Dr. Liz Norton: Founder, President, and Coach
Liz Norton is a proven education leader with a track record of driving transformative results at both the state and district levels. Over the past two decades, she has led some of the most ambitious change efforts in K–12 education, delivering measurable improvements in student achievement, school performance, and system-wide effectiveness.
At the state level, Liz played a critical role in Tennessee’s high school redesign efforts through the Innovative School Models initiative, helping to double middle school CTE participation in just three years and leading to a 27.9% increase in industry credentials earned. Students participating in early postsecondary opportunities under her leadership graduated with an average of 23 college credits, significantly accelerating their readiness for college and career.
During the pandemic, Liz’s leadership helped guide Tennessee’s ELA proficiency rates to rebound beyond pre-pandemic levels and recover more than half of lost ground in math. Her commitment to instructional quality resulted in 97% of districts adopting new, high-quality instructional materials and the launch of statewide literacy networks that contributed to a 4.3% increase in third-grade reading proficiency.
She also helped engineer a historic turnaround in school improvement: in 2020–21, nearly half of Tennessee’s identified priority and support schools exited their designations, the largest number of school exits in state history. As the architect of Tennessee’s District Support Framework, Liz developed a pioneering model of coherent, aligned support that has contributed to the state’s rise from the bottom 10 to the top 20 nationally on NAEP, outperforming the national average in all assessed subjects by 2024.
With a deep understanding of how to lead at scale, Liz combines vision, data-driven strategy, and implementation expertise to help education systems achieve lasting results.
