DPI presented the site as professional learning that “represents the diversity of our global community.” Behind the link is a Saudi preaching library — belief, law, and sermons — not a grammar page. That description and the link are still on DPI’s website.
Department of Public Instruction § 115.28(2) says The State Superintendent Shall Exclude All Sectarian Books And Instruction From The Public Schools.
That sentence is not a slogan; it’s a duty. The same statute, in §115.28(27), orders the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to maintain WISELearn as a resource for parents, teachers, and pupils.
DPI calls WISELearn “a repository of high-quality, standards-aligned educational resources and professional learning materials representing the diversity of our global community.” A department video asked what made the portal special and answered, “Wisconsin educators are in charge.” It was sold as a site “to make your professional development and learning easier,” with the assurance: “We expect lots of people to be submitting resources for consideration but they can only be approved or rated by a professional with WISELearn rights.”
Look at what those professionals left in public view.
Grasping the Benefits Library (Saaid Al Fawaed) went onto WISELearn on October 10, 2017. DPI’s own overview still calls it “an Islamic library that contains many books related to the explanation of the holy Qur’an, the Prophet Muhammad, and more…The Site and its contents are entirely in Arabic.” This was filed under Fine Arts and World Languages as a Textbook and recorded zero state academic standards alignment.
Saaid Al-Fawa’id (“the hunter of benefits”) is not a grammar lesson. It is a Saudi Salafi da’wah archive: creed, sermons, Qur’an commentary, and classical fiqh for a global preaching audience. DPI’s overview stops at grammar books and “explanation of the Holy Qur’an.” The domain behind the link does not. The library includes materials that treat leaving Islam as ridda — apostasy — and the traditional penalty argued is death. Saaid also publishes that Jews and Christians are unbelievers, and that refusing to call them unbelievers is itself unbelief. An Iraq file states that fighting America and its allies is jihad fi sabil Allah. Other pages teach jihad of request and “jihad by the hand.” The same library treats sex between men as a capital crime and tells husbands they may strike a “rebellious” wife after warning her and leaving the bed. That is the library DPI framed as professional learning “representing the diversity of our global community.”
It is not the only record.
At-Tibyan: Easy Way to Quranic Reading (PDF) is listed as appropriate for middle school and high school students. DPI’s abstract says it is a “text that teaches students Arabic with reading the Qur’an as the eventual goal,” cataloged as a Textbook, with “selected readings… mostly from the Qur’an.” That work opens with a prayer to Allah. It comes out of an Islamic publishing project devoted to making Islam “a living reality in our age” and to galvanizing readers to “the message and ideal of One God and the unity of mankind.” It was uploaded the same day, October 10, 2017, labeled a Textbook, and given no standards alignment. Tony Evers’ administration listed it. Carolyn Stanford Taylor’s administration left it. Jill Underly’s administration still publishes it.
In January 2024, WISELearn issued a collection policy stating there is “no formal vetting of content,” but that content will be removed under certain circumstances, including “defamatory, offensive, or illegal content.” The same policy says bulk-import suggestions from vendor ISKME “are reviewed by and uploaded by the WISELearn Team.” They wrote the off-ramp. They did not take it.
Wis. Stat. § 115.28(2) has long required the state superintendent to exclude all sectarian books and instruction from the public schools. Section 115.28(27) requires the same office to maintain WISELearn as a resource for parents, teachers, and pupils. Those duties do not cancel each other out. WISELearn is a resource catalog, not proof that a named district assigned these titles in class. It is still the catalog the superintendent is required to keep. Each state superintendent is responsible for the catalog in the same way a CEO is responsible for the financial audit they sign. They own the organization, the culture, and the failure to perform a duty written in plain English. These materials survived DPI’s own policy, the statute, three state superintendents, and almost nine years in public view.
From fiscal year 2015 on, Wisconsin has put roughly $1.2 million General Purpose Revenue a year, in recent budgets, into § 20.255(1)(eL) to run WISELearn. Over the life of that appropriation the state has spent more than ten million dollars on the portal.
DPI sold high-quality, standards-aligned professional learning and “the diversity of our global community.” What it still publishes is a Qur’an-reading primer tagged for middle and high school students and a live link to a da’wah library. A public-records request now asks who approved the 2017 upload and whether anyone reviewed these URLs after the 2024 policy.
