The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
February 2012
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a determined effort to mobilize philanthropic leadership around moving the needle on third grade reading over the next decade.
Jacqueline Jones, Senior Advisor for Early Learning to the Secretary of Education, joined the All-America City Grade-Level Reading network on a webinar this month. Jones passed along the U.S. Department of Education’s praise for the work these communities across the country are doing to boost early learning.
The Department of Education embraces the goal of ensuring more children learn to read by the end of third grade as part of its broader effort to create a “true cradle-to-career continuum,” said Jones. “We’re doing everything we can to build a strong foundation from birth to preschool, and then we’re looking for ways to improve kindergarten through third grade.” Jones thanked the network’s 160+ communities for their efforts so far to improve early literacy and said she was pleased by the overlap with the department’s goals.
YMCA of the USA is partnering with the Campaign to help close the achievement gaps. Local YMCAs across the country have been working to promote school readiness and curb summer learning loss, two of the community solutions the Campaign emphasizes. With this new partnership, YMCAs will jump into the All-America City Grade-Level Reading network, joining or organizing coalitions in their communities to work toward increasing the number of children reading proficiently by the end of third grade. The strong alignment between the Campaign’s goals and the Y’s approach to improving academic achievement, along with the Y’s national scope and scale, promise to make this partnership beneficial for children across the country.
Stay on top of all that is new with the Campaign and with grade-level reading by making a regular visit to the website: www.gradelevelreading.net. The site offers a comprehensive news source on issues related to early childhood, reading development, and achievement. Get the latest updates on federal initiatives, state campaigns and local efforts, or read recent studies on child development and literacy.
President Obama released his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal last week that includes increased funding for early education and child health. While much of the new money requested would go to higher education, early learning receives some attention.
The President proposes an $85 million increase in funding for Head Start and a $300 million increase for child care quality improvement. Another Race to the Top competition will be on the way – the Department of Education budget requested $850 million for a contest for states and districts, and in a press release the department said “a significant portion of the funds would be dedicated for early learning.”
While no direct funding is proposed for the Striving Readers program, it has not been eliminated – the Department of Education has proposed consolidating several education programs, and funding for Striving Readers may be folded into other areas. Early Ed Watch provides a breakdown of this year’s proposals compared to appropriations in past years. Elsewhere in the budget, Obama recommends spending $470 million on child nutrition and $190 million in housing initiative for children, part of 1.8 percent overall increase in spending on children according to an analysis by First Focus.
In a speech at the Harvard Graduate School of Education this month, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined the debate over whether in-school or out-of-school influences have a bigger impact on the performance of struggling students.
Sec. Duncan argued that educators needed to tackle both sets of problems, saying: “Everyone who has worked with poor children knows that poverty matters and affects school performance. But everyone who has witnessed the life-altering impact of great teachers and great principals knows that schools matter enormously too. Boosting student achievement is not an either-or solution. Educators and the broader community should be attacking both in-school and out-of-school causes of low achievement.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics has released a policy statement about the dangers of toxic stress on child development. Toxic stress – when a child experiences adversity, such as physical or emotional abuse, neglect, or poverty without adequate support from parents or caregivers – can disrupt brain development and other organ systems and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment going forward. If a child is experiencing such stress at home, simply being in the classroom will not be enough for him or her to learn on schedule. Teachers, school officials, and community members need to be aware of the dangers of toxic stress on students and know how to reach out to these children.
The AAP’s brief emphasizes this point for pediatricians and other child health providers, urging trusted authorities in child health and development to focus on potential interventions and community solutions to toxic stress.