By Al Roberts, contracted by The Council for Excellence in Government
November 24th, 1999

In 1994, the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) completed one of its periodic surveys of student achievement, and found further evidence of an alarming national problem: The inability of many children to read well. Forty percent of fourth graders had not attained its Basic level of reading skills, and 70 percent could not be considered Proficient in reading. The results were bleaker for students from poor families and students attending urban public schools. Two-thirds of African-American and Hispanic students had not attained Basic reading skills.

A deficiency in early reading skills is troubling for several reasons. Research has shown that students who do not read well by the third grade are unlikely to catch up with other students in later grades and are more likely to drop out of school. They will also be handicapped in an economy that puts a premium on the ability of workers to keep up with rapid technological change. Disparities in early reading skills lay the foundation for larger social and economic inequalities later in life. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley, says illiteracy is "the ball and chain" that ties people to poverty.

Research also shows that early interventions aimed at improving reading skills can produce lasting rewards. The first eight years of a child's life are a "critically important period," says Catherine Snow, the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at Harvard University. "Many reading problems encountered by children in middle or high school could have been identified and dealt with before third grade."

The America Reads Challenge - an initiative unveiled by the Clinton Administration in August 1996 - exploits this opportunity to make early investments that yield long-term rewards. The initiative is also a model of a new approach to governance - often called the "Third Way" - that emphasizes the mobilization of community resources to conquer the most pressing social problems. "This is a new kind of government," President Clinton said during his recent Internet town hall meeting, "focused not on solving all our problems, but instead on giving our citizens the tools and conditions they need to make the most of their own lives. And at the same time we challenge our own citizens to take a far more active role by serving in our communities and shaping our nation's future."

"Perhaps the most telling results of the program are the testimonials of the children who participate," says Reading Today:

Such as a third grader named Manuel, who said this about his tutor: "She makes me a better reader because there's a lot of words I don't know, and she helps me figure them out. A lot of kids should have America Reads tutors because they have trouble reading. If they had tutors, they wouldn't have to stay back."

With limited new resources, this Third Way success story has similarly energized individuals and organizations across the country. Education Week says that the Challenge is "coming to life in communities and schools. Observers have noted a steady swell in the numbers of reading tutors around the country. They credit America Reads with raising the public's awareness of what many Americans consider a crisis." A 1998 survey of local efforts found that many organizations were making intensive efforts to start or improve programs for young children.

USING THE TOOLS AT HAND

America Reads has a simple but important goal, says Carol Rasco, who helped to design the initiative while serving as domestic policy advisor during President Clinton's first term: "We want all children to read well and independently by the end of third grade." Rasco, who now heads the initiative as senior advisor to Secretary Riley, says that crisply-defined goal is one that people can easily endorse." "Almost everyone has in their family or neighborhood a child who is struggling to read. So it has a personal pull on people."

One element of the strategy for achieving that goal is aimed at a major obstacle to improved reading skills: the lack of practice time. In August 1996, President Clinton proposed a national literacy campaign that would enlist "one million volunteer tutors ready and able to give children the personal attention they need to catch up and get ahead." The federal government would play a crucial but limited role as a catalyst in building the President's "citizen army" of reading tutors.

The federal role builds on a creative use of existing programs. Key among these is the Department of Education's work-study program, which in 1996 provided $617 million to support part-time employment for 713,000 students at 3,400 colleges and universities. Employers usually pay one-quarter of wages for work-study students. In November 1996, President Clinton announced that the federal government would waive this requirement and pay 100 percent of wages for any student employed as tutor for preschool and elementary school children. The new rule became effective with Secretary Riley's signature in July 1997.

The Administration also recruited college and university presidents to champion the establishment of new work-study tutoring programs. In December 1996, the President announced the appointment of a steering committee of 21 presidents, chaired by Robert Corrigan of San Francisco State University, to recruit other institutions to the campaign. Each of the 21 pledged that their institutions would dedicate half of any increase in work-study funding to new tutoring programs. An overall increase of $213 million in work-study funding was planned in the FY 1998 budget.

Rasco notes that the Administration's approach didn't impose any new obligation on colleges and universities. Nevertheless, she says, its work-study initiative "caught on like wildfire." By June 1998, 1,100 colleges and universities were using the America Reads waiver, and 22,000 students were working as reading tutors. Some institutions could not keep up with requests from students to participate in the program. At Yale University, 300 students applied for the 60 work-study positions made available in the first year, and at the University of Michigan, 400 students applied for 80 slots. At New York University, more than 700 students now work as America Reads tutors. In the nation's capital, six colleges and universities recruited almost 800 tutors to work in local schools in 1998.

Rasco says: "I've had college presidents tell me that they've tried for years to build bridges with their community, and that this is the most successful town-gown project they've ever done." These tutoring projects also generated an extraordinary amount of positive news coverage, such as this report in the Arizona Republic:

Some of the first graders at Buckeye Elementary School couldn't identify letters of the alphabet a month ago . . .But with the help of three students from Estrella Mountain Community College, they are now able to read and write all the letters and are working their way through a pile of brightly colored books.

Teachers say they are thankful for the additional help. "It is really great to have them. It really helps a great deal," said Marianne Nicholas, a first-grade teacher for 16 years.

America Reads also became a focal point for other programs within the Department of Education. In 1998, its Office Educational Research and Improvement provided $3 million in funding to 60 projects that would identify promising volunteer tutoring practices. A report on best practices, So That Every Child Can Read, was published in April 1999. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education worked with one of its grantees, the not-for-profit organization Reading Is Fundamental.

The Office of Posting-Secondary Education used its Teacher Quality Initiative, which provides financial support for professional development activities, to improve teachers' skills in reading instruction. At a September 1999 Summit on Teacher Quality, Education Secretary Richard Riley challenged colleges of education and state certification boards to emphasize higher standards for elementary school teachers.

Other federal agencies were also enlisted in the America Reads Challenge. In his 1997 State of the Union address, President Clinton called on the Corporation for National Service to use its national service programs to coordinate and staff tutoring projects. CNS says that a "focus on children" has become its top priority. Three thousand AmeriCorps members now serve as coordinators for a force that is tailoring its adult literacy grant program to improve reading skills among the parents of young children.

Rasco says that still other federal programs were tapped. "We're constantly looking at where the fedreal government is touching the lives of parents and children. That means that we work iwth people in the Department of Agriculture's Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program, with people in welfare reform, and so on." The exercise also put a premium on networking across organizational boundries. Initially, people from the key programs would meet every two weeks," she recalls. "But now we know each other so well we only need to meet once a month."

MOBILIZING THE COMMUNITY

Direct government action is only one part of the America Reads Challenge. A more important component, Rasco says, has been "challenging people and communities" to identify and respond to local needs.

To promote public awareness about early childhood literacy, the Education Department has built links with non-governmental organizations already working in the area. It encourages its partners to participate in the annual "Read Across America Day", sponsored by the National Education Association, and "National Family Literacy Day", sponsored by the National Center for Family Literacy. It also encouraged the Learning First Alliance - which includes a dozen national associations representing teachers, parents, and school administrators - to give more prominence to the issue.

The Alliance held a summit on reading in January 1998 and developed an action plan, "Every Child Reading", that outlines policy reforms to promote early childhood literacy.

America Reads has also inspired new national literacy campaigns. The National Jewish Campaign for Literacy, begun in 1997, now has local affiliates in 26 cities across the country. Its goal is to mobilize 10,000 weekly reading partners by 2000. The 145,000 members of Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society for two-year colleges, chose America Reads as the theme for their 1998-2000-service program. "Phi Theta Kappa is a shining star," says Rasco, "This is a wonderful nationwide partnership that builds on an existing network." These campaigns have also generated extensive and favorable coverage from local media.

Further, the Department of Education has encouraged participation from the private sector. Scholastic Inc., a leading publisher of children's books, has supported America Reads by developing a training kit for tutors who work with young readers. In 1997, the company pledged to donate over a million books to national and state literacy programs aimed at younger children. In 1998, the Pizza Hut Corporation introduced a new reading program for pre-schoolers, "BOOK IT! Beginners", modeled on a school-based reading motivation program which it began in 1984. Twenty thousand preschool and pre-kindergarten facilities are now participating in the read-aloud program.

The department has worked hard to provide to build a national community of groups committed to America Reads. In 1997, it began President Clinton's Coalition for the America Reads Challenge, which now includes more than 300 local, state and national organizations. Over the last two years, the department has sponsored conferences, satellite town meetings, and teleconferences that provide fora in which coalition members can discuss issues that arise in the implementation of literacy programs. An electronic mailing list maintained by the Corporation for National Service serves the same purpose. A range of print, video and web resources are also available to support local efforts. The department has distributed over 3 million of its Read-Write-Now! Reading activity kits in English and Spanish since 1998.

Rasco says she has been struck by the enthusiasm with which communities have pursued the goals of America Reads. To illustrate, she cites the department's 1998 announcement that it would sponsor pilot summer reading programs in 50 communities across the country. The department made clear that there was no funding for the programs, although some material and advice would be provided. "We didn't have a cent to give these people," Rasco says, "but communities were fighting to participate." Fifty-eight pilot projects were eventually established.

Unfortunately, the sense of common purpose can sometimes be undermined by what department officials have called "the reading wars", rooted in sharp differences among some specialists about the best way of teaching children how to read. Rasco says that tamping down these conflicts - sometimes encouraged by media reports that find disagreements as appealing story line - has been "the most frustrating piece" of the America Reads Challenge. "No two children are alike," she says, "We have to look at a child's individual needs and use the tools that work for that child." This is a philosophy endorsed by a 1998 report from the National Research Council, which was given high profile by the Education Department. In September 1998, the department organized a National Reading Summit to brief 600 policymakers from 50 states and territories on the Council's findings. Another summit on early childhood pedagogy is planned for the spring of 2000.

WORKING WITH CONGRESS

While it has been possible to implement much of America Reads through an inventive use of established programs, the plan also included legislative action.

The President's America Reads Challenge Act, sent to Congress in April 1997, proposed a new program that would provide $2.5 billion in grants over five years to state and local agencies, and national not-for-profit organizations, to support reading tutoring programs for young children.

Obtaining congressional support for the legislation was not a simple task. Broader strains in the relationship between Congress and the Administration made progress difficult. There were also serious differences about the federal role in education, evidenced in the debate over the President's proposal for a voluntary national testing initiative, and congressional proposals to convert federal education aid into block grants to state governments.

Rasco says progress was also made difficult by a perception that the America Reads Challenge was concerned primarily with new tutoring programs, to the neglect of other issues, such as professional development for lower-grade teachers or research on methods of instruction. She recalls that staff "worked very consciously to show that we never meant that the reading issue could be solved by tutors alone. We had to change people's perceptions of what we were about."

A commitment to fund a child literacy initiative "consistent with the President's America Reads Challenge program" was included in the balanced budget agreement of May 1997 and appropriations for the program were approved in November, contingent on the passage of authorizing legislation by July 1998. That deadline lapsed, however, and negotiations on authorizing legislation continued into the fall of 1998.

Rasco says that intensive discussions with committee members and their staff were key to the eventual passage of a law. Although there were often significant differences over legislative details, Education Department staff were careful to emphasize the bigger goals shared by both side. "Over time," Rasco recalls,

They came to see what we really care most about children learning to read, that we wanted to come to the table and talk about the factors that needed to be put in place to do that, and that we were here in good faith. After a lot meetings, they saw that we were genuine and dedicated to the issue of children reading.

The Reading Excellence Act was finally adopted in October 1998 as part of the omnibus appropriations bill for FY 1999. Its focus is broader that the original bill. Eighty-five percent of funding will support improved reading instruction within schools through professional development for teachers, as well as family literacy programs. The balance is dedicated to tutorial assistance programs. Secretary Riley calls the Act "the most important child literacy passed by Congress in 30 years." The first round of grants -- $232 million, to 17 states - was completed in August 1999. The competition for a second round of state grants to begin in early 2000.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Reading Excellence Act authorizes the Department of Education to undertake evaluations of literacy programs funded by the law. It's one of several ways in which the department is tracking the performance of the America Reads Challenge. The department's National Center for Education Statistics will also complete its next national assessment of reading skills in April 2000, with more detailed assessments planned for 2002. But Rasco cautions that the diverse character of local initiatives may make it difficult to trace impacts exactly and that results are more likely to be seen in the long-term.

In the short term, feedback from tutoring programs has been very positive. In December 1998, the department was inspired to begin a companion initiative, America Counts, intended to help students master the fundamentals of algebra and geometry by eighth grade. It puts the same emphasis on community mobilization and relies on many of the same tools, such as the federal work-study waiver.

Rasco says that her immediate goal is to find ways of building the spirit of the America Reads Challenge into the culture and structure of offices within the department. "We'll be long gone," she says, "But we want the effort to keep going." Many employees have made a personal commitment to the Challenge by volunteering in local tutoring efforts. Others have worked as "phone pals" who provide advice for local initiatives. "We had one guy who used his vacation time to visit his assigned program in West Virginia," Rasco notes.

The America Reads Challenge has motivated thousands of people across the country to make similar, extraordinary contributions. "That's the big lesson for me," Rasco concludes. "People want to be part of something bigger than themselves. That's why America Reads captures their imagination. It makes them part of something bigger."