Governor Tony Evers has effectively written off a generation of Wisconsin children who struggle with reading, declaring that “those kids that are struggling in those areas aren’t ever gonna read anyway.”
The remark, captured on video and circulating widely this week, is a textbook example of the soft bigotry of low expectations. It’s the unspoken liberal dogma: a quiet assumption that some children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, simply cannot be expected to master basic skills. Instead of demanding excellence, progressives prefer to lower the bar, pivot to social-emotional buzzwords, and treat literacy as a luxury item for select students.
Evers, who once presided over Wisconsin’s education bureaucracy, spent years as governor pouring more money into a system that delivered some of the nation’s worst racial achievement gaps. Fourth-grade reading scores flatlined or dropped while spending soared. Wisconsin still boasts the largest Black-White reading gap in America. Less than 40 percent of students can read at grade level. That’s the Evers legacy.
Nowhere is this disaster more obvious than Milwaukee Public Schools. After decades of Democratic rule and Evers’ extended reign over education, MPS is a national punchline. Black student reading proficiency barely escapes the single digits. The district spends lavishly, yet churns out failure, chronic absenteeism, and a parade of superintendents. Wisconsin Democrats have protected the status quo, resisted meaningful accountability, and treated Milwaukee’s children as political hostages rather than students who deserve to learn how to read.
This same educational malpractice feeds Milwaukee’s crime epidemic, now managed by Milwaukee County executive and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful David Crowley. Milwaukee racks up the lion’s share of Wisconsin’s homicides. In 2025, the city tallied 142 murders while the rest of the state and nation saw declines. The homicide rate towers over the state average. When schools fail to teach reading, the conveyor belt to poverty, joblessness, and violence runs at full speed. Crowley has watched this unfold for years, while his fellow Democrats in Madison and Milwaukee manufacture excuses instead of solutions.
Meanwhile, Mississippi, a poorer, more rural state with a much higher share of low-income and Black students, has flipped the script. By embracing the science of reading, phonics, real teacher training, and third-grade retention, Mississippi rocketed from the basement to above average on national reading scores. Their low-income and Black students now outpace peers in richer states. The so-called “Mississippi miracle” wasn’t magic. It was the result of high standards, tough methods, and zero tolerance for failure.
Wisconsin Democrats fought those same reforms tooth and nail. Only when Republicans muscled through a science-of-reading law did anything change, and even then, funding squabbles and bureaucratic foot-dragging bogged it down. Evers’ latest comment exposes the real rot: a ruling class that’s already written off certain kids as lost causes.
If we treat literacy as optional for struggling students, public education becomes a hollow shell. Mississippi proved kids can learn to read when adults quit the excuse-making. Wisconsin, under Evers and Crowley, chose the excuses. The results in illiteracy and rising violence are the predictable outcome.
