Though Bill grew up in rural Texas where economic disparities existed, Bill first encountered real systemic poverty, illiteracy and inequity while teaching middle school English and Spanish in Mississippi after college. Since, he has sought out multiple avenues to upend poverty’s impact on student achievement and life opportunities. For the last 20 years, Bill has been helping schools and organizations implement bold ideas in support of dramatic improvement. Through strategic community-centered design, support of principals and teachers as instructional leaders and leveraging literacy as a key driver for change, Bill has collaboratively achieved measurable results with communities of learners. Bill has led the development of three schools (increasing reading and math outcomes by 30 and 20 percentage points, respectively), he has restructured and lead school innovation efforts in NY and RI, taught literacy interventions to current and aspiring leaders and teachers throughout the country with Brown University, TFA, TNTP, and KTL, and has directly contributed to the dramatic student achievement in dozens of schools and organizations through leadership capacity-building strategies.ResultsAhead is supporting the design, launch, and redesign of schools, districts & organizations, coaching leaders, staffs and teachers to improve outcomes, training school districts across the country in adolescent literacy, and supporting leadership teams through design facilitation and leadership development.