Isolated Excellence Is Not a System
Tennessee has strong teachers, curriculum, and leaders. Literacy coaching is what connects them.
Written by: Dr. MEGAN SALEMI
The Next Literacy Investment
At the beginning of this series, we asked why students are still not reading at the levels we know are possible.
Our challenge is not simply knowing what effective literacy instruction requires. It is building systems that make that instruction happen consistently, across classrooms, for every student, over time.
That requires knowledgeable teachers, high-quality curriculum, equitable systems, and strong school leadership. It also requires a bridge that connects those elements and helps them hold under the daily pressures of school.
That bridge is literacy coaching.
Literacy Outcomes Are Leadership Outcomes
School leaders, particularly principals, shape what students experience in classrooms. They significantly influence schedules, staffing, professional learning, use of data, and instructional priorities in the school building. Those decisions either reinforce strong literacy instruction or undermine it. A strong curriculum cannot overcome unprotected instructional time. An assessment cannot help a student without a coordinated response. Professional learning will not change practice unless it is reinforced.
Literacy outcomes are leadership outcomes.
Principal preparation and leadership support must equip school leaders to lead literacy improvement, not simply manage schools in which literacy instruction happens. Leaders need enough knowledge of reading development to recognize strong instruction, understand how curriculum and intervention fit together, and build systems that respond when students are not learning.
Developing that expertise will require long-term investment. It is also too much to assign to the principal alone. I have been there. The job is immense. School leaders need a team equipped to carry the instructional leadership of an entire school.
So who helps carry this work?
Literacy Coaching Is a Leadership Position
We often describe literacy coaching as a service provided to teachers. That description is too small.
A strong literacy coach observes instruction, offers feedback, models strategies, analyzes student work, and helps teachers translate knowledge into practice. But the coach also sees across classrooms.
The coach notices when the curriculum is interpreted differently across grade levels, intervention is disconnected from core instruction, or teachers need deeper knowledge rather than another resource. The coach sees patterns in student data that no individual teacher can see and helps leaders determine whether a challenge is isolated or widespread, instructional or structural.
That is instructional leadership, and it was work I could not consistently complete as a principal, despite knowing how much it mattered.
A highly skilled literacy coach brings specialized knowledge that a principal may not yet hold and embeds it in the daily life of the school. The coach connects leadership decisions to classroom practice, ensures that professional learning continues after the training ends, and keeps high-leverage practices visible long enough to become part of the school’s culture.
Literacy coaching is not an add-on to a school’s leadership system. It is part of the leadership system.
The Bridge Across the School-Based Model
This is why coaching sits at the center of MTR’s School-Based Model.
Teacher knowledge is essential. Coaches help teachers apply that knowledge to the students in front of them.
Aligned curriculum is essential. Coaches help teachers use it with fidelity and expertise while responding to student needs.
Equitable systems are essential. Coaches help teams interpret data, strengthen intervention, and provide the right support at the right time.
School leadership is essential. Coaches give leaders a sustained view into classroom implementation and translate schoolwide priorities into daily practice.
Without that connection, schools are often left with isolated strengths: an excellent teacher in one classroom, an effective interventionist serving one group of students, a useful professional learning session, or a strong curriculum implemented unevenly.
But isolated excellence is not a system. Students should not have to depend on being assigned to the one classroom where all the pieces happen to come together.
The coach does not replace any part of the model. The coach connects the parts.
We Know This Investment Matters
What has been called the “Mississippi Miracle” was not a miracle at all. It was the result of sustained, coordinated work, which included stronger teacher preparation, evidence-based instruction, high-quality materials, and literacy coaches working alongside teachers and principals.
Mississippi initially invested $9.5 million in statewide literacy reform, including 29 state-employed literacy coaches serving 50 of its lowest-performing schools. The following year, the state increased its annual investment to $15 million, expanding the coaching and training infrastructure that helped turn policy into classroom practice.
Indian River County’s Moonshot effort demonstrates what a serious local investment can look like. During 2024–25, The Learning Alliance invested approximately $2.45 million in educator coaching and training, providing literacy coaches on all 13 elementary campuses, districtwide instructional specialists, and training and coaching for more than 350 educators. The Learning Alliance 2024–25 Annual Report
These efforts differ in scale and context, but they reflect the same conviction: knowing what works is not enough. Schools need people whose job is to help the work take hold.
Why Don’t More Schools Have Literacy Coaches?
Two significant barriers need to be addressed: Literacy coaching costs money and a well-trained pipeline is required to staff it effectively.
When budgets tighten, a coaching position can appear less essential than a role with a daily roster of students. There is also a pipeline problem. Strong teaching does not automatically translate into effective coaching. Coaches need deep literacy expertise, skill in analyzing instruction and data, the ability to develop adults, and the organizational judgment to strengthen systems.
Tennessee has roughly 1,450 public schools serving elementary grades. Building coaching capacity at that scale will require more than asking principals or districts to prioritize coaching within already-constrained budgets. It will require a deliberate statewide strategy for funding, preparation, deployment, and sustainability.
Tennessee needs sustained funding for school-based literacy coaching, beginning with schools where students have historically had the least access to excellent literacy instruction.
We need clear pathways to identify, prepare, credential, and retain skilled coaches.
Districts must define and protect the role so coaches are not routinely reassigned to testing, substitute coverage, or unrelated administrative tasks.
Principals must also be prepared to lead coaches well. Even an excellent coach will have limited impact without protected time, clear priorities, access to classrooms and data, and the authority to align schoolwide practices.
Build the Bridge
We know more than we have ever known about how children learn to read. The question now is whether we will build the leadership infrastructure necessary to ensure that they do.
Mississippi treated literacy coaching as state-funded implementation infrastructure. Indian River County mobilized public and private investment to place coaching on every elementary campus. Tennessee now has an opportunity to build on its literacy progress by making the same kind of sustained commitment.
If Tennessee is serious about accelerating literacy outcomes, literacy coaching must become a leadership system we intentionally fund, build, and protect.
Knowledgeable teachers matter. High-quality curriculum matters. Equitable systems matter. Strong school leadership matters.
Literacy coaching is the bridge that turns those individual investments into a coherent system—one strong enough to reach every classroom, support every teacher, and teach every child to read.
