Building a Statewide Vision for Literacy: Q&A With Oregon’s Director of Literacy and a WestEd Assessment Expert 

August 1, 2025

In 2023, Oregon faced a serious literacy challenge that mirrored national trends: only 39 percent of students demonstrated grade-level proficiency on the 3rd grade English language arts assessment. The COVID-19 pandemic had deepened gaps in achievement, bringing into focus a need for systemic and sustainable efforts to improve outcomes for students across the state. 

In response, Governor Tina Kotek and the Oregon Legislature launched the Early Literacy Success Initiative, a bold, statewide undertaking to improve literacy rates. Central to this initiative was the development of the Early Literacy Framework—a comprehensive guide grounded in evidence-based practices. The framework became the foundation for the state’s approach, shaping how nearly $90 million in grant funding was distributed to school districts and laying the groundwork for the state’s Adolescent Literacy Framework. 

Over the past 2 years, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) has worked closely with districts and WestEd to identify local needs, align resources, and ensure accountability for meeting the state’s literacy goals. This partnership has helped build a deeper understanding of current practices while guiding investments toward new sustainable strategies. 

In this Q&A, Angelica Cruz, Director of Literacy at the ODE, and Jessica Arnold, Senior Project Director with WestEd’s Assessment for Learning Team, reflect on how the state’s literacy frameworks were developed, how they’re being used to support professional learning and instructional change, and why concepts like disciplinary literacy and belonging are central to Oregon’s vision. Their insights offer a roadmap for other state leaders seeking to improve literacy outcomes through coherent, research-aligned frameworks and meaningful engagement with educators statewide. 

Angelica Cruz: Our literacy frameworks are at the core of the professional learning opportunities and resources that we offer, which, combined, bring research-aligned strategies into practice. We created a website with WestEd that offers a plethora of tools and resources for staff and includes everything from walk-through tools for administrators, slide decks, and study guides for group professional learning. We also provide Canvas course modules for individual, self-paced teacher learning.  

Jessica Arnold: Oregon has done a great job of establishing a shared understanding of the ideas in the frameworks. There are different grain sizes to help build capacity, so whether staff are barely jumping in or are already familiar with the frameworks and looking to dig deeper, there’s something for everyone.  

AC: We see disciplinary literacy as the specific ways of reading, writing, thinking, and communicating that are unique to each academic discipline—everything from science to math, social science, career and technical education, the arts, health, and PE. For example, students need different skills to read a science research article than they do to read a novel.  

AC: A big priority for us was college- and career-connected learning, especially in the middle school and high school years. Students need to know how reading a biology text or a financial analysis is distinct from reading a poem, novel, court case ruling, or other texts they might read in a variety of careers. So, for us, disciplinary literacy helps students learn to speak the language not just of a specific discipline but also of a career. 

JA: The way of speaking, thinking, and writing in each discipline is fundamental to the learning in that discipline. Content learning doesn’t exist in isolation. By weaving in disciplinary literacy, teachers aren’t doing something separate or new—this is really a part of learning, and it’s tightly aligned with the kinds of college and career preparation that students need to read and write and speak like experts in each discipline.  

AC: In general, we held a variety of engagement sessions, conference presentations, communities of practice, and webinars focused on both frameworks. The audiences ranged from district leaders and literacy specialists to teachers and staff at education service districts. These sessions offered opportunities to both dig deep into the frameworks and receive a big picture overview for folks who were just stepping into the space. WestEd was instrumental in supporting us with professional learning on the early literacy framework and with engagement sessions to get feedback on the adolescent framework.  

AC: We are hearing from districts about the value in aligning behind Oregon’s early literacy framework and resources and about how the tools have been valuable for staff training. Shortly after the framework came out, the Oregon Legislature allocated $90 million in funding for districts to support professional learning around early literacy, purchase high-quality materials, hire specialized literacy staff, and deliver tutoring and summer programming. It was exciting to hear how districts were describing the ways they would use those funds to implement the frameworks and how their programming was aligned with the frameworks. 

We just finished our 1st year of state testing since the funding was fully implemented, so we don’t yet have significant increases in test scores. But since the funding rolled out, we have seen indications that programming is going toward the right things. We also know that many grantees began implementing new tutoring and summer programming opportunities, and almost all of our grantees invested some amount of money into professional development and coaching. That was a key data point that told us that districts are committed to both training and professional learning on the early literacy framework and the science of reading.  

AC: The most important thing that comes to mind is that it’s critical that an SEA knows the makeup of their state and understands how their schools’ needs might vary by region and district size. In Oregon, we have both large urban districts and 55 one-room schoolhouses. When you have five children in a classroom in four different grade levels and one teacher, that’s a very different set of challenges than a large urban district with 50 elementary schools with multiple single-grade classrooms of 25 or more students. On the one hand, we want everybody to have a solid, common understanding of what high-quality literacy instruction looks like. On the other hand, we need to recognize that there are a variety of district sizes and settings and therefore diverse needs across the state.  

Another consideration is that creating a high-quality framework takes time, and it’s important that you engage with the communities you serve to develop one. Creating our adolescent literacy framework took longer than we anticipated, but it’s better to invest in a high-quality product and not rush the process so that what you create is valuable for schools and districts in your state. 

JA: There’s incredible value in the work that Oregon and other states have done to create something like a framework that serves as an anchor text. It’s important to do some up-front thinking about your theory of action and how you’re moving from this document to real changes in the field. 

AC: We are continuing to support district implementation of both the early and adolescent literacy frameworks and focusing on district implementation of high-quality instructional materials within literacy instruction. We recently began working with the Instructional Materials and Professional Development Network through the Council of Chief State School Officers, which brings together state leaders to support their districts in selecting high-quality curricula and providing educators and aspiring educators with professional learning. We’re collaborating across office teams at the ODE to focus on supporting the implementation of high-quality instructional materials. We will also be creating additional resources for the adolescent literacy framework, similar to those for the early literacy framework, to support school and district professional learning.  

JA: The early literacy content gives us a nice model for the new resources we’re developing for the adolescent literacy frameworks and some of the content we created for other frameworks in the state. I’m excited to get that work going again and to see Oregon’s commitment to disciplinary literacy. This is a real opportunity to help build schemas around what disciplinary literacy looks like in classrooms and do it in a way that invites teachers and supports them with leading literacy instruction in ways that match their goals for their students.

Build Your Next Statewide Framework with WestEd

Are you passionate about advancing student learning outcomes and experiences through systemic frameworks? Contact Jessica Arnold for a consultation about how you can partner with WestEd to create frameworks that drive improvements for students and educators in your state.