The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
August 2014
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a collaborative effort by funders, nonprofits, government agencies, business leaders, states and communities across the nation to ensure that many more children from low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship.
Become a GLR 2014 Pacesetter Community
It is hard to believe that we have already hit the “Midpoint Moment” between the launch of the GLR Communities Network at the 2012 All-America City (AAC) Awards and the upcoming 2016 AAC Awards. We are excited to announce that we will be marking the midpoint with the GLR 2014 Pacesetter Community Honors. The annual Pacesetter Honors will go to communities that:
- Participate in the GLR Campaign’s messaging and mobilizing opportunities, such as Summer Learning Day and Attendance Awareness Month.
- Demonstrate progress in at least one of the three community solutions areas — readiness, attendance and summer learning. We are also looking for progress in adopting or replicating proven and promising programs, as well as in strengthening stakeholder engagement, community engagement and cross-sector collaboration.
- Present a plan that integrates healthy, on-track development and successful parents; relies on disaggregated data; and focuses on proven and promising interventions.
We have created an online self-assessment tool to help refresh and refine Community Solutions Action Plans (CSAPs) and demonstrate progress on these criteria.
Make Attendance Count in September
Kansas City is connecting 200 volunteer mentors with 200 students who need extra support on attendance. Hillsborough County, Florida, is engaging parents with WALDO — Wonderful Attendance Leads (to) Diplomas (and) Opportunities. And Oakland, California, just published a newspaper advertorial about school attendance.
With Attendance Awareness Month starting in September, Attendance Works is offering a spate of new materials:
- A toolkit spelling out a strategy for intervening with chronically absent students
- A video engaging parents on the chronic absence problem
- Social media memes for Facebook and Twitter
- A new partnership with LearnLead’s Perfectly Punctual Campaign to provide materials and suggested strategies for building strong attendance habits starting in preschool
- Making- the-Case handouts to engage community partners
- New posters and banners for schools and communities to download
When you stop by to check out the new materials, don’t forget to post your plans on the Attendance Action Map.
Get Georgia Reading Debuts
Georgia state leaders, educators, parents, business leaders and children’s authors launched the Get Georgia Reading campaign in August, each stating a commitment to ensuring that every child in Georgia would be able to read proficiently by the end of third grade.
The Georgia campaign aims to achieve this goal by 2020, using a four-part common agenda that addresses the major drivers of increased reading proficiency — language nutrition, access, productive learning climate and teacher preparation and effectiveness. The kick-off event also marked the launch of the Georgia campaign’s website where visitors can learn more about the work underway. Read more about the event here.
Charlotte’s Y Readers Program Recognized for Growing Healthy Reader
The Y Readers program at the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, N.C., was one of three programs chosen to receive the New York Life Excellence in Summer Learning Award this month. The awards, presented by the New York Life Foundation and the National Summer Learning Association, recognize summer programs that go above and beyond to accelerate academic achievement and promote healthy youth development. Charlotte is one of 17 GLR Network communities that have been involved in the Y Readers pilot, which will soon be rolled out nationwide.
Bright Spots Describe Efforts to Enlist Volunteers, Use Data to Improve Attendance
Our Bright Spots this month include attendance initiatives and data-based strategies to improve conditions in all three community solutions areas:
- Get Georgia Reading: The statewide grade-level reading campaign coordinated efforts to provide free meals and literacy activities in local libraries to children in 22 counties.
- Oakland, California, used three school years’ worth of data to define local challenges and develop strategies outlined in the Oakland Reads Baseline Report.
- Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is measuring the impact of summer literacy programs to raise the percentage of third graders reading proficiently from 44 percent in 2012 to 90 percent by 2020.
- Providence, Rhode Island, schools enlist City Year volunteers to work one-on-one with students who have a history of chronic absence to set goals and make a plan to boost their attendance.
To nominate a community as a Bright Spot, email Betsy Rubiner at brubiner@gradelevelreading.net.
To share updates on your community’s efforts, email Phyllis Jordan at pjordan@gradelevelreading.net.
Federal Funding Aims to Expand Access to High-Quality Pre-K
The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services this month launched the $250 million Preschool Development Grants competition. The funding will help states implement high-quality preschool programs in high-need communities for children from low- and moderate-income families. The grants aim to lay the groundwork to ensure that more states are ready to participate in the “Preschool for All” formula grant initiative proposed by the Obama administration. Awards will be announced on December 31, 2014.
NAACP, American Urban Radio Networks Launch Reading PSAs
The NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, and American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), the nation’s largest African-American owned radio network company, joined forces in an early literacy campaign this month. Radio public service announcements (PSAs) voiced by Tatyana Ali, Bobby Jones, Jermaine Dupri and other notable individuals from the entertainment industry encourage young people to read. This is part of the NAACP’s recently launched “NAACP Reads,” a public awareness campaign with support from the GLR Campaign and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Listen to the PSAs here: https://soundcloud.com/naacp.
Funding Available for Programs Supporting Disadvantaged Youth in CO, IN, LA and TN
Annual grants from the PeyBack Foundation support programs that provide leadership and growth opportunities for economically disadvantaged children in the Denver metro area, Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee. The foundation, associated with NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, gives preference to programs that provide a direct benefit to high-need youth through out-of-school time activities like after-school and summer programming. Grants are limited to a maximum of $15,000. The deadline to apply is February 1, 2015. Click here for more information.
The Power of Positive Connections
A new toolkit from Attendance Works, The Power of Positive Connections, lays out a strategy for using absenteeism records from past years and from the first month of school to identify students with poor attendance. These students are then connected to personal relationships and positive supports that motivate them to show up to class every day. The toolkit provides a step-by-step guide to a data-driven strategy known as PEOPLE — Priority Early Outreach through Positive Linkages and Engagement.
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