A Policy Brief from EPIC

Michigan’s Literacy Coaching Landscape

May 2023

This companion brief highlights major findings from EPIC’s full report  related to the key challenges literacy coaches faced during the 2021-22 school year. In particular, we show that Michigan’s literacy coaches work with a large number of teachers and across many districts and schools, and face substantial constraints on the amount of time they have to work with teachers to improve their literacy practice. Moreover, while ISD Early Literacy Coaches funded under the Read by Grade Three Law receive multiple forms of assistance to support their work, school and district literacy coaches receive far fewer resources. In short, for coaching to be as effective as possible at improving teacher practice and, ultimately, student achievement, Michigan must invest more in ensuring that coaches have the time and resources necessary to do their jobs well.

Our intention with this brief is to provide evidence from the coaches themselves to inform how Michigan allocates funds to coaching and early literacy in future state budgets. We report findings from a statewide survey of 631 literacy coaches in 2021-22.