Eight continuation awards were made in 2007 to support the second year of program implementation in the eight districts that received Striving Readers awards in 2006. Those eight sites and the programs they are implementing are described on this page.

Striving Readers FY 2005/2006 GRANTS

Grantee: Chicago Public Schools, District #299
Chicago, Illinois
Project Name: Chicago Public Schools Striving Readers
Total Grant Award: $24,548,234

Chicago's Striving Readers project is aimed at transforming teaching and learning in 32 middles schools serving grades 6-8. The District will provide intensive interventions in reading instruction in an after school setting using a program called Achieving Maximum Potential, developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Chicago will work with National Louis University to provide comprehensive professional development to create a seamless, aligned approach to reading instruction and literacy across language arts, social studies, science, and math classes. The district will partner with Learning Points Associates to undertake a rigorous experimental research evaluation.

Grantee: Ohio Department of Youth Services
Columbus, Ohio
Project Name: Striving to Achieve in Reading and Re-Entry (StARR)
Total Grant Award: $14,018,555

The Ohio Department of Youth Services, in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio State University, will implement a Striving Readers project to address the literacy needs of students in grades 6-12 within State juvenile corrections facilities. The program includes reading coaches, professional development in scientifically-based reading instruction for teachers, implementation of READ 180 as an intensive, targeted intervention for struggling readers, and a rigorous research evaluation by the Center for Learning Excellence at Ohio State University.

Grantee: Danville School District
Danville, Kentucky
Project Name: Kentucky Content Literacy Consortium (KCLC)
Total Grant Award: $16,195,959

Eleven high schools and 12 middle schools in rural Kentucky will employ full time literacy coaches trained in cross-disciplinary literacy coaching by the Collaborative for Teaching and Learning. Each school will implement two complementary literacy initiatives - the Collaborative Model for Content Literacy, a cross-disciplinary approach to improving adolescent literacy developed and supported by the Collaborative for Teaching and Learning, and Kansas Learning Strategies Curriculum, a targeted intervention for students two or more grade levels behind in reading (with training and support provided by the University of Louisville). The University of Kentucky's Collaborative Center for Literacy Development will provide a rigorous experimental research evaluation.

Grantee: Newark Public Schools
Newark, New Jersey
Project Name: Newark Public Schools Striving Readers
Total Grant Award: $13,968,272

Newark Public Schools will implement READ 180 as its intervention for struggling readers and will work with the National Urban Alliance and New Jersey City University to improve the quality of literacy across the curriculum. As a district in need of improvement with a glaring unmet need for attention to the literacy needs of middle school students, Newark is focusing its Striving Readers project on grades 6-8 schools with at least 75 percent of students on eligible for free and reduced price lunch and identified as in need of improvement under NCLB. Westat will be the district's external evaluation partner.

Grantee: School District #1, Multnomah County
Portland, Oregon
Project Name: Striving Readers Project
Total Grant Award: $23,536,956

Portland School District will provide research-based and targeted interventions to more than 1700 struggling readers in grades 6-10 and schoolwide strategies for embedding literacy in all content areas to more than 6,000 students. Portland will partner with the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning to implement the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM), with Portland State University for literacy professional development, and with RMC Research to will conduct an independent and experimental evaluation of the Striving Readers project.

Grantee: San Diego Unified School District
San Diego, California
Name of Project: Strategies for Literacy Independence Across the Curriculum
Total Grant Award: $17,574,149

San Diego proposed to implement a program designed by the district to address literacy K-12 - Strategies for Literacy Independence Across the Curriculum, which provides struggling readers with a continuum of literacy interventions in feeder groups of middle and high schools. The focus is on students entering middle or high school struggling to read and the goal is to have students on grade level and passing the California High School Exit Exam in grade 10. The program will support services in six schools for 375 teachers and approximately 6,000 students. The Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research Center will evaluate the SLIC school level and targeted interventions.

Grantee: Springfield Public Schools
Springfield, Massachusetts
Name of Project: Springfield-Chicopee Striving Readers Program
Total Grant Award: $16,655,483

The Springfield Public Schools, together with Chicopee Public Schools will continue the work of Smaller Learning Communities reform focused on the reading and writing ability of more than 7,000 students in high schools, grades 9-11. Their approach relies on University of Kansas' Strategic Instruction Model's (SIM) content enhancement routines for teachers as the whole school strategy - the project anticipates training more than 500 teachers and 10 literacy coaches during the grant period. Springfield will also employ two targeted interventions for struggling readers including READ 180 and the SIM Content Literacy Curriculum. The evaluation will be conducted by Brown University's Education Alliance.

Grantee: Memphis City Schools
Memphis, Tennessee
Name of Project: Memphis Striving Readers
Total Grant Award: $16,074,687

Memphis' Striving Readers project is designed to test the efficacy of the Memphis Content Literacy Academy professional development model for improving reading achievement and content literacy in high-need urban middle schools serving grades 6-8. All core subject content teachers in Striving Readers schools will be randomly assigned to participate in the professional development program. The district will employ READ 180 as a targeted intervention for 960 students in grades 6-8. The University of Memphis will implement the school level intervention and Research for Better Schools will evaluate the district's Striving Readers project.