachers. Calkins was scheduled to keynote Troy School District's Midwest Literacy Coaching Mini-Institute conference, with a three-day registration fee of $360 for participants.

Troy School District is a public K–12 district headquartered in Troy, Michigan, in Oakland County, enrolling approximately 12,391 to 12,527 students with about 731 to 741 teachers.

Public Act 146 of 2024 became effective October 10, 2024, establishing new literacy requirements for school districts. The Michigan Department of Education published an initial list of 14 approved evidence-based Tier 1, class-wide elementary reading curricula on December 18, 2025, for grades K–5. The publisher of Units of Study did not seek approval from the Michigan Department of Education, so it is not included on that list. The law does not require districts to select from the published list, but it does require that reading instruction and materials be evidence-based by 2027–28.

Units of Study was criticized for relying too heavily on balanced literacy and three-cueing rather than systematic phonics and decoding instruction, which led to its exclusion from state-approved lists as states adopted science of reading standards. Critics argued the curriculum taught children to guess words using pictures, context, or syntax instead of decoding the printed word and did not provide enough systematic, daily phonics instruction for early readers.

The Troy School District Board of Education voted 5–2 in June 2025 to continue using the writing component of Calkins' Units of Study curriculum for grades K–5 starting in the 2025–2026 school year. That vote came eight months after Public Act 146 took effect in October 2024 and six months before the Michigan Department of Education published its approved curriculum list in December 2025. The board has seven members — Matt Haupt, Emina Alic, Vital Anne, Nancy Philippart, Nicole Wilson, Gary Hauff, and Karl Schmidt — each serving a six-year term. Troy School District has not publicly explained why it continued with the $118,400 professional development investment even though the state excluded Units of Study from the approved list and the 2027–28 evidence-based requirement is approaching.

Troy's third-grade English Language Arts proficiency on state tests dropped from 84.6% in 2014–15 to 63.2% in 2023–24, with a more recent measure showing a decline from 74% in 2018–19 to 66% in 2024–25. The district claimed 87% of students read at or above grade level using the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, compared with 66% proficiency in Grade 3–7 ELA on the state's M-STEP test in 2023–24.

The GOP-led Michigan House voted to move up the effective date for new reading curriculum standards from 2027 to July 1, 2026, though the bill's status in the Senate was unclear as of July 2026.

Troy parents and board watchers should press the district to disclose its timeline and budget for selecting and implementing an evidence-based curriculum, how teachers will be retrained, and whether the $118,400 spent on Units of Study professional development will be accounted for in that transition plan. The spending decision underscores the need for transparent answers on instructional choices, fiscal accountability, and how the district will ensure students are prepared for state literacy standards.