McCarthy Consulting & Professional Services

Listening for What Matters in Literacy Systems

School districts rarely struggle because educators are uninformed or uncommitted. More often, they struggle because well-intentioned practices—curriculum, interventions, assessments, staffing—have accumulated over time without a shared throughline.

My work begins by listening.

I partner with school and district leaders to understand how literacy instruction is actually experienced across classrooms, roles, and grade levels. Through careful inquiry with teachers, interventionists, specialists, administrators, and central office staff, I help districts identify the patterns, tensions, and assumptions that shape their literacy systems—often in ways that are hard to see from the inside.

This is not program evaluation in search of compliance, nor is it consulting that arrives with predetermined solutions. It is qualitative, systems-oriented work designed to surface insight, restore coherence, and support thoughtful decision-making.

12+

15+

Years of experience

Research Publications

Mark D. McCarthy

Literacy Systems Snapshot

Listening across roles. Clarity for leadership.

The core service I offer is a Literacy Systems Snapshot—a short-term, bounded inquiry that provides district leaders with an external, grounded view of how their literacy services are functioning as a system.