Commentary: Students in This Tennessee District Are More Literacy-Proficient Post-Pandemic

As instructional leaders in our district, we are fortunate to spend lots of time in classrooms. Cathy loves to share the story of popping in on one fourth-grade lesson to observe student writing. The room was cool, dim and quiet; the only sound was the scratch of pencils on paper as students brainstormed ideas for the poems they were going to write, a culminating task to wrap up an EL Education module on poetry. The teacher circulated as students pondered topics that were especially important to them — topics that were worthy of an entire poem.One word at the center of a student’s brainstorm was particularly striking: “education.”