This letter to the editor by the Secretary's Regional Representative Cohn appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on February 11, 2007.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told a gathering of teachers last summer that "the heavy lifting of educating our students doesn't happen in the superintendent's office or the Department of Education. It happens in real classrooms with real teachers like you."

I can attest to that statement from my visits to thousands of classrooms at hundreds of schools—including several Milwaukee Public Schools—and from my own experiences as a mom of six, "Nana" of 17, former school district administrator and student.

So MPS teacher and community columnist Thomas Biel's firsthand observations on struggling high school readers hold a lot of weight with me ("Why Johnny can't read very well and what to do about it," Jan. 31).

However, there is an important fact missing from his conclusion that leaders "at the federal level need to take a stand and do something practical, like earmarking funds for literacy wherever literacy is a problem."

The Department of Education is already doing that. We plan to expand our efforts through a plan recently released by Spellings called "Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act" and the president's 2008 education budget, released last week.

These initiatives build on the strong achievement gains already posted by elementary school children under No Child Left Behind. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more reading progress was made by 9-year-olds in five years (1999-2004) than in the previous 28 years combined.

Math scores for fourth- and eighth-graders and 9- and 13-year-olds have reached new heights. Achievement gaps in reading and math between African-American and Hispanic 9-year-olds and their white peers have shown great improvement.

Older students, however, are lagging. Between 1999 and 2004, reading scores for 17-year-olds fell three points, and math scores fell one point, according the NAEP. Achievement gaps between Hispanic and white 17-year-olds grew wider, in both subjects. Nearly 1 million students drop out every year.

Both President Bush and Spellings recognize that much work remains to ensure that middle and high school students aren't being left behind in this emerging global economy. "Building on Results" and the new budget address those concerns.

Since its inception in 2005, $61.3 million in federal funding has gone toward a program called Striving Readers, which supports research-based interventions for students in grades 6 to 12 at risk of dropping out because of poor reading skills. Under Bush's education budget, funding for Striving Readers would increase to $100 million in 2008—a $68 million increase.

The budget also calls for a $1.2 billion increase in Title I funding, the primary source of federal funding for schools with large numbers of poor children. This would substantially raise allotments to eligible high schools while protecting funding for elementary and middle schools.

Title I funds an array of programs for disadvantaged students, including tutoring, after-school and summer programs to extend and reinforce the regular school curriculum. Funding for Title I schools serving low-income students has risen 45% since 2001.

Including the budget request, funding for No Child Left Behind is up 41% since Bush took office. For 2007 alone, total federal education funding to Wisconsin will be an estimated $1.825 billion—an increase of 54.7% since 2001. This is good news for Wisconsin's children.

The Department of Education provides resources, but dedicated teachers like Biel are at the very foundation of our efforts to ensure that "all students will have a better chance to learn, to excel and to live out their dreams," as Bush said more than five years ago when he signed No Child Left Behind into law.

Together, working with parents and state, school district and community leaders, we can truly make this dream a reality.

Kristine Cohn
Secretary's Regional Representative, Region V
Chicago, IL