Building teacher capacity and improving literacy outcomes at Cleveland ISD

Building teacher support through collaboration and ongoing support

Adopting a new curriculum was only the beginning. To help teachers bring Lenses to life, the district paired its implementation with weekly professional learning communities (PLCs) and ongoing support from Carnegie Learning.

During PLCs, teachers worked together to internalize upcoming lessons, create exemplar writing responses, and anticipate where students might struggle. They also practiced teaching portions of lessons with colleagues acting as students, giving one another feedback and identifying opportunities to strengthen instruction before stepping into the classroom.

This collaborative approach helped teachers move beyond simply assigning work to modeling the reading, writing, and critical thinking they wanted students to demonstrate.

Rather than ending professional learning after the initial rollout, Carnegie Learning's team returned to Cleveland ISD several times to address real classroom challenges, participate in PLCs, answer questions, and model lessons with students.

That ongoing partnership stood out to Dr. Hill because “in typical curriculums, you don't have that. They just throw the curriculum out to you. They'll do the beginning of the year training. Bye-bye, we're gone, you know. And I've rolled out a number of new reading curriculums at different grade levels. So I was very impressed with the support from Carnegie.”

For teachers navigating a new curriculum and a more rigorous instructional approach, knowing they had a team to turn to made a meaningful difference.

Dr. Beeman recalled how a member of Carnegie Learning's professional learning team stepped in to support teachers when they needed additional guidance: “She jumped in and would model lessons for us with our students if we were struggling. She's like, I can do it. And I thought that, you know, you don't always get that. [...] But that just, I don't know, it helped the teachers buy in that they had this huge support team.”

That hands-on support helped teachers become more comfortable with the curriculum, strengthen their instructional practices, and build confidence in their ability to meet students' needs.

Stronger instruction, more engaged students

As teachers became more confident implementing Lenses, Cleveland ISD began to see meaningful changes in classroom instruction.

Teachers pivoted away from traditional “sit-and-get” instruction and increasingly modeled the reading, writing, and thinking they wanted to see from students. Students discussed texts, collaborated with peers, wrote throughout each unit, and returned to complex texts to justify their thinking.

Writing, in particular, became a consistent part of daily instruction. English I teacher, now Instructional Coach, Ashley Huckabay described the difference: “They wrote almost every single day. And it wasn't just a little bit of writing. It was substantial. And they were actually analyzing and synthesizing the things that they were learning.”

Teachers also began proactively identifying places where students might struggle and providing scaffolds and supports. This allowed students, particularly multilingual learners and students who needed additional support, to access the rigorous curriculum without lowering expectations.

For English I teacher Justin Thompson, those supports made challenging concepts more accessible to students: “The way Carnegie is able to break it down, it does it in a different way so that it's not elementary, but it still gets the information through.”

Together, these changes helped create classrooms where students weren't simply completing assignments. They were actively engaging with challenging texts, developing their ideas, and building confidence in their ability to read, write, and think critically.

A 19-percentage point improvement in English I performance

Those instructional changes weren’t only visible in the day-to-day classroom experience. By the end of the year, they were showing up in student performance too.

After just one year of Lenses, the district has plenty to celebrate. The English I End-of-Course (EOC) non-pass rate fell from 54% to 35%—a 19-percentage-point improvement among first-time test takers.

The district also saw significant growth at higher performance levels. The percentage of first-time test takers scoring Approaches Grade Level or Above increased from 46% to 65%, while those scoring Meets Grade Level or Above jumped from 25% to 46%—a 21-percentage-point gain.

Beyond these performance gains, teachers also reported fewer zero scores on extended constructed responses.

The district's progress extended beyond first-time test takers, with an overall 11-percentage-point decrease in students who did not meet grade-level expectations when including those retaking the English I EOC assessment.

While these numerical gains were encouraging, some of the most meaningful signs of progress weren't found in the score report. Students who had spent the year tackling challenging reading and writing daily were willing to stick with the EOC assessment for four or five hours. Some even told their teachers that the state assessment felt easier than the work they had been doing in class.

For Dr. Beeman, the impact came down to something bigger than a test score: “I think it has helped create or build more confidence in our students that they can read, they can write. They just needed the opportunity or the supports to get there.”

From English I success to a 6-12 vision for literacy

Cleveland ISD had already implemented Lenses across grades 9–12, and the success in English I gave stakeholders confidence in the approach to literacy instruction.

That success sparked the expansion of Lenses into grades 6–8, establishing a more consistent approach to literacy instruction across middle and high school.

For teachers, that means a shared instructional framework, common classroom routines, and collaborative practices. For those new to the district or the profession, it means stepping into an established system of support rather than building one from scratch.

The district hopes that consistency will pay off for students, too. Instead of high school teachers having to establish new routines from the ground up, they can build on the reading, writing, and critical thinking students have already practiced in earlier grades and push them toward even deeper levels of analysis and achievement.

With measurable improvements across English I performance levels after just one year of Lenses, the district is encouraged by the potential for continued year-over-year growth as teachers and students become increasingly familiar with the curriculum.

What started in high school is now becoming a foundation for literacy instruction across grades 6–12.

Ready to see how Lenses could play a role in changing literacy outcomes for your district?