by Chandra Williams Ed.D. | May 14, 2026 | Data-Driven Decisions, Literacy Instruction
Your middle school problem started in second grade. Here’s the math Every middle school leader has lived this moment: a student walks into 6th grade reading two sometimes four years below grade level, and everyone in the building wonders how it got this bad. It...
by Chandra Williams Ed.D. | May 12, 2026 | MTSS, Tier 1 Instruction
Why piling on interventions can’t fix what core instruction is missing If your MTSS team is drowning, your problem isn’t your MTSS. It’s that 60–80% of students should be succeeding in Tier 1 and in too many schools, they aren’t. So everyone...
by Chandra Williams Ed.D. | May 7, 2026 | Instructional Coaching, Leadership
Spreadsheets lie. Classrooms don’t Every principal we’ve ever coached has had this experience: the data says one thing, but the moment you walk into a classroom, you see something else entirely. That gap between what your spreadsheets show and what’s...
by Chandra Williams Ed.D. | May 5, 2026 | Science of Reading
A field-wide reset for every leader who’s been sold a ‘Science of Reading-aligned’ product this year. Every vendor at every education conference this year slapped ‘Science of Reading aligned’ onto their booth banner. Districts have...
by Chandra Williams Ed.D. | Apr 30, 2026 | Literacy Instruction, School Improvement
Effort isn’t the problem. Alignment is. Walk into almost any school in America right now and you’ll see exhausted teachers. They’re differentiating, intervening, looping in families, and staying late to plan. And yet, the reading data won’t...
