Tennessee has made real progress on reading — 23rd nationally in fourth grade, up from 35th. That’s genuine, and the people who did it deserve credit. But progress isn’t success. Only 32% of Tennessee fourth graders and 32% of eighth graders reached NAEP proficiency in reading. Roughly two-thirds did not. We have now fallen behind Mississippi in literacy, who was almost dead last a decade ago.

The adult numbers are harder. About one in five Tennessee adults reads below a third-grade level. In the Appalachian counties, more than two in three read below eighth grade.

David Hatley believes reading is one of the cornerstones of success, and a lack of it leads to a life of crime, drugs, poverty, and discrimination.

David Hatley’s goal is top ten in reading in the nation within four years, measured against NAEP — a national yardstick the state can’t grade itself on.

Getting there means putting full-time reading coaches inside the hundred lowest-performing elementary schools and leaving them there. Requiring every elementary teacher to demonstrate competency in the science of reading before licensure. Replacing the retention debate with mandatory daily intervention for kids who aren’t reading by third grade. Doubling the Grow Your Own apprenticeship in rural districts.

And treating adult literacy as the workforce problem it is — paired with TCAT training, at no cost to the worker.