Key Takeaway: WILL's report identifies real problems but misreads their causes, and offers overly simplistic policy solutions.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI (MAY 12, 2026)
- A recent report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) highlights stark achievement gaps between White and Black students in Wisconsin, particularly in elementary-level English language arts and reading. While the report deserves credit for bringing attention to this important issue, its analysis is incomplete and misleading.
In his review of Beyond Race: What Really Drives Wisconsin's Achievement Gap, University at Buffalo distinguished professor Jaekyung Lee finds that the report offers an overly simplistic account of the causes of these disparities, attributing them to factors framed as separate from race. Professor Lee is the author of the book, The Anatomy of Achievement Gaps: Why and How American Education is Losing (But Can Still Win) the War on Underachievement.
The WILL report contends that policymakers have misdiagnosed the achievement gap as a product of systemic racism, contending instead that poverty, disability, and family instability-presented as race-neutral mediation factors-explain the disparity. However, this framing reflects a fundamental misdiagnosis. These factors are not "beyond race" but are deeply intertwined with it due to longstanding structural inequalities. Those other factors therefore cannot be understood in isolation. The report further fails to acknowledge well-documented racial inequities in educational opportunity within schools, and it overlooks racial differences in the interaction between family and school learning environments.
Moreover, the report's endorsement of the Science of Reading phonics-based approach, based on what is known as the "Mississippi Miracle," is unwarranted. Although improved phonics instruction is likely among the factors driving Mississippi's gains on the Grade 4 NAEP reading exam, those higher scores stem from a combination of factors. Further, those gains largely disappear by eighth grade.
Professor Lee concludes that, beyond encouraging renewed attention to persistent achievement gaps, the report offers policymakers limited practical guidance. Addressing these disparities will require multifaceted, evidence-based solutions.
Find the review, written by Jaekyung Lee, at:
https://www.greatlakescenter.org
Find Beyond Race: What Really Drives Wisconsin's Achievement Gap, written by Will Flanders and published by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, at: https://will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/RaceAchievementStudy-web.pdf
NEPC Reviews (https://nepc.colorado.edu/reviews) provide the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC Reviews are made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: https://www.greatlakescenter.org.
