State Superintendent Carey Wright announced Monday that 61 literacy and math instructional coaches will be hired for schools around the state in the upcoming 2026-27 school year.
Those 61 educators are able to be hired thanks to $14.2 million approved by the legislature in the fiscal 2027 budget for the statewide teacher development program known as “coaching.” It was approved as part of the Academic Excellence Program in the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act approved by the legislature last year.
What wasn’t approved was funding for the program. That’s why Wright and other education advocates pushed for funding during the 2026 legislative session.
“Good coaching not only helps athletes, but actors, singers and teachers,” Wright said during the online announcement Monday. “When teachers have access to strong, high quality, effective instructional coaching, students win. Every Maryland student deserves the best teacher that we can put in front of them.
The educators include 52 school-based literacy coaches, five regional literacy coaches and four regional math coaches to help lead school systems starting this fall. They will provide weekly, job-embedded support to teachers in schools statewide.
The focus will be on elementary schools based on test results from third-grade students in the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as MCAP.
According to test results in language arts, about 48% of the students in that particular grade were proficient in 2022-23 school year. The percentage slightly decreased to 46.5% in 2023-24, but did increase to 50% last school year.
A second factor to be considered when assigning coaches will be the percentage of conditionally licensed teachers. A state Department of Education report from February shows they decreased by nearly 2% this current school year. But slightly more than 6,000 of those teachers remain in the state who haven’t met the licensure requirements.
A third and final factor on which schools will receive coaches will be student performance of special education and multilingual learners.
With the exception of language arts in the last two school years, the proficiency level for students with disabilities and multilingual students didn’t reach double digits.
Out of the 52 school-based literacy coaches for next school year, about 35 will be assigned to various schools across the state.
The other 17 coaches will be specifically in Prince George’s County, an allocation that is being paid for through philanthropic funds, but which will be managed by the department. Currently, about $330,000 has been spent this year on a pilot coaching program with seven coaches at 14 elementary schools in the county.
Maryland READS (Reading Education Aligned to Data and Science), a nonprofit organization focused on the improvement of literacy, was a major advocacy group that pushed the legislature for a consistent investment in coaching.
“This first step should mark the beginning of a sustained partnership among the legislature, the Governor, and the State Superintendent to invest in the supports that translate strong policy into stronger classroom practice,” according to a Maryland READS statement issued Monday.
“If Maryland remains committed to this course, we have a real opportunity to achieve the kind of dramatic improvements in reading proficiency that students – and our state – deserve,” the statement said.
For more information and interest in becoming an instructional coach, go to the department’s website.