Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2025 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What needs to happen next—at the state, district, and school levels—for the science of reading revolution to fulfill its promise and ensure that far more children learn to read well?” Learn more.
When Virginia passed the Virginia Literacy Act in 2022, we at Richmond Public Schools cheered. Why? Not because we were excited at the promise of the law. Because we’d been implementing science of reading–aligned practices for two years, and we knew what this could mean for every child in Virginia.
Science of reading, to us, is not about the policies, it’s about the practices. At RPS, we’re bouncing back from the pandemic faster than most school districts across the nation. Our economically disadvantaged students are growing five times faster than their peers across the state; more than 70 percent of our K–2 students are considered reading on grade level. Nearly 90 percent of our students are students of color, and more than two-thirds are considered economically disadvantaged—and yet, at the rate we’re growing, we’ll be level with our affluent, suburban neighbors within the next five years.
How did we do it? While the VLA is a strong piece of legislation, and an important backbone, it’s just that—a foundation. And while important, it’s what you build on top of it that matters. At RPS, with the support of our city and philanthropic partners, we’ve made significant investments in teacher professional development, teacher supports, curriculum, and, most importantly, strong systems and faithful implementation to see this success.
Take curriculum, for instance. Several years ago, a handful of teachers emailed Jason, the superintendent, and shared that they’d been using UFLI—University of Florida Literacy Institute—materials with their students and seeing strong success. Instead of reminding them to use the materials already purchased, Jason met with the teachers, learned more, and observed their classrooms. We then piloted the program and, eventually, expanded it to every K–2 classroom. And those teachers? Now, many of them are in Central Office, training our literacy coaches, interventionists, and teachers, and amplifying their impact across the division.
Additionally, using our ARP funding—and now city-provided funding—we worked to ensure that every elementary school not only has a literacy coach (to work with teachers) but an interventionist, to provide targeted instruction to students. At the same time, we’ve increased our teacher pay by an average of $25,000, making it more possible for excellent teachers to make a living in the profession. A budget is a statement of your priorities, and even as stimulus funding faded, we’ve maintained and expanded these line items because we know that they’re the single most important factor in student achievement.
Why do we do this? Because we live in the capital of the former confederacy, and at the General Assembly—a building that is just across the street from our offices—in 1831, Virginia state lawmakers made it illegal to teach any free African to read “by day or by night.” They knew that reading was liberation, and that the best way to suppress dissent was to suppress the right to read. The echoes of this mentality, and a century of Jim Crow laws, still reverberate through our schools—but so does the spirit of the civil rights leaders who fought, in Virginia and elsewhere, for these precious rights. In RPS, our goal of 100 percent literacy by third grade isn’t just words on the paper—it will be a generational promise fulfilled.
It’s still early days, but our biggest lesson so far—and one that we hope others take from us, and replicate—is that to be successful, you need to orient your entire system around that goal. Literacy proficiency is a part of every conversation with our school leaders. School schedules and our collective-bargaining agreements have been designed to preserve planning time, coaching debriefs, and data deep dives. Partners and volunteers have been enlisted to provide additional support to students and families. And most notably, Jason is obsessed with literacy because he understands that it is the key to transforming future outcomes for our students. He spends about 30 percent of his week alongside principals, principal directors, and coaches observing classrooms and students, offering tweaks, and synthesizing trends across the Division. It’s far too easy, as a system, to get bogged down in the operational outputs of what a half-billion-dollar agency needs, or to get dazzled by innovations and buzzwords. But you cannot lose sight of the academic outcomes, which should be at the heart of everything we do.
None of this would be possible, of course, without many others: Philanthropic investment has been the “tip of the spear” for this shift. We’re an entirely ordinary school system, with an elected School Board and funding that comes solely from the city and commonwealth: The support of our board, as well as mayors and city council, have been invaluable. The state's framework has been helpful (though we’ll be reminding our new governor and lawmakers that our state funding is woefully inadequate). It takes time to get the right internal leaders, and school leaders, who have the expertise and capacity and passion to do this right. And, of course, we need excellent teachers in each and every classroom.
We often say that excellent teaching is magical, but it isn’t magic. We’re optimistic about where we’re going because we’ve got the right ingredients in place. For every district in the country to get on this trajectory, it will take every facet of the sector, at every level, orienting around this goal. We hope you’ll join us.
