2026 MLC Chair’s Initiative: Literacy in Action

Minnesota Sen. Mary Kunesh has made “Literacy in Action” the subject of her 2026 Midwestern Legislative Conference Chair’s Initiative. In support of this initiative, CSG Midwest is developing a series of policy resources and programming for legislators throughout the year.

Literacy is the building block for students to succeed academically, as well as for people of all ages to prosper in their economic and civic lives. States play a critical role in helping build this foundation for young people — through the investments they make, the standards they set, and the laws they enact.

The yearlong focus on literacy aims to provide legislators with policy ideas to improve literacy instruction and student achievement in state education systems.

New laws, investments and strategies in the 11-state Midwest are highlighted in “Literacy in Action: How Midwest States Are Providing New Tools For Students and Teachers to Succeed.”

This comprehensive report, written by CSG Midwest policy analyst Derek Cantù, also examines the impacts of state actions to date; provides state-by-state data on trends in fourth-grade reading scores; and shows gaps in performance in every Midwestern state by race, ethnicity, gender and family income.

Literacy policy was the subject of featured sessions at the 2026 Midwestern Legislative Conference (MLC) Annual Meeting, which was held Aug. 30-Sept. 2 in Minnesota’s capital city of Saint Paul. Sen. Kunesh led a session that included a presentation from and a Q & A with Carey Wright, the current state superintendent of schools for Maryland who previously served as state superintendent of education in Mississippi. Dr. Wright discussed her role in elevating Mississippi to become a national leader in literacy instruction and outcomes during her nine-year term.

At the meeting, too, members of the MLC adopted a policy resolution on federal investments in literacy policy. The resolution urges continued investments by the U.S. Congress in the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant Program, along with a modernization of the program so that it reflects recent state reforms: alignment with the science of reading, the use of evidence-based interventions for struggling or at-risk students, and certain conditions of licensure or certification for kindergarten through eighth-grade teachers.