State Literacy Plan Resources

Development

10 Key Policies and Practices for Assessment in Schools with Strong Evidence of Effectiveness from High-Quality Research
This document from the University of Texas at Austin and the Meadows Center underscores ten key policies and practices for assessment in schools that are grounded in evidence.

10 Key Policies and Practices for Explicit Instruction with Strong Evidence of Effectiveness from High-Quality Research
This document from the University of Texas at Austin and The Meadows Center underscores ten key policies and practices for explicit instruction in schools that are grounded in evidence.

10 Key Policies and Practices for Reading Intervention with Strong Evidence of Effectiveness from High-Quality Research
This document from the Meadows Center underscores ten key policies and practices for reading intervention in schools that are grounded in evidence.

Aligning Data and Measures to Outputs and Outcomes of the Logic Model
This infographic from Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) West provides a sample template and resources for creating a logic model, outlines types of data, and details data sources and collection methods to inform measurements and outcomes. While the strategies presented reflect findings of research on the effectiveness of educational practices, the resource itself has not been empirically tested for effectiveness and therefore is not categorized by a level of evidence.

Assessment of Reading Difficulties within Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)
This resource from Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN provides dyslexia assessment guidance within the context of MTSS to enhance early literacy outcomes and mitigate reading risk.

Assessment Practices Within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports
This innovation configuration (IC) from CEEDAR Center features a matrix that may help guide teacher preparation faculty and professional development providers in the development of the appropriate use of assessment within a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) framework. This IC examines foundations of MTSS assessment, universal screening, progress monitoring, intensifying instruction using data-based individualization (DBI), and using MTSS data.

Best Practices Clearinghouse
Best Practices Clearinghouse provides collections of lessons from the field in support of students, young children, families, teachers, early childhood providers, faculty, and staff, as schools, early childhood programs, and campuses continue to recover from (COVID-19). This collection of lessons learned and best practices provides resources to identify and support the needs of all students, and particularly historically disadvantaged students, to ensure that all have access to a high-quality education.

Best Practices in Universal Screening
This infographic from the National Center on Improving Literacy defines three levels of instructional supports for students based on their reading proficiency as found on the screener results. Additionally, this infographic suggests five recommendations for SEAs or LEAs when establishing a screening protocol.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Guidebook and Toolkit
Education Development Center (EDC) is a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. This guidebook is designed for learning organizations that are committed to empowering practitioners and leaders to improve conditions in complex education systems. The conceptual framework and design of this guidebook is rooted in research and experience and built on scholarship from implementation science, systems change, continuous improvement, and scale.

Coaching for Ongoing Professional Learning within Tiered Support Models
The purpose of this document developed by the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) is to provide examples of coaching support for tiered intervention within and across systems. Sections detail coaching support at the local educator and coach level as well as system level.

Comprehensive Needs Assessment
This tool includes a comprehensive look at needs assessment planning, organizing the needs assessment process into three distinct phases.

Continuous Improvement in Education
A white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. This document was published by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Continuous Improvement in Education: A Toolkit for Schools and Districts
This toolkit is designed to help school and district-based practitioners engage in a continuous improvement effort. It provides an overview of continuous improvement and focuses on the Plan-Do Study-Act cycle. The toolkit includes tools and resources that practitioners can use to implement a continuous improvement effort in their own schools, districts, or agencies.

County of Los Angeles Legislative Training Manual
The County of Los Angeles Legislative Training Manual was released in 2014. This training manual is designed to assist with understanding how state and federal programs are developed and implemented, the legislative process, how to analyze proposed legislation, and how to prepare bill analysis documents. Beginning on page 11, the manual identifies key components and how to analyze the context of a bill.

Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Response to Intervention within Multitiered System of Supports: Fidelity of Implementation Rubric
The Culturally and Linguistically Responsive (CLR)–Response to Intervention (RTI) Fidelity Rubric is used by individuals who are responsible for monitoring school-level fidelity of RTI implementation within a multitiered system of supports (MTSS). The rubric from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs is aligned with the essential components of RTI and the infrastructure that is necessary for successful implementation. It is accompanied by a worksheet that has guiding questions and a place for users to record their ratings for each criterion; this worksheet can be used in an interview with a school’s RTI leadership team.

Data Rich, Information Poor? Making Sense of Progress Monitoring Data to Guide Intervention Decisions
This webinar, led by Dr. Lynn Fuchs of Vanderbilt University and& Dr. Lee Kern of Lehigh University, addresses a challenge faced by many teachers: feeling inundated by data while struggling to find useful information to guide intervention decision-making. The webinar focuses on: (a) common progress monitoring measures in academics and behavior, (b) key considerations for optimizing data collection, and (c) structured questions for analyzing graphed progress monitoring data patterns.

Data Use Multi-State Spotlight: Using Data Fidelity Tools to Improve Data Quality
This multi-state spotlight on data use from the National Center on Systemic Improvement shares how three states adopted fidelity tools to improve their data quality within a statewide assessment system and local education agencies.

Data Visualization Checklist
This checklist from REL Central allows users to evaluate five principles and sub-elements as they plan for and/or review data visualization.

Developing Stakeholder Relationships to Support School Programming
This guide discusses the process for engaging stakeholders, provides examples of methods of engagement, and discusses the benefits of engaging stakeholders.

Dyslexia within RTI: A guide for identifying and providing instruction to students with characteristics of dyslexia in grades K-3
This guide from Middle Tennessee Satte University can be used to support identification of students with characteristics of dyslexia in grades K-3. Early identification aligned with evidence-based instruction guidance recommendations are included.

Education Governance Dashboard
This source delves into state education governance and examines the roles, responsibilities, and relationships of entities tasked with policy and program development. It emphasizes the uniqueness of each state's system, as each is shaped by individual goals, cultural nuances, and historical contexts.

Education Policy Implementation: A Literature Review and Proposed Framework
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) webpage is an online library featuring books, papers, podcasts and statistics. This 2017 working paper on education literature review centers on the implementation of education policy, exploring its definition, processes, and determinants. The report subsequently examines factors that impede or enhance the implementation process, categorizing them into four dimensions conducive to effective implementation.

Education’s Long COVID: 2022-23 Achievement Data Reveal Stalled Progress Toward Pandemic Recovery
The NWEA, a division of HMH, supports students and educators worldwide by providing assessment solutions, insightful reports, professional learning offerings, and research services. This brief, published by the Center for School and Student Progress, continues ongoing research by NWEA examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student achievement and progress toward academic recovery.

Educator outcomes associated with implementation of Mississippi's K–3 early literacy professional development initiative
Mississippi's Department of Education provided statewide early literacy professional development to K-3 educators to schools identified as most in need in 2014. This study reports promising findings, including that increased educator knowledge and higher quality of instruction ratings were found among participating educators. The appendices of this report include the Teacher Knowledge of Early Literacy Skills survey as well as the Coach's Classroom Observation Tool, which were measures analyzed in the study.

Effective practices for English learners: Brief 1, Meeting the needs of English learners through a multitiered instructional framework
This practice brief is the first in the Effective Practices for English Learners series from the Office of Special Education Programs that provides guidance to leaders, educators, and policymakers for implementing a multitiered system that accommodates ELs. In this brief, we describe the work of three model demonstration projects and introduce key issues for consideration when implementing an MTSS optimized for linguistically diverse students.

Effective practices for English learners: Brief 2, Assessment and data-based decision-making
This brief is the second in the Effective Practices for English Learners series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This brief is for school leaders, educators, and policymakers charged with implementing or supporting multitiered instruction that accommodates English learners (ELs) and also addresses issues that school and district personnel frequently encounter when designing and implementing tiered instruction in schools that implement bilingual programs or that serve ELs in English as a second language programs.

Effective practices for English learners: Brief 3, Core and supplemental English as a second language literacy instruction for English learners
This brief is the third in the Effective Practices for English Learners series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This brief provides guidance to educators in preparing and delivering English instruction for ELs and in framing supports for classroom teachers that ensure culturally and linguistically responsive core and supplemental English literacy instruction.

Effective practices for English learners: Brief 4, Core and supplemental biliteracy instruction for English learners
This brief is the fourth in the Effective Practices for English Learners series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This brief discusses biliteracy instruction in the context of these programs and multitiered instructional models for ELs. It includes three major sections: (a) an overview of biliteracy and bilingual education, (b) a framework for biliteracy instruction, and (c) examples of the principles of biliteracy instruction in practice in project schools.

Effective practices for English learners: Brief 5, Professional development to support a multitiered instructional framework.
This document is the fifth in the Effective Practices for English Learners series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This brief emphasizes the importance of supporting educators within a multitiered instructional framework as they learn how to make data-informed decisions about—and deliver appropriate, multitiered instruction to—culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Effectiveness of Early Literacy Instruction: Summary of 20 Years of Research
The purpose of this review from Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast is to update the evidence on early literacy interventions by evaluating the past 20 years of published peer-reviewed research and other available research sources. Its goal is to identify effective commercially available and researcher-developed interventions and to identify the specific instructional domains and features, and implementation characteristics that lead to improvements in language and literacy performance. The aim is to provide early childhood educators and policymakers a single up-to-date resource they can use to make curricular choices for use in state-supported prekindergarten programs and other agencies, increase knowledge regarding evidence-based practices for kindergarten readiness, and inform professional development efforts.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as Amended
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson who believed full educational opportunity should be our first national goal. Nearly fifty years later, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was a bipartisan measure signed by President Obama reauthorizing the ESEA on December 10, 2015. This reauthorization upholds the nation's national education law (ESEA) and commitment to equal opportunity for all students.

English Learner Tool Kit for SEAs and LEAs
The Office of English Language Acquisition produced this tool kit to help state and local education agencies support English Learners by fulfilling the obligations outlined within the ten chapters.

Equity in Action: Communication and Engagement Plan
Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) West produced a two-part planning document that support communicating and engaging with stakeholders on equity-focused and priority initiative-focused projects. While the strategies presented reflect findings of research on the effectiveness of educational practices, the resource itself has not been empirically tested for effectiveness and therefore is not categorized by a level of evidence.

ERIC
ERIC, the Institute for Educational Sciences, is an ED-funded search engine for research papers, peer-reviewed journals and educational resources.

Essential Elements of Comprehensive Data Literacy
This brief, produced in collaboration among many national centers and experts, identifies four essential elements for data literacy, including data exploration, data management, data use, and reflection and improvement. Supportive activities accompany descriptions of the elements, along with guiding questions and implementation tips.

Evaluating Professional Learning: A Tool for Schools and Districts
Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands produced a toolkit for evaluating professional learning. The tool can be used to develop a logic model, evaluation questions, and a plan to use data to answer the posed questions. While the strategies presented reflect findings of research on the effectiveness of educational practices, the resource itself has not been empirically tested for effectiveness and therefore is not categorized by a level of evidence.

Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Improving Student Achievement Agenda in 2024
The Biden–Harris administration’s fact sheet on its 2024 agenda to improve student achievement. The strategies in this Fact Sheet complement the Administration’s continued focus on improving mental health in schools, supporting America’s teachers and other school staff, and strengthening core instruction through the Raise the Bar: Lead the World initiative.

Five Questions to Consider When Reviewing Assessment Data for English Learners
This document from the National Center on Intensive Intervention addresses five guiding questions for educators to consider when reviewing and interpreting assessment data for ELs and includes links to selected resources to support educators.

Guiding Questions: The FAIR Test
The sum of evidence from the Three Circles provides a starting point for evidence-based decision making, but it is also important to examine the intervention using the FAIR test. This document from the National Center for Systemic Improvement provides guiding questions for each component of the FAIR test as educators select the best intervention for your student or group of students.

How Legislation on Reading Instruction is Changing Across the Country
Recent legislation is reorganizing the map with more states putting an emphasis on alignment with reading research. This article discusses how legislation related to reading instruction is changing across the country with an interactive map.

Implementing Evidence-Based Practices
The Implementing Evidence-Based Literacy Practices roadmap from REL Southeast was developed to help state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) implement evidence-based literacy practices in their classrooms by following the suggestions of the resources listed in eight steps.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) establishes a free appropriate public education for all students with disabilities, in the least restrictive environment. This law supports states and localities in protecting the rights of, and improvement the results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and their families. This landmark law's name changed to IDEA in a 1990 reauthorization and was last reauthorized in 2004.

Integrating Reading Foundations: A Tool for College Instructors of Pre-Service Teachers
This tool from Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast is designed to assist college instructors in building pre-service teachers’ knowledge of evidence-based strategies for helping students in kindergarten through grade 3 acquire the language and literacy skills to succeed academically. This tool is intended for use in conjunction with the Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade practice guide.

Intensifying Literacy Instruction: Essential Practices, Version 2.0
First, this document from Michigan's Technical Assistance Center introduces evidence-based practices throughout its instructional sequence that includes screening for students with reading difficulties, on-going progress monitoring to inform instructional decisions, and a feasible approach to using the components of reading as levers for adjusting instruction to meet learners’ needs. Second, the document articulates the cornerstones of effective reading and writing instruction for all learners - as well as those with the most pressing reading difficulties.

K–2 Assessment Systems Enable Early Intervention to Foster Student Success
This paper from WestEd discusses designing early grade assessment systems that enable educators to intervene throughout the K–2 years to help students achieve success.

K–2 Assessments: An Update on State Adoption and Implementation
This report from the Council of Chief School Officers includes tables, maps, and information regarding an state adoption and implementation of K-2 assessments. Four policy recommendations are included within the report.

Laws and Policy
The Laws and Policy section of the U.S. Department of Education's website provides an overview of legislation, regulations, guidance, and other policy documents for ESSA and other topics such as ESEA, FERPA, Civil Rights, IDEA, Higher Education Act, and other Regulations and Rulemaking.

Lead for Literacy: Standards, Priorities, and Goals
The Lead for Literacy Framework’s Standards, Priorities, and Goals webpage, operated by Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development with funding from ED’s Office of Special Education Programs, provides technical assistance to school and district leaders that builds their capacity to facilitate improved teacher implementation of evidence-based literacy practices for educating students with, or at risk for, literacy-related disabilities.

Literacy Analysis and Planning Guide (LAP-G) Primary (K – 3)
This guide from the Center for Reading Science at Mount Saint Joseph University can be used by local education agencies to build and strengthen a multi-tiered system of reading instruction.

Logic Models and Theories of Actions
A presentation on developing a logic model and a theory of action, and how they are connected. This tool shows the user a template and provides guiding questions.

Logic Models: A Tool for Designing and Monitoring Program Evaluations
This introduction to logic models document serves as a tool for designing program evaluations defines the major components of education programs resources, activities, outputs, and short, mid, and long-term outcomes and uses an example to demonstrate the relationships among them.

Meeting the needs of English learners with and without disabilities: Brief 1, Multitiered instructional systems for ELs
This guide is the first in the Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This introductory brief describes a multitiered instructional framework focused on the language and learning needs of ELs and highlights key questions and considerations that educators often encounter when implementing tiered instruction for bi/multilingual learners.

Meeting the needs of English learners with and without disabilities: Brief 2, Evidence-based Tier 2 intervention practices for English learners
This is the second brief in the Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities series from the Office of Special Education Programs. It features the work of three model demonstration projects whose interventions support the language and literacy needs of English learners (ELs) in grades 3–5, specifically through supplemental intervention (Tier 2) that is culturally and linguistically responsive.

Meeting the needs of English learners with and without disabilities: Brief 3, English learners with significant learning difficulties or disabilities: Recommendations for practice
This is the third brief in the Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This brief focuses on a culturally and linguistically responsive multitiered system of supports (MTSS) framework, with an emphasis on effective interventions and decision-making for ELs with significant learning difficulties or disabilities.

Meeting the needs of English learners with and without disabilities: Brief 4, Fostering collaborative partnerships with families of English learners within a multitiered system of supports
This is the fourth brief in the Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities series from the Office of Special Education Programs. This brief focuses on fostering collaborative and equitable home-school partnerships with parents and families as partners within a multitiered system of supports for ELs (MTSS for ELs).

Meeting the needs of English learners with and without disabilities: Brief 5, Promoting leadership and collaboration for an effective multitiered system of supports for English learners
This is the fifth brief in the Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities series from the Office of Special Education Programs. In this brief, key strategies to foster leadership and build capacity among educators for effective multitiered frameworks for English learners (ELs) with and without disabilities are highlighted. Additionally, guidance focuses on strategies for building culturally and linguistically responsive leaders at the district, school, and classroom levels to promote a successful MTSS for ELs.

Meeting the needs of English learners with disabilities: virtual, hybrid, and returning to in-person instruction
This brief from the National Center on Systemic Improvement compiled guidance and example resources that may be helpful for educators and SEAs supporting districts and schools in serving English learners with disabilities during or after distance learning.

Minnesota READ Act
This webpage provides registration links to Minnesota's upcoming professional development opportunities and requests, webinars, legislation, office hours, and literacy curricula selection updates.

Moving Toward Equity Stakeholder Engagement Guide
This guide helps SEAs plan for effective engagement with stakeholder groups to ensure plans are designed and implemented meaningfully.

MTSS for All: Including Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities
This Brief provides suggestions for ways in which MTSS can include students with the most significant cognitive disabilities so that MTSS provides a whole school and whole district approach to be implemented by educators. Ideas for how to make MTSS fully inclusive of all students are presented following a short history of MTSS and a summary of current MTSS models.

National Center for Education Statistics
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. It is one of thirteen principal federal statistical agencies whose activities are predominantly focused on the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.

Needs Assessment Guidebook: Supporting the Development of District and School Needs Assessments
This guidebook offers a comprehensive look at the needs assessment planning process, including how to engage stakeholders and how to collect and organize data and information about continuous improvement.

Office of English Language Acquisition
This webpage offers information and tools regarding programs, initiatives, laws, and regulations for language instruction for students with limited English proficiency.

Practical Measurement for Continuous Improvement in the Classroom: A Toolkit for Educators
This toolkit is designed to guide educators in developing and improving practical measurement instruments for use in networked improvement communities (NICs) and other education contexts in which principles of continuous improvement are applied. The toolkit is intended for a team of educators who have already identified specific student learning needs and strategies to improve instruction to address those needs and are ready to test these strategies using continuous improvement processes.

Quick-Start Guide to Dissemination for Practice-Based Research Networks
The Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality Quick-Start Guide to Dissemination for Practice-Based Research Networks resource document describes the dissemination planning and implementation process. It contains links to resources that guide you through the phases of dissemination.

Reading Reform Across America: A Survey of State Legislation
This report investigates how states responded to the need to improve literacy outcomes. The report examines 223 bills that refer to reading and literacy. It includes a map of states with reading laws enacted (page 6) and a comprehensive chart that distinguishes the topics covered by the bills throughout the United States (page 10).

Research on Continuous Improvement: Exploring the Complexities of Managing Educational Change
The American Educational Research Association (AERA), founded in 1916, works to improve the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results. This article provides a comparative review of continuous improvement methods, paying particular attention to CI methods’ intellectual influences, theories of action, and affordances and challenges in practice.

Roles and Responsibilities of Implementation Team Members
This infographic from Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast distinguishes roles and responsibilities for state, district, and school level leadership roles when collaborating on implementing intervention policies.

Sample Literacy Blocks
This document from the Meadows Center provides sample literacy blocks for Kindergarten through fifth grades with allotted times, descriptions of literacy skills, and examples of specific activities.

Science of Reading: Defining Guide
This resource from The Reading League provides background knowledge in the five pillars of literacy instruction as defined by the National Reading Panel (2000).

Screening for risk and characteristics of dyslexia
The procedures and forms in this guide from Middle Tennessee State University provide a structure for schools to organize assessment tools and conduct consistent, research-informed screening for identification of risk and characteristics of dyslexia for students in kindergarten through 8th grade.

Self-Study Guide for Evidence-Based Coaching for Literacy: PreK–Grade 12
This self-study guide from Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands is intended to support administrators, teacher leaders, and coaches to determine which components of literacy coaching to prioritize based on data collected and then follow-up to determine if the coaching is effective. While the strategies presented reflect findings of research on the effectiveness of educational practices, the resource itself has not been empirically tested for effectiveness and therefore is not categorized by a level of evidence.

State Data Use Spotlight: North Carolina
This state from the National Center on Systemic Improvement spotlight highlights the support North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction provided to local education agencies based on their local root cause analyses and self-assessments to devise plans to select targeted interventions to increase graduation rates for students with disabilities.

State Education Policy Tracking
The Education Commission of the States tracks state education policy on a wide variety of education topics. Their interactive map allows the user to click on each state to view enacted and vetoed legislation. The map provides information about issue areas, bill numbers, statuses, timelines, titles, and summaries of the bills.

State Knowledge Utilization Strategies: Washington
This state spotlight from the National Center on Systemic Improvement underscores the importance of early intervention and early literacy support specifically for students with disabilities, which Washington State is addressing using the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction's (OCPI) Special Education Consistency Index (SECI). They are measuring whether certain requirements correlate with student outcomes through a longitudinal study.

State of Dyslexia
This webpage provides an interactive map with information about states' dyslexia-related legislation.

State Spotlight: How Texas Used Coaching to Impact Outcomes
This state spotlight from the National Center on Systemic Improvement highlights Texas Education Agency's efforts to implement teacher coaching to improve the outcomes of students with disabilities.

Student Literacy Profile
The Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia's Student Literacy Profile is a tool that school teams can use to compile available data about a student’s literacy skills. Use it to reveal which areas of literacy development are strengths or weaknesses for a particular student to guide the identification of targets for reading instruction and intervention. The profile tool also supports the identification of students with characteristics of dyslexia.

T4PA: Evaluation Guide
This evaluation guide prompts local education agencies (LEAs) to think first about desired outcomes, then work backward to identify the programs, projects, or activities (interventions) that will best serve those outcomes under the Title IV-A statute. The guide offers a high-level overview of the evaluation cycle and can assist LEAs in evaluating whether a selected program is meeting the needs and desired goals identified.

Teacher Prep Review: Strengthening Elementary Reading Instruction
This review from the National Council on Teacher Quality details six findings, four recommended actions, and promising practices following a review of teacher preparation programs to ensure teachers have expertise in reading instruction.

Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science, 2020
This report is an update to the original Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science published by the American Federation of Teachers over 20 years ago and emerges from a collaboration between the AFT and the Center for Development and Learning. Together they acknowledge that, although some progress has been made in teaching reading effectively, too few at-risk, disadvantaged, and minority students become proficient readers. Insufficient emphasis has been placed on understanding the science of reading, which, when appropriately implemented, can enable these students to make significant reading and writing gains.

The Lead for Literacy Framework
The Lead for Literacy (L4L) Framework is a guide that helps school, district and state leaders navigate the process of evaluating, building, implementing, and improving teacher implementation of evidence-based literacy practices within a comprehensive schoolwide reading model.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides important information about student academic achievement and learning experiences in various subjects. This is the largest nationally representative and continued assessment resource that offers evidence into the state of our K-12 education system helping to inform decisions about how to improve education in our country.

The National Center On Improving Literacy: State Agencies
The National Center on Improving Literacy’s (NCIL) mission is to increase access to, and use of, evidence-based approaches to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related disabilities, including dyslexia. NCIL builds individual and organizational capacities to assess students’ literacy-related skill, identify students with disabilities or those at risk of disabilities, and fully implement evidence-based literacy programs and professional development.

The National Center on Improving Literacy's State of Dyslexia
The National Center on Improving Literacy’s State of Dyslexia page, which provides an interactive map with information about states’ dyslexia-related legislation and policies. The organization’s mission is to increase access to and use of evidence-based approaches to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related disabilities, including dyslexia.

The National Governor’s Association Guide to Early Literacy
The National Governor's Association (NGA) identifies priority issues and deals with matters of public policy and governance at the state, national and global levels. This downloadable resource directs policymakers to gaps in pre-literacy across the country.

The Nation's Report Card
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides important information about student academic achievement and learning experiences in various subjects. Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP has provided meaningful results to improve education policy and practice since 1969. Results are available for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts.

The Services of the Children's Library Institute
The Children's Library Institute (CLI) provides educators with high-quality training, coaching, and resources to enable them to become exemplary instructors who make an impact in helping children achieve reading proficiency at or above grade level.

The Urban District Assessment (TUDA)
The Trial Urban District Assessment, which is a federally-funded initiative providing an essential measurement of student achievement in the United States. In mathematics, reading, science, and writing, academic achievement is reported for selected urban districts, as well as for the nation and the states.

Three Circles of Evidence-Based Decision Making for Supporting Students with Disabilities
This resource from the National Center for Systemic Improvement presents steps in an evidence-based decision-making process to collect and integrate information from multiple sources, make decisions based on that information, and plan for implementation and evaluation when considering the selection or evaluation of an intervention for an individual student or group of students. Specifically, it highlights the importance of bringing together the best available research evidence, family wisdom and values, and practitioner wisdom and values within this decision-making process.

Understanding the History and Formation of MTSS
This publication explains the needs for Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS), a comparison of the similarities and differences between MTSS and intervention services delivery methods, steps to building the MTSS house, discussing the foundation of MTSS and how the framework was initially influenced by teaching and school psychology practice, and how Response to Intervention (RTI) and school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) integrate under MTSS.

Using Diagnostic Data to Inform Intervention Planning
In this brief from the National Center on Intensive Intervention, we offer recommendations to support educators to efficiently collect, analyze, and use diagnostic data within data-based individualization (DBI).

Using Root Cause Analysis to Inform School Improvement Planning
There are ten Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) who partner with educators and policymakers nationwide. For nearly 60 years, the RELs have collaborated with school districts, state departments of education, and other education stakeholders to help generate and apply evidence, with the goal of improving learner outcomes. This webinar provides a review of MSDE’s continuous improvement process, highlighting where root cause analysis fits into their framework.

What Tools Have States Developed or Adapted to Assess School's Implementation of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports/Response to Intervention Framework
This report describes the features of 31 tools that 21 states developed or adapted to assess key MTSS/RTI practices that are informed by the research literature. The findings in the report can serve as a resource for state education officials who are interested in selecting or adapting a tool to assess MTSS/RTI implementation and in learning how other states support districts and schools in using these tools.

What Works Clearinghouse
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Their mission is to provide scientific evidence on which to ground education practice and policy and to share this information in formats that are useful and accessible to educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public. IES’s What Works Clearinghouse is a resource page with evidence-based practices to support students.

Dissemination and Implementation

Best Practices Clearinghouse
Best Practices Clearinghouse provides collections of lessons from the field in support of students, young children, families, teachers, early childhood providers, faculty, and staff, as schools, early childhood programs, and campuses continue to recover from (COVID-19). This collection of lessons learned and best practices provides resources to identify and support the needs of all students, and particularly historically disadvantaged students, to ensure that all have access to a high-quality education.

Best Practices in Universal Screening
This infographic from the National Center on Improving Literacy defines three levels of instructional supports for students based on their reading proficiency as found on the screener results. Additionally, this infographic suggests five recommendations for SEAs or LEAs when establishing a screening protocol.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Guidebook and Toolkit
Education Development Center (EDC) is a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. This guidebook is designed for learning organizations that are committed to empowering practitioners and leaders to improve conditions in complex education systems. The conceptual framework and design of this guidebook is rooted in research and experience and built on scholarship from implementation science, systems change, continuous improvement, and scale.

Coaching for Ongoing Professional Learning within Tiered Support Models
The purpose of this document developed by the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) is to provide examples of coaching support for tiered intervention within and across systems. Sections detail coaching support at the local educator and coach level as well as sytsem level.

Continuous Improvement in Education: A Toolkit for Schools and Districts
This toolkit is designed to help school and district-based practitioners engage in a continuous improvement effort. It provides an overview of continuous improvement and focuses on the Plan-Do Study-Act cycle. The toolkit includes tools and resources that practitioners can use to implement a continuous improvement effort in their own schools, districts, or agencies.

Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Response to Intervention within Multitiered System of Supports: Fidelity of Implementation Rubric
The Culturally and Linguistically Responsive (CLR)–Response to Intervention (RTI) Fidelity Rubric is used by individuals who are responsible for monitoring school-level fidelity of RTI implementation within a multitiered system of supports (MTSS). The rubric from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs is aligned with the essential components of RTI and the infrastructure that is necessary for successful implementation. It is accompanied by a worksheet that has guiding questions and a place for users to record their ratings for each criterion; this worksheet can be used in an interview with a school’s RTI leadership team.

Data Rich, Information Poor? Making Sense of Progress Monitoring Data to Guide Intervention Decisions
This webinar, led by Dr. Lynn Fuchs of Vanderbilt University and& Dr. Lee Kern of Lehigh University, addresses a challenge faced by many teachers: feeling inundated by data while struggling to find useful information to guide intervention decision-making. The webinar focuses on: (a) common progress monitoring measures in academics and behavior, (b) key considerations for optimizing data collection, and (c) structured questions for analyzing graphed progress monitoring data patterns.

Dissemination Approached: Pros and Cons
This handout was prepared by the Regional Educational Laboratory Central and outlines the pros and cons to specific dissemination approaches.

Dissemination Plan Template
This template allows for sharing of information with staff, families, students, and relevant community entities. It seeks to celebrate successes, inform, prevent misunderstandings to reduce barriers, and build the collective commitment of the organization’s diverse partners. The template facilitates the gathering of valuable input and expertise for continuous quality improvement and validates how stakeholders are included in the development of the organization’s implementation capacity for systemic change.

Education Policy Implementation: A Literature Review and Proposed Framework
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) webpage is an online library featuring books, papers, podcasts and statistics. This 2017 working paper on education literature review centers on the implementation of education policy, exploring its definition, processes, and determinants. The report subsequently examines factors that impede or enhance the implementation process, categorizing them into four dimensions conducive to effective implementation.

Essential Elements of Comprehensive Data Literacy
This brief, produced in collaboration among many national centers and experts, identifies four essential elements for data literacy, including data exploration, data management, data use, and reflection and improvement. Supportive activities accompany descriptions of the elements, along with guiding questions and implementation tips.

Implementing Evidence-Based Practices
The Implementing Evidence-Based Literacy Practices roadmap from REL Southeast was developed to help state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) implement evidence-based literacy practices in their classrooms by following the suggestions of the resources listed in eight steps.

K–2 Assessments: An Update on State Adoption and Implementation
This report from the Council of Chief School Officers includes tables, maps, and information regarding an state adoption and implementation of K-2 assessments. Four policy recommendations are included within the report.

Lead for Literacy: Standards, Priorities, and Goals
The Lead for Literacy Framework’s Standards, Priorities, and Goals webpage, operated by Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development with funding from ED’s Office of Special Education Programs, provides technical assistance to school and district leaders that builds their capacity to facilitate improved teacher implementation of evidence-based literacy practices for educating students with, or at risk for, literacy-related disabilities.

Logic Models: A Tool for Designing and Monitoring Program Evaluations
This introduction to logic models document serves as a tool for designing program evaluations defines the major components of education programs resources, activities, outputs, and short, mid, and long-term outcomes and uses an example to demonstrate the relationships among them.

Meeting the needs of English learners with and without disabilities: Brief 5, Promoting leadership and collaboration for an effective multitiered system of supports for English learners
This is the fifth brief in the Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities series from the Office of Special Education Programs. In this brief, key strategies to foster leadership and build capacity among educators for effective multitiered frameworks for English learners (ELs) with and without disabilities are highlighted. Additionally, guidance focuses on strategies for building culturally and linguistically responsive leaders at the district, school, and classroom levels to promote a successful MTSS for ELs.

National Center for Education Statistics
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. It is one of thirteen principal federal statistical agencies whose activities are predominantly focused on the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.

Practical Measurement for Continuous Improvement in the Classroom: A Toolkit for Educators
This toolkit is designed to guide educators in developing and improving practical measurement instruments for use in networked improvement communities (NICs) and other education contexts in which principles of continuous improvement are applied. The toolkit is intended for a team of educators who have already identified specific student learning needs and strategies to improve instruction to address those needs and are ready to test these strategies using continuous improvement processes.

Quick-Start Guide to Dissemination for Practice-Based Research Networks
The Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality Quick-Start Guide to Dissemination for Practice-Based Research Networks resource document describes the dissemination planning and implementation process. It contains links to resources that guide you through the phases of dissemination.

Roles and Responsibilities of Implementation Team Members
This infographic from Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast distinguishes roles and responsibilities for state, district, and school level leadership roles when collaborating on implementing intervention policies.

Self-Study Guide for Evidence-Based Coaching for Literacy: PreK–Grade 12
This self-study guide from Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands is intended to support administrators, teacher leaders, and coaches to determine which components of literacy coaching to prioritize based on data collected and then follow-up to determine if the coaching is effective. While the strategies presented reflect findings of research on the effectiveness of educational practices, the resource itself has not been empirically tested for effectiveness and therefore is not categorized by a level of evidence.

T4PA: Evaluation Guide
This evaluation guide prompts local education agencies (LEAs) to think first about desired outcomes, then work backward to identify the programs, projects, or activities (interventions) that will best serve those outcomes under the Title IV-A statute. The guide offers a high-level overview of the evaluation cycle and can assist LEAs in evaluating whether a selected program is meeting the needs and desired goals identified.

The Lead for Literacy Framework
The Lead for Literacy (L4L) Framework is a guide that helps school, district and state leaders navigate the process of evaluating, building, implementing, and improving teacher implementation of evidence-based literacy practices within a comprehensive schoolwide reading model.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides important information about student academic achievement and learning experiences in various subjects. This is the largest nationally representative and continued assessment resource that offers evidence into the state of our K-12 education system helping to inform decisions about how to improve education in our country.

The National Center On Improving Literacy: State Agencies
The National Center on Improving Literacy’s (NCIL) mission is to increase access to, and use of, evidence-based approaches to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related disabilities, including dyslexia. NCIL builds individual and organizational capacities to assess students’ literacy-related skill, identify students with disabilities or those at risk of disabilities, and fully implement evidence-based literacy programs and professional development.

The National Center on Improving Literacy's State of Dyslexia
The National Center on Improving Literacy’s State of Dyslexia page, which provides an interactive map with information about states’ dyslexia-related legislation and policies. The organization’s mission is to increase access to and use of evidence-based approaches to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related disabilities, including dyslexia.

The Nation's Report Card
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides important information about student academic achievement and learning experiences in various subjects. Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP has provided meaningful results to improve education policy and practice since 1969. Results are available for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts.

The Services of the Children's Library Institute
The Children's Library Institute (CLI) provides educators with high-quality training, coaching, and resources to enable them to become exemplary instructors who make an impact in helping children achieve reading proficiency at or above grade level.

Understanding the History and Formation of MTSS
This publication explains the needs for Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS), a comparison of the similarities and differences between MTSS and intervention services delivery methods, steps to building the MTSS house, discussing the foundation of MTSS and how the framework was initially influenced by teaching and school psychology practice, and how Response to Intervention (RTI) and school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) integrate under MTSS.

What Tools Have States Developed or Adapted to Assess School's Implementation of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports/Response to Intervention Framework
This report describes the features of 31 tools that 21 states developed or adapted to assess key MTSS/RTI practices that are informed by the research literature. The findings in the report can serve as a resource for state education officials who are interested in selecting or adapting a tool to assess MTSS/RTI implementation and in learning how other states support districts and schools in using these tools.

What Works Clearinghouse
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Their mission is to provide scientific evidence on which to ground education practice and policy and to share this information in formats that are useful and accessible to educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public. IES’s What Works Clearinghouse is a resource page with evidence-based practices to support students.

Reflection

Best Practices Clearinghouse
Best Practices Clearinghouse provides collections of lessons from the field in support of students, young children, families, teachers, early childhood providers, faculty, and staff, as schools, early childhood programs, and campuses continue to recover from (COVID-19). This collection of lessons learned and best practices provides resources to identify and support the needs of all students, and particularly historically disadvantaged students, to ensure that all have access to a high-quality education.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Guidebook and Toolkit
Education Development Center (EDC) is a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. This guidebook is designed for learning organizations that are committed to empowering practitioners and leaders to improve conditions in complex education systems. The conceptual framework and design of this guidebook is rooted in research and experience and built on scholarship from implementation science, systems change, continuous improvement, and scale.

Continuous Improvement in Education: A Toolkit for Schools and Districts
This toolkit is designed to help school and district-based practitioners engage in a continuous improvement effort. It provides an overview of continuous improvement and focuses on the Plan-Do Study-Act cycle. The toolkit includes tools and resources that practitioners can use to implement a continuous improvement effort in their own schools, districts, or agencies.

Dissemination Plan Template
This template allows for sharing of information with staff, families, students, and relevant community entities. It seeks to celebrate successes, inform, prevent misunderstandings to reduce barriers, and build the collective commitment of the organization’s diverse partners. The template facilitates the gathering of valuable input and expertise for continuous quality improvement and validates how stakeholders are included in the development of the organization’s implementation capacity for systemic change.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as Amended
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson who believed full educational opportunity should be our first national goal. Nearly fifty years later, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was a bipartisan measure signed by President Obama reauthorizing the ESEA on December 10, 2015. This reauthorization upholds the nation's national education law (ESEA) and commitment to equal opportunity for all students.

Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Improving Student Achievement Agenda in 2024
The Biden–Harris administration’s fact sheet on its 2024 agenda to improve student achievement. The strategies in this Fact Sheet complement the Administration’s continued focus on improving mental health in schools, supporting America’s teachers and other school staff, and strengthening core instruction through the Raise the Bar: Lead the World initiative.

Implementing Evidence-Based Practices
The Implementing Evidence-Based Literacy Practices roadmap from REL Southeast was developed to help state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) implement evidence-based literacy practices in their classrooms by following the suggestions of the resources listed in eight steps.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) establishes a free appropriate public education for all students with disabilities, in the least restrictive environment. This law supports states and localities in protecting the rights of, and improvement the results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and their families. This landmark law's name changed to IDEA in a 1990 reauthorization and was last reauthorized in 2004.

Laws and Policy
The Laws and Policy section of the U.S. Department of Education's website provides an overview of legislation, regulations, guidance, and other policy documents for ESSA and other topics such as ESEA, FERPA, Civil Rights, IDEA, Higher Education Act, and other Regulations and Rulemaking.

Logic Models: A Tool for Designing and Monitoring Program Evaluations
This introduction to logic models document serves as a tool for designing program evaluations defines the major components of education programs resources, activities, outputs, and short, mid, and long-term outcomes and uses an example to demonstrate the relationships among them.

Minnesota READ Act
This webpage provides registration links to Minnesota's upcoming professional development opportunities and requests, webinars, legislation, office hours, and literacy curricula selection updates.

National Center for Education Statistics
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. It is one of thirteen principal federal statistical agencies whose activities are predominantly focused on the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.

Practical Measurement for Continuous Improvement in the Classroom: A Toolkit for Educators
This toolkit is designed to guide educators in developing and improving practical measurement instruments for use in networked improvement communities (NICs) and other education contexts in which principles of continuous improvement are applied. The toolkit is intended for a team of educators who have already identified specific student learning needs and strategies to improve instruction to address those needs and are ready to test these strategies using continuous improvement processes.

State Education Policy Tracking
The Education Commission of the States tracks state education policy on a wide variety of education topics. Their interactive map allows the user to click on each state to view enacted and vetoed legislation. The map provides information about issue areas, bill numbers, statuses, timelines, titles, and summaries of the bills.

T4PA: Evaluation Guide
This evaluation guide prompts local education agencies (LEAs) to think first about desired outcomes, then work backward to identify the programs, projects, or activities (interventions) that will best serve those outcomes under the Title IV-A statute. The guide offers a high-level overview of the evaluation cycle and can assist LEAs in evaluating whether a selected program is meeting the needs and desired goals identified.

The Lead for Literacy Framework
The Lead for Literacy (L4L) Framework is a guide that helps school, district and state leaders navigate the process of evaluating, building, implementing, and improving teacher implementation of evidence-based literacy practices within a comprehensive schoolwide reading model.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides important information about student academic achievement and learning experiences in various subjects. This is the largest nationally representative and continued assessment resource that offers evidence into the state of our K-12 education system helping to inform decisions about how to improve education in our country.

The National Center On Improving Literacy: State Agencies
The National Center on Improving Literacy’s (NCIL) mission is to increase access to, and use of, evidence-based approaches to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related disabilities, including dyslexia. NCIL builds individual and organizational capacities to assess students’ literacy-related skill, identify students with disabilities or those at risk of disabilities, and fully implement evidence-based literacy programs and professional development.

The National Center on Improving Literacy's State of Dyslexia
The National Center on Improving Literacy’s State of Dyslexia page, which provides an interactive map with information about states’ dyslexia-related legislation and policies. The organization’s mission is to increase access to and use of evidence-based approaches to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related disabilities, including dyslexia.

The Nation's Report Card
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides important information about student academic achievement and learning experiences in various subjects. Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP has provided meaningful results to improve education policy and practice since 1969. Results are available for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts.

The Urban District Assessment (TUDA)
The Trial Urban District Assessment, which is a federally-funded initiative providing an essential measurement of student achievement in the United States. In mathematics, reading, science, and writing, academic achievement is reported for selected urban districts, as well as for the nation and the states.

What Tools Have States Developed or Adapted to Assess School's Implementation of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports/Response to Intervention Framework
This report describes the features of 31 tools that 21 states developed or adapted to assess key MTSS/RTI practices that are informed by the research literature. The findings in the report can serve as a resource for state education officials who are interested in selecting or adapting a tool to assess MTSS/RTI implementation and in learning how other states support districts and schools in using these tools.