FOR RELEASE
Contacts: Melinda Malico and David Thomas(202) 401-1576
April 7, 1998
FIRST LADY ANNOUNCES $5 MILLION IN SUPPORT FOR NEW D.C. SUMMER SCHOOL INITIATIVE
Eighty D.C. public schools will keep their doors open this summer to provide nearly 20,000 area youth with extra academic instruction in reading and mathematics, with assistance from a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton announced today.
The new grant will support Summer STARS (Students and Teachers Achieving Results and Success), an intensive and accelerated summer school program designed to increase the academic achievement of D.C. public school students in grades 1-12.
"With this important initiative, thousands of children in our nation's capital will have the chance to continue their school-year education throughout the summer and to fulfill their promise in school and beyond," said First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"This critical and unprecedented undertaking aims to increase significantly the number of D.C. students who are able to read and do math at grade level," U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley said. AWe know that these young people in particular are performing below the basic level in math and science. By strengthening students' skills and offering a variety of learning activities, these students will be given a chance to move ahead, not fall further behind."
The District recently adopted new promotion requirements and is putting activities in place to assist students needing extra help. The summer school program will help improve the skills of children at risk of school failure. Specifically, the program aims to boost the skills of students previously identified for retention in grades 2, 3, 5, 8 and 11 sufficiently to allow for promotion to the next grade level. Students who score below basic on the Stanford-9 reading and mathematics achievement tests and those who fail to show progress in meeting the standards through other measures will be selected for the summer school enrichment program.
President Clinton has urged school districts to abandon policies of social promotion -- policies that allow students to be promoted from grade to grade even if they have not mastered the basics for each grade.
The six-week program is designed to provide students with a challenging, standards-based curriculum that focuses on the critical basic skills of mathematics and reading in a classroom setting with a low (15:1) teacher to child ratio. Sixty elementary, 10 middle and 10 high schools are scheduled to be part of the summer school program which will operate between June and August. In addition, D.C. plans to involve parents as classroom volunteers and after-school assistants; train teachers in the new curricula; and partner with the D.C. Department of Recreation and other organizations to provide organized afternoon activities.
The $4,997,019 grant came from the Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), under the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. FIE funds activities that stimulate reform and improve teaching and learning.
The effort fits in with the Department's Improve Student Performance Initiative, intended to help the District's public school system implement system wide and school-based academic and management reforms to improve the quality of education. In his FY 1999 budget, President Clinton requested an additional $20 million for the District of Columbia public schools to support comprehensive school reform activities, intensify rigorous professional development opportunities, and put reading specialists in every school.
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