Troy schools pay consultants six figures to teach shuttered curriculum

The Troy School District paid more than $100,000 during the 2025-26 school year to consultants who teach a curriculum the state has retired. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new literacy law in 2024 that moved Michigan away from the Units of Study curriculum. The curriculum is not on the state’s approved list for an accepted literacy curriculum.

But the Troy school district signed a contract for the current academic year to pay consultants with Mossflower Reading and Writing Project $118,400, according to documents Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The state enacted the 2024 legislation in an effort to arrest declining literacy results. That change came amid a nationwide reaction against the “whole language” curriculum for literacy training developed by Lucy M. Calkins and based at Columbia University in New York. Both Calkins and her curriculum came under intense media and academic scrutiny in the early 2020s, and Columbia shut down its Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in 2023.

This is not the first time Troy hired the Mossflower consultancy.

Troy paid the organization $173,000 in the 2023-24 academic year for literacy consulting.

“Our instructional practices and curriculum decisions are aligned with the requirements and timelines outlined in PA 146,” said Kendra Montante, director of communications and strategic initiatives for the Troy School District. “Like many districts across the state, our adoption and transition process is phased to ensure fidelity, thoughtful implementation, and, most importantly, continuity of learning for our students.”

The payments reflect previously established professional learning and instructional support that continued during this transition period, according to Montante.

While the state has provided guidance on approved literacy tools, she said, districts must also ensure that students continue to receive consistent, high-quality instruction while new curriculum reviews, selections, and implementations are underway.

The balanced literacy method, which emphasizes visual and contextual cues, was once widely adopted, but it fell out of favor as reading scores lagged and experts raised questions about the whole-language methodology.

“Balanced literacy doesn’t teach students to read,” Molly Macek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, wrote in 2023. “This is because English consists of letters that create meaning when combined into words. It is a code that must be deciphered. Readers must be able to match letters to their respective sounds and decode words before they can read and comprehend more complex texts.”

After Columbia shut down the Reading and Writing Project, Calkins created the Mossflower Reading and Writing Project, which continues to promote the curriculum.

"Michigan’s public schools have produced some of the worst reading scores in the nation,” Michael Van Beek, director of research at the Mackinac Center, told CapCon in an email, adding that unscientific curricula contribute to this poor performance.

“The Troy School District appears to be doubling down on these failed methods," Van Beek said.

The district’s level of reading proficiency at the crucial third-grade level has dropped from roughly three-quarters to two-thirds over the past decade. Among third graders, 669 of 904 Troy students, or 74%, were proficient or advanced in English Language Arts in the 2018-19 M-STEP results. By 2024-25, only 536 of 813 third graders, or 66%, were either proficient or advanced.

Michigan’s 2024 literacy law will take effect in the 2027-28 academic year.

The Troy district still promotes the curriculum on its website.

“Through units of study, Troy ELA students will be widely and explicitly immersed in books to support growth in academic language and concepts, along with support in growing social-emotional skills, empathy, community, critical lenses, growth-mindset, and more,” the website reads.

The Michigan Department of Education forwarded a press release to CapCon when asked for comment.