The Annie E. Casey Foundation is releasing a report today (May 18th) that examines why two-thirds of our nation's students finish third grade without learning to read proficiently and what steps we can take to turn this around. Reducing chronic absence is one of several suggestions the foundation will make in the report being released at 1 p.m. at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and on a webcast.
Certainly this is not the first time we've heard that reading by the end of third grade is critical to closing the achievement gap, reducing dropout rates and creating productive workers for a global economy. But Casey's report takes a different tack, going beyond the school years to look at how we can make grade-level reading a shared national goal.
1. Casey does some backward mapping for results, realizing that accomplishing this goal requires a 0-8 strategy. The report stresses the need to engage parents early, to provide good early care and preK programs and to ensure that children arrive at school developmentally ready to succeed in school.
2. Casey recognizes that time on task, in this case exposure to literacy and language rich types of environments and instruction, is essential to early reading. Thus, there is a focus on getting kids to preschool, encouraging summer learning, reducing chronic absence and providing strong afterschool programs. In an interview with Education Week, Casey Executive Vice President Ralph Smith said, "Because we generally thought about it in terms of truancy, we haven’t really done the math. When you do that, you find that for many reasons we have not completely built a culture of attendance.”(Casey is a major investor in Attendance Counts.) There's also an emphasis on equipping parents to provide a rich language environment at home.
This is an issue that often breaks down by socioeconomic status. As we continue to point out, the long term effect of chronic absence matters most for kids whose parents might not have the resources to make up for lost time on task. At the same time, these parents are faced with the kinds of barriers--poor transportation, unstable housing ,etc that make persistent chronic absence more likely.
3. Casey's new report recognizes what we've found in Attendance Counts, namely that it takes more than schools and teachers to fix our nation's schools. Communities and families are essential partners, who can work in concert with educators, to ensure that children learn to read well by the end of third grade. So often education is just seen as the purview of educators with others saying we can’t be held responsible for this outcome. Yet, particularly when it is framed as more time on task that helps to ensure kids can achieve this outcome – it is clear a wide array of community stakeholders have a critical and essential role to play.
Recent Comments