Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Recognizes Bright Spot Communities

Communities highlighted for exemplary or innovative responses to the covid crisis.

 
 
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (CGLR) announced the 54 communities that are Bright Spots for their responses to the COVID crisis last year.

Specifically, CLGR is highlighting communities that developed exemplary or innovative responses to the COVID crisis, including new or adaptive roles, programs, organizational relationships/collaborations, policies and/or resources. In particular, the Campaign is recognizing communities for crafting solutions that seem especially effective, replication-worthy and/or deserving of being sustained during the post-COVID period.

Some of the initiatives include the use of digital tools, virtual tutoring, summer lunch programs, learning pods, books and learning resources distribution, community-wide COVID relief funds and other programs.

A collaborative effort by funders, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship, CGLR focuses on promoting early school success as an important building block of more hopeful futures for children in economically challenged families and communities.

“We applaud the civic leaders and local funders whose time, talent, energy and imagination allowed them to quickly adapt and meet this moment. They truly are ‘bright spots’ and we congratulate them for the differences they’re making. We look forward to learning from their success as we move onto a post-COVID learning environment,” says Ralph Smith, managing director of CGLR.

All CGLR network communities were invited to file stories about their COVID response efforts between May and December 2020 and then CGLR reviewed these stories based on the criteria for being a Bright Spots community.
 
 

Bright Spot Communities

2019 Community Solutions Pacesetters and Bright Spots

The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (CGLR) has named 34 communities as Pacesetter Honors recipients and/or Bright Spots for their work during 2019 to support early school success.

“Recognizing Pacesetters and Bright Spots is our way of applauding and thanking the civic leaders, organizations and agencies that have joined forces to build brighter futures for children in their communities,” said Ralph Smith, managing director of CGLR. “We are learning with them and from them what it takes to move the needle and close the gap. Mobilized communities — like these Pacesetters and Bright Spots — are essential to ensuring school success.”

The 2019 Pacesetter communities are honored for exemplary work and reporting observable progress in the inaugural round of the GLR What’s Working Xchange (winter/spring 2020). The 2019 Bright Spots are recognized for filing one or more stories that were highly-rated by nearly 400 peer reviewers, also in conjunction with the initial round of the GLR What’s Working Xchange. These 34 communities represent the “leading edge” of innovation, impact and improvement within the GLR Network, currently comprised of more than 350 communities, representing 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and two provinces in Canada.

CGLR recognizes the following 29 communities as recipients of 2019 Pacesetter Honors. Click on the name of the community to be taken to that community’s profile page on CLIP, where its stories are available in the “Community Stories” section.

CGLR also recognizes the following 19 communities as 2019 Bright Spots. Click on the name of the community to be taken to that community’s profile page on CLIP, where its stories are available in the “Community Stories” section.

• Tempe, AZ: School Readiness; Grade-Level Proficiency
• Stockton-San Joaquin County, CA: School Attendance/Chronic Absence
• Hartford, CT: School Attendance/Chronic Absence
• Broward County, FL: School Readiness
• Delray Beach, FL: Grade-Level Proficiency
• Indian River County, FL: Summer and Afterschool
• Palm Beach County, FL: School Readiness
• Whitfield County, GA: Parent Success
• Des Moines, IA: School Readiness
• Quad Cities, IA and IL: School Readiness
• Sioux City, IA: Parent Success
• Story County, IA: School Readiness; Summer and Afterschool
• Shawnee County, KS: School Readiness; Parent Success
• New Orleans, LA: Summer and Afterschool
• Springfield, MA: School Readiness
• Durham County, NC: Parent Success
• New York City (Mott Haven Neighborhood), NY: Parent Success
• Lehigh Valley, PA: School Attendance/Chronic Absence
• Nashville, TN: Summer and Afterschool

2018 Community Soultions Pacesetters

Pacesetters in Achieving Bigger, Better Outcomes
The following GLR communities are demonstrating population-level progress in one or more of the four key progress indicators for low-income children (school readiness, school attendance, summer learning and/or grade-level proficiency in K–3 reading and/or math). Once you click on a community’s name, navigate to it on the map to see data visualizations of their progress.

Pacesetters in Making Game-Changing Impacts and Fixing the Brakes on Progress
The following GLR communities are proof points in tackling one or more of the following:

— Reducing fragmentation by aligning, linking, stacking and bundling the most proven and promising strategies, programs and practices in the right dosage, duration and sequence. Read the Pacesetter stories.
— Building stronger data-sharing agreements and partnerships that result in community-wide efforts to establish baselines, set targets, track progress, disaggregate for subgroups, create early warning and response systems, tailor strategies and ensure shared accountability. Read the Pacesetter stories.
— Focusing on funder collaboration and co-investment on a shared set of priorities and intended results. Read the Pacesetter stories.
— Strengthening cross-sector (public/private/social services) collaboration, interagency partnerships and community-wide mobilization. Read the Pacesetter stories.

Click on the Pacesetter story links above to read the collection of community efforts in each area.

Pacesetters in Building the Community Learning for Impact & Improvement Platform (CLIP)
The following GLR communities are engaging more deeply in learning from and with their colleagues across the GLR Network through CLIP, an online platform powered by CGLR to lower the barriers and costs associated with spreading information about what’s working, why and under what conditions. Once you click on a community’s name, navigate to it on the map to see an activity snapshot.

2017 COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS PACESETTERS

Communities recognized as 2017 Pacesetters met either or both of the following criteria:

1. Demonstrate promise and/or progress in alignment and/or collaboration for impact on early school success in one or more of the following areas:

• across the early grades and early years
• between STEM and literacy (reading and math)
• between and among exemplary programs
• between and among public agencies and systems
• between and among the private, public and social sectors
• between and among federal, state and local governments and agencies
• with a focus on more vulnerable populations (dual language learners; system-involved children; children with learning differences, disabilities and attention issues)

2. Demonstrate measurable progress and/or promising trend lines toward one or more of the following:

• Achieving population-level improvements in school readiness, school attendance and summer learning.
• Increasing the number and percentage of low-income children reading on grade level district-wide
• Assuring community-wide sustainability of the civic action and advocacy agenda
• Integrating the two key determinants of early school success — parents’ success and healthy child development

2016 STATE PACESETTERS

2016 COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS PACESETTERS

• Download 2016 Pacesetter List
• Download 2016 Pacesetter Honors Press Release

2016 Pacesetter communities completed a rigorous self-assessment and were identified based on meeting either or both of the following criteria:

• Demonstrating population-level, community-wide measurable improvement in outcomes for low-income children in one or more of the focus areas: School Readiness, School Attendance, Summer Learning, Grade-Level Reading
• Demonstrating exemplary work in one or more aspects of the GLR Campaign’s framework for success, scale and sustainability:
  • Criteria 1: Aligning, linking, stacking and bundling the most proven and promising strategies, programs and practices
  • Criteria 2: Integrating efforts to support parent success and address and the health determinants of early school success
  • Criteria 3: Driving with data to establish baselines, set targets, track progress, disaggregate for subgroups, create early warning and response systems, tailor strategies, and ensure shared accountability
  • Criteria 4: Building cross-sector collaboration, community-wide mobilization and a coalition of local funders committed to achieving the result
  • Criteria 5: Prioritizing children and families in public housing and reaching those children who are especially vulnerable (children with learning differences, foster care, homeless, incarcerated parents, dual language learners)
  • Criteria 6: Utilizing technology to expand reach, mobilize constituencies, improve service delivery and/or streamline operations

PACESETTER PROFILES BY CRITERIA

Select a focus area or criteria below to access the profiles of the Pacesetter Communities honored in those areas.

Select HereSchool ReadinessSchool AttendanceSummer LearningGrade-Level ReadingCriteria 1Criteria 2Criteria 3Criteria 4Criteria 5Criteria 6

2015 COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS PACESETTERS

2014 COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS PACESETTERS

PACESETTER PARTNERS

PBS & the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)

2013 COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS PACESETTERS