TOPEKA — The 2024 Kansas Legislature’s commitment to intervene on behalf of 33% of Kansas students not meeting fundamental levels of reading and to elevate literacy as an economic imperative throughout the state was celebrated as a bipartisan achievement.

There was $10 million in the state budget to develop instructional expertise through the Blueprint for Literacy. The idea was to enroll all Kansas elementary school teachers in graduate courses in the science of reading. Public and private universities would offer new classes to equip undergraduates with skills to implement a structured literacy curriculum useful to all students. The bottom-line objective: Significantly improve language arts skills of students in 3rd through 8th grades.

Senate Bill 438 roared through the Legislature on votes of 34-3 in the Senate and 98-22 in the House.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who signed the bill in April 2024, said the legislation placed Kansas at the “forefront of nationwide efforts to reform reading instruction.”

“By aligning the efforts of K-12 and higher education to train our educators in the science of reading, we intend to end the literacy divide for our students once and for all,” said Melanie Haas, a member of the Kansas State Board of Education responsible for K-12 schools.

Cynthia Lane, a member of the Kansas Board of Regents with oversight of state universities, said the Blueprint for Literacy would prove to be one of the most important bills enacted by the Legislature and governor in 2024. She felt so strongly about the cause that she took a job as the first director of the literacy initiative.

And then, as the 2025 legislative session unfolded, the Republican-led House budgeted $2 million in next year’s budget to the literacy program. The GOP-controlled Senate deleted that earmark by sweeping all House appropriations of interest earned on one-time federal funds. The state budget bill eventually passed with bipartisan support and signed by Kelly contained no new funding of Blueprint for Literacy.

That financial setback won’t close the book on Blueprint for Literacy — at least not now while the program remained in its infancy.

“The blueprint is not ending,” Lane said. “We’re not done.”

In the beginning

Lane said several million dollars unspent from the original $10 million allocation would be relied upon to stick with plans to enroll certified teachers in a pair of three-credit-hour graduate courses on the science of reading. State funding was allocated to cover tuition costs of teachers in graduate-level courses and to provide each with a $500 stipend.

Kansas college students seeking degrees in education must enroll in two new courses in reading instruction. Those courses should be available this fall at seven public universities and at least five private colleges in Kansas.

She said the original plan to establish literacy centers of excellence at universities to bring instruction closer to teachers would be idled due to financial restraints.

The decision by the Legislature not to allocate additional resources for the Blueprint for Literacy was associated with skepticism the initiative had yet to show results or might not deliver on its promise, Lane said. Some critics of the Blueprint for Literacy also suggested it might be duplicative of a program developed by the Kansas State Department of Education with federal grants issued in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the 2024 state law, the Blueprint for Literacy would take all elementary teachers through a graduate curriculum to attain a micro-credential in reading instruction by 2030. Student academic goals in Senate Bill 438 would have 90% of 3rd through 8th graders achieving Level 2 on the state’s four-level assessment scale. In addition, 50% of 3rd through 8th grade students would achieve Level 3 or Level 4 on the state assessment by 2033.

“It’s going to be hard to do when funding is removed and teachers can’t get trained,” said Lane, who was a superintendent of public schools in Kansas City, Kansas. “This is about our children. It’s about supporting our teachers.”

‘Easy chop’

Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Bunker Hill Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the $2 million offered by the House would have been derived from interest income on the state’s share of American Rescue Plan Act allotments from the federal government’s economic stimulus program in 2021.

Waymaster said the offer by the House was a reduction from earlier projections of what might be needed to operate Blueprint for Literacy, but would have made certain the initiative had financial support to continue on a limited basis.

He said advocates of the literacy program came to the Capitol to object to pulling the funding after less than one year of implementation. Critics of the Blueprint for Literacy countered the spending hadn’t turned the dial on student achievement in reading, he said.

“Senate pulled it out, because they had different ideas on what they wanted to do with the ARPA interest,” Waymaster said. “I also heard, around the halls, the results were not there. Some didn’t like it last year and, so, where we were at as far as looking at the budget, I think it was a easy chop.”

‘Eager, hungry, interested’

Molly Baumgardner, who championed the Blueprint for Literacy before leaving the Kansas Senate after not seeking reelection in 2024, said success of the initiative was vital to the future of Kansas school children as well as the state’s economy.

“We have too many kids in our state that can’t read,” Baumgardner said.

She said the $10 million originally invested in the program wasn’t available to organizers of the reading blueprint until July 1, 2024. A task force responsible for managing the initiative nevertheless meet program development deadlines set by the Legislature. Literacy instruction courses open to college students were in operation by August 2024 as mandated, she said. The state law had attached an unusual financial penalty for noncompliance — $1 million for three state universities and $500,000 for three regional state universities.

A Washburn University pilot program started in March to extend literacy-education instruction to teachers in Topeka proved popular enough to expand to three sections of 30 educators each, Baumgardner said.

“That’s how eager, hungry, interested our teachers in the classroom were,” she said. “There is tremendous interest.”

Baumgardner said the 2024 elections added members to the House and Senate unfamiliar with the reading blueprint. The compressed 2025 legislative session and changes to how the budget was prepared limited opportunities for literacy advocates to speak with lawmakers about how the state could benefit of additional funding, she said.

Baumgardner said she looked forward to sharing with the 2026 Legislature in January emerging evidence of how the Blueprint for Literacy influenced teachers and students.