The Power of Coherence: Connecting Leadership, Instruction, and Student Support
“The plate never gets bigger, but the pile always gets higher.”
That observation from Dr. Melissa Weber-Mayrer, Chief Academic Officer for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, will likely resonate with education leaders across Ohio. Districts and schools are balancing literacy, student supports, attendance, behavior, special education, professional learning, school improvement and countless operational demands—often at the same time.
The challenge, then, is not simply deciding what to prioritize. It is creating a system in which the priorities connect.
That idea runs throughout Weber-Mayrer’s recent At the Table conversation about Ohio’s literacy progress and Integrated Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). After years of investment in research-aligned practices, high-quality instructional materials, professional learning, coaching and regional support, Ohio is entering a critical phase of the work.
“The most exciting piece right now is implementation,” Weber-Mayrer says.
The Shift from Adoption to Implementation
That distinction matters. A district can purchase strong instructional materials without those materials becoming the foundation of daily instruction. Schools can collect student data without using it to change what happens next. Educators can participate in high-quality professional learning without having the ongoing support to translate new knowledge into practice.
Ohio’s literacy experience has reinforced the importance of leadership in closing those gaps. Weber-Mayrer notes that early state efforts concentrated heavily on educators and classroom practice, but an important lesson emerged: building leaders are essential to successful implementation.
For superintendents, which means ensuring district priorities, professional learning, resources, and expectations point in the same direction. For principals, it means knowing what strong instruction should look like, whether high-quality materials are being used as intended, and how teams are responding when students need additional support.
The resources matter. But leadership determines whether those resources become part of a coherent instructional system.
Not Another Initiative
“What we don’t want is for the message to be, ‘Here’s another thing,’” Weber-Mayrer says of Integrated MTSS.
That may be one of the most important messages for Ohio leaders.
Integrated MTSS brings familiar work—student data, core instruction, interventions, progress monitoring, problem solving and collaboration—into a more connected framework. Rather than treating literacy, mathematics, behavior, attendance, special education and school improvement as separate streams, leaders can use the framework to examine how those efforts work together. The goal is not to add another layer. It is to reduce fragmentation.
Creating that coherence requires common language and consistent expectations—from the state level to the district, building and classroom. Ohio is working to align that language across programs, regional support structures and partners so that leaders hear a consistent message—and can focus their energy on implementation rather than navigating competing approaches.
Staying the Course on Improvement
Coherence also requires patience. Ohio’s literacy work has developed over years, not months. The state has built on early literacy efforts, expanded its focus across grade levels and invested in the knowledge and tools educators need to strengthen instruction.
For leaders, there is a lesson in that persistence. Improvement efforts lose momentum when priorities continually change, language shifts or new initiatives compete with work that has not yet had time to take hold. Staying the course does not mean ignoring evidence or refusing to adjust. It means using data to identify challenges, responding quickly, and improving implementation without continually resetting the direction.
“Real impact happens when we all work together, when we are coherent, when we are consistent,” Weber-Mayrer says.
Ohio has spent years building many of the pieces needed to improve outcomes for students. The leadership challenge now is turning those pieces into a system—one where priorities align, educators are supported, and strong practices reach every classroom.
Hear more from Dr. Melissa Weber-Mayrer in Episode 28: Leading Ohio’s Next Chapter in Education. Listen or watch the full conversation.