Minnesota Read Act rollout shows early gains, districts flag training, resource and immersion testing gaps

The Minnesota Senate Education Finance Committee on Feb. 11, 2025 heard an update on statewide implementation of the Read Act, a multi-year effort to shift K–12 literacy instruction toward structured literacy and to expand universal screening, teacher training and intervention supports.

State and local officials told the committee that the state has committed substantial funds and enrolled thousands of educators in approved training, but school districts, teachers and union leaders described practical obstacles — delayed materials, compressed timelines, uneven reimbursement and extra hours for already-burdened staff — and asked for clearer timelines and ongoing funding to sustain classroom coaching and intervention staffing.

The Read Act’s goals and funding

Assistant Commissioner Bobbie Burnham, Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Teaching and Learning at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), told the committee that the Read Act moves the target for “reading well” earlier in instruction and embeds universal screening beginning in kindergarten, with required screening three times per year. Burnham said the department has completed many legislatively mandated start-up steps (regional literacy networks, screeners, curriculum review, local literacy-plan templates) and that districts will submit universal screening data in June 2025.

Senator Maquade, who helped lead the legislation, said the state has invested heavily in literacy implementation, calling the package “the first of the kind in the nation.” She told members the state has put “a hundred and $11,000,000” toward literacy and that, since April 2024, “more than $33,000,000 has been allocated to the Read Act with a 31.37 million additional million dollars going to teacher training,” while $35,000,000 was distributed to districts for curriculum-related allocations.

Training numbers, timelines and providers

Burnham reported large-scale training registration and rollout: 3,194 educators had completed required training as of June 2024, and “as of January of ’25, we have over 34,000 teachers currently registered to take the training,” she said. MDE described a two-phase…