high expectations paired with high support; challenging mathematics content paired with excellence in instructional practice; and the importance of relationships, particularly as it regards access to immediate help and feedback. All of these are pretty much straight out of the literature surrounding reform in any academic discipline, and they're reiterated over and over again in the vision our school developed for its literacy improvement.

Any copies of any of this relating to literacy that you would be willing to provide (or originals I could borrow and copy at my school) would be very, very welcome. I'm looking at teaching myself all of this over the summer so that I can design a literacy intervention strategy for our school. You know, because God forbid the Board should actually provide us with help. Sigh.