At Lavinia Group we are obsessed with closing the opportunity gap by helping our partner schools and networks achieve world-class literacy, math, and social studies instruction, through world-class leader and teacher training. Whether as superintendent, principal, or classroom teacher, each Lavinia Group team member has delivered phenomenal results on behalf of the students that they served. As a result of our collective experience, our approach is firmly anchored on the following: Intellectual Preparation: The key to excellent student outcomes is to invest like crazy in the adults. We must support leaders and teachers to be confident, passionate, and precise in their own ability to analyze texts and master content. In preparing to teach students the art of reading and writing, it’s intellectual preparation that matters most. Meaning Mindset: In an educational landscape that suffers from over-complexity, and hyper-focus on “text dependent questions,” and skills and strategies, we clear the clutter and put meaning front and center. Therefore, everything we do flows to and from meaning. World-class literature and robust independent reading: In order for students to be great readers, they must fall in love with reading. In order for students to fall in love with reading, they must have the best literature at their fingertips, and plenty of dedicated time daily for robust independent reading. School-based training: Just like kids, school leaders and teachers learn best by doing. The training/execution gap emerges when ideas presented during professional development are not realized in practice. We preempt this by working with leaders and teachers where the rubber hits the road: in schools and in classrooms. Through our rapid Improvement Cycle, which includes ample intellectual preparation and practice, we drive rapid adult learning within our partner schools.