“Things get done only if the data we gather can inform and inspire those in a position to make difference.”

“What gets measured (and clearly defined) does get done.”

“The research we do at the local level - collaboratively - is what makes formal, outside research work. Outside research cannot be installed like a car part - it has to be fitted, adjusted, and refined for the school contexts we workd in.”

“We must begin where we are and move forward immediately by starting small and capitalizing on what's at hand.”

“When we unnecessarily elongate the process of "learning to read," we postpone "reading to learn" - learning itself - by years.”

“Learning, without any opportunities to share what we've learned, is a little like cooking for ourselves; we do it, but we probably won't do it as well.”

“These programs and reading series are the fruit of an intellectually exhausted literacy industry that lost its way long ago, even as we mutely accepted its misguided agenda - to complicate reading and literacy so that we will purchase its programs and materials.”