A Literacy Improvement Community: How Teachers and Leaders Make It Work

We face vast challenges in education, but districts and schools are full of educators ready to take on problems of practice that can’t be solved quickly or alone. When we support schools and districts to become continuous improvement organizations, we create space for educators to come together as a network to understand challenges to high-quality instruction and to spread promising practice so all students benefit.

ANetwork for Instructional Improvement: How Teachers and Leaders Made it Work tells the story of how a community of educators in a large urban district, with support from the University of Pittsburgh, worked as a network for six years to change literacy teaching and learning for students who are furthest from opportunity. The authors take readers into the heart of the project-the classrooms, the practices, the learning walks, the deep collaborative work of continuous improvement-and show how student achievement rose as a result. Using the stories of these educators and their schools, this book shares research-based, actionable examples of how teachers and leaders centered literacy teaching and learning on students.

Sara DeMartino
Sara DeMartino joined the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh in July of 2011 as a member of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) assessment prototype team. As a fellow, she works with educators in various school districts on research, curriculum development, and professional development. She is currently the lead designer of professional development experience for the Network for School Improvement grant team, collaborating with educators in Dallas ISD to increase the number of students of color, low-income students, special education students, and English learners who are college and career ready by the end of 9th grade using improvement science methods.

DeMartino began her career in education as an English language arts teacher in Hillsborough County, FL. She earned her PhD in Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include writing, peer review, and the use of technology in ELA classrooms. Sara’s most recent publications are ＂Secondary students’ perceptions of peer review of writing,＂ published in Research in the Teaching of English, and ＂In their own words＂ published in The Learning Professional. DeMartino is a co-author of the revised National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) position statement on the role of English teachers in educating English Language Learners, and the forthcoming NCTE position statement on adolescent literacy.

Glenn Nolly
A life-long advocate of antiracism and antiracist leadership while working diligently and passionately for children who have been marginalized and poorly educated because of race, poverty, geographical location, or any imposed condition is the work of Dr. Glenn Nolly. His education career spans 35 years in the Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas, where he served as teacher, principal, area superintendent, associate superintendent, and director of professional development. One of the many significant accomplishments of his career is successfully retooling an underperforming high school to build an Advanced Placement program that mirrored the population of the school. His knowledge of developing and supporting communities of practice transformed a group of high school principals into a functional professional learning community. Other areas of expertise include development and evaluation of effective leadership practices, processes and programs.

In addition to being a senior fellow at the IFL, Nolly is an assistant professor of practice at The University of Texas at Austin in the College of Education. Prior to joining the IFL as a fellow, Nolly was a consultant working for the IFL on several projects in various districts across the country including Austin, Texas.

Nolly earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education from Texas State University, and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interest includes the marginalization of African-American students and their overrepresentation in suspensions and special education.

Anthony Petrosky
Anthony Petrosky co-directs the Institute for Learning (IFL) with Chris Schunn and Lindsay Clare Matsumura at the Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC). He holds a joint appointment as a professor in the School of Education and the English Department, and was recently the associate dean in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. He has worked with professional learning and curriculum development in English and literacy for school and district leaders in the public schools of Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, El Paso, New York City, Fort Worth, Prince George’s County, and Pittsburgh. He headed up the design team to develop assessment prototypes in English language arts and literacy for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC). He was the principal investigator and co-director of the Early Adolescence English Language Arts Assessment Development Lab for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards that developed the first national board certification for English teachers. He has also served as co-director of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project. Petrosky was a senior researcher for the MacArthur Foundation’s Higher Literacies Studies, where he was responsible for conducting and writing case studies on literacy efforts in the Denver, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Ruleville and Mound Bayou school districts in the Mississippi Delta. He is past chair of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Committee on Research and a past elected member of the NCTE Research Foundation. He currently co-directs The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded IFL Network for School Improvement in partnership with 14 Dallas ISD schools, the Learning Research Development Center, and the Center for Urban Education.