In this article, Catherine Snow, Twakia Martin, and Ilene Berman describe professional development institutes offered in 2001 and 2002 by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices to familiarize state-level policymakers with research on adolescent literacy and to guide states’ development of effective literacy plans. The authors then review the literacy plans that four of the participating states developed in the years following their institute involvement and discuss ways in which the content of the literacy institutes is reflected in these states’ plans. In conclusion, the authors call on higher education institutions to help state policymakers develop and evaluate initiatives intended to increase adolescents’ reading skills. They also call for broader cross-state comparisons of states’ strategies for improving adolescent literacy.

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Catherine E. Snow is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her work focuses on literacy achievement among students at risk of academic failure, including children growing up in poverty and those who arrive at school not speaking English. She chaired the National Research Council Committee that wrote Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998), the RAND Reading Study Group that wrote Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension (2002), and the National Academy of Education Committee that wrote Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World (2005). Snow conducted a long-term longitudinal study of the academic outcomes of urban students living in poverty, entitled Is Literacy Enough? Pathways to Academic Success for Adolescents (2007), and she is currently directing the Strategic Education Research Partnership’s Boston Public Schools field site.

Twakia Martin is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her work focuses on achievement and motivation for adolescent readers and students with disabilities, as well as teacher preparation. Her doctoral thesis investigates whether the designation of “special education” has an influence on how Black males judge themselves as readers, and on their overall reading achievement. Martin previously taught second and fourth grades in urban school districts.

Ilene Berman is a program director in the Education Division at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, which provides policy advice, research, and technical assistance to governors and their advisors. Her areas of expertise include literacy, high school redesign, turning around low-performing schools, and school choice. Berman has coauthored two governors’ guides, Reading to Achieve: A Governor’s Guide to Adolescent Literacy (2005) and Reaching New Heights: Turning Around Low-Performing Schools (2003), and a report titled Providing Quality Options in Education (2005). Berman also has served as the director of policy, standards, and instruction at the Council for Basic Education, and as the director of research and content for the National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform. She began her career in education as a high school English teacher in Washington, D.C.