CHICAGO – Libraries are taking a proactive approach toward engaging parents and caregivers in supporting the early literacy development of their children, and the Every Child Ready to Read® @ your library® (ECRR) Program is an excellent tool to ensure libraries’ success. These were two of the key findings of a study released this month by Dr. Susan B. Neuman, a professor of childhood education and literacy development at New York University.
ECRR is based on two core concepts: reading begins at birth, and parents are a child’s first and best teacher. Currently more than 6,000 libraries have invested in the ECRR Toolkit, which is used to implement ECRR in the library.
In 2013, the Public Library Association (PLA) and Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to conduct a national study on the effect of library programming on parent behavior and engagement using the ECRR model. From 2013-2016, the research team – consisting of Neuman, Naomi Moland, and Donna Celano – observed and evaluated storytime programs at 57 library branches representing 36 different library systems across the country. From that group, 20 target libraries were selected for the study—ten that were deemed to be strong implementers of the ECRR curriculum, and ten that were not. Neuman et. al. observed significantly greater engagement of parents and caregivers in the libraries that used the ECRR program: these libraries offered more opportunities for parents and children to interact, more parents-only workshops, and more diverse program offerings.
“Libraries are emerging as community centers that promote family engagement, thus serving an important mission of fostering school readiness for children in many communities,” the report reads. “Libraries are playing a particularly vital role as resource brokers, helping to connect parents with services and resources, as well as a space for parents and children to work on literacy skills.”
A 2016 survey of city and county managers highlighted early childhood education as one of the top three community priorities in which local government leaders see public libraries playing an important role. ECRR enables libraries of all sizes to better equip families to succeed as early childhood education providers.
“Our library was an early adopter of Every Child Ready to Read, and we’ve been very happy with the curriculum, resources, and marketing materials that support the program,” says Clara Bohrer, director of the West Bloomfield Township (Mich.) Public Library. “For our staff, ECRR has helped create a ‘springboard’ for new ideas and practices that we use in engaging families and strengthening early literacy programming.”
ECRR is the foundation upon which PLA has established its Family Engagement Initiative. The term “family engagement” refers to the shared responsibility among families, educators, and communities to support children’s learning and development. By implementing ECRR and other family engagement strategies into their programming, PLA encourages its member libraries to form respectful partnerships that offer the information, guidance, and opportunities for families to be active in their children’s learning and development.
“Public libraries across the U.S. are embracing their role as the community’s hub for early literacy,” says PLA Executive Director Barb Macikas. “PLA and our partner, the Association for Library Service to Children, are thrilled to confirm that our Every Child Ready to Read® (ECRR) @ your library® Program is having the desired effect by helping libraries engage parents and caregivers to be their children’s first, and best, teachers.”
“This report further validates the importance of the early literacy work librarians do every day,” adds ALSC President Nina Lindsay, a children’s services librarian at Oakland (Calif.) Public Library. “Our job now is to make sure communities are aware of the strong literacy development available in their neighborhood libraries.”
Click here to download Bringing Literacy Home: An Evaluation of the Every Child Ready to Read Program.
About PLA The Public Library Association (PLA) is the largest association dedicated to supporting the unique and evolving needs of public library professionals. Founded in 1944, PLA serves nearly 9,000 members in public libraries large and small in communities across the United States and Canada, with a growing presence around the world. PLA strives to help its members shape the essential institution of public libraries by serving as an indispensable ally for public library leaders. For more information about PLA, contact the PLA office at 1 (800) 545-2433, ext.5PLA, or pla@ala.org.
Andrea D. Lewis is Assistant Professor and Chair of the Education Department at Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga. In her latest book, Preservice Teachers, Social Class, and Race in Urban Schools published by Palgrave McMillan, she explores her experiences growing up as a post-civil rights Black student in a middle-class, White community who went on to teach in a high-poverty school. She also examines how middle class teachers of color can balance economic and social class when working in low-income schools. NEA Today talked to Lewis about her book and her research findings.
What was different about your educational experience as a child and your experience as a new educator in a high-poverty community?
Lewis: The major difference was the lack of funding. As a child I attended schools brimming with supplies, the latest technology and bright and cheery, updated facilities. When I started teaching, I paid for everything to set up my classroom, from bulletin board paper to pencils. There were limited resources for basic school supplies and classroom necessities. I had two or three outdated computers in my classroom that typically didn’t work, the halls and classrooms were dark and in need of paint, and the bathrooms needed renovating. While there was an obvious need to update the building, the budget was nonexistent to make it happen. It was disheartening.
What expectations did your students and their parents have of you based on your race and class?
Lewis: My students and parents had high expectations of me as a young Black teacher, but in terms of social class, I think I was more nervous and fearful of my ability to connect with my students and parents. They saw me in the community making home visits and trying to make a difference in the classroom, which assisted in breaking down boundaries. I did have to learn to communicate with parents who insisted on being difficult. Although I was intimidated at first, I learned and grew to see through their frustration and pain. They were not mad at me, but at larger systems that had failed them.
Pennsylvania teens and young adults with disabilities now have access to a free app designed to help them find jobs, manage their needs and get on track to living independently.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration and the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania announced the app’s rollout Wednesday afternoon in Downtown Pittsburgh.
“This new app prepares students for their future in either post-secondary education or employment (by) offering them access to information, education and training resources, and eventually success in a job that pays,” said David DeNotaris, executive director for the state Department of Labor & Industry’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Nearly six in 10 of students with disabilities can’t find jobs after high school or give up looking, according to the Campaign for What Works, a statewide coalition that advocates for youths with special needs.
CROSSROADS NEWS — Parents, grandparents and anyone raising school-age children, as well as property owners in DeKalb and across Georgia, can find out about the new national education law – Every Student Succeed Act, or ESSA – at a Black Parents’ Town Hall Meeting on Educational Excellence on Oct. 23 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
The law, which will impact how children are educated, takes effect in 2018, but while Georgia completed its 112-page State Plan on Sept. 18, there has been little conversation in our communities about the plan.
The town hall panel of experts includes Georgia PTA President Tyler L. Barr; Patrice Barlow of the Atlanta NAACP Education Committee and an Urban League of Greater Atlanta education advocate; Deborah Gay, Georgia Department of Education deputy superintendent for Federal Programs and Special Education; and Dr. Knox Phillips, DeKalb School District’s executive director of Research, Assessment, and Grants.
It takes place 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and is hosted by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, “The Black Press,” as part of a national public awareness campaign to heighten awareness among African-American stakeholders about opportunities presented by ESSA, which President Barack Obama signed into law to replace the No Child Left Behind law.
Parents and other stakeholders will get to ask questions and get clarification about how they can best advocate for their children under the new law.
Dr. Elizabeth Primas, NNPA’s ESSA program manager, said that education has been a bridge leading to upward mobility for African-Americans in the United States even before emancipation.
“Now, more than ever, it is important that we ensure our voices are heard to ensure the academic success of our children,” she said. “ESSA prioritizes high quality education, equity, and closure of the achievement gap. By raising awareness of ESSA, we are seeking to empower stakeholders to advocate for such policies.”
The meeting is hosted by Atlanta’s black-owned newspaper publishers, including CrossRoadsNews.
Jennifer Parker, CrossRoadsNews editor and publisher, said the town hall meeting is a great opportunity for parents and stakeholders, including homeowners, to find out about the law and what is coming.
She said that even homeowners who don’t have children in the school district should attend, because the quality of our schools directly affects our property values and they too can be advocates for quality education.
“People buy homes in counties with quality schools, so this affects all of us,” Parker said. “And parents with kids in school need to know how to navigate the law to get the best resources for their kids education.”
Dr. Benjamin Chavis, NNPA’s executive director, said NNPA is asking church leaders across Atlanta to announce the meeting at services and send emails to their congregation.
“Moral leadership in education is paramount,” said Chavis, a former NAACP executive director and civil rights leader who at age 24 was sentenced to 34 years on arson charges with the Wilmington Ten.
Chavis and the other nine members walked to their freedom in 1980 after the federal appeals court overturned the convictions. They were pardoned by N.C. Gov. Beverly Perdue on Dec. 31, 2012.
The Black Parent Town Hall Meeting takes place in Ebenezer Baptist Church’s Martin Luther King Sr. Community Resources Complex at 101 Jackson St. N.E.
Free parking is available behind the Community Resources Complex; across the street from Ebenezer’s sanctuary; and in the National Martin Luther King Center’s parking lot off Irwin Street.
For more information, call Jennifer Parker at 404-284-1888.
By Rushern Baker (County Executive, Prince Georges County, Md.)
On November 4, 1952, Dr. Helen Kenyon addressed the Women’s Society of Riverside Church in New York City and opined that, “Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often paraphrased the quote.
Today, sadly, our public schools best reflect Dr. Kenyon’s and Dr. King’s sentiment as the most segregated place in America.
The rampant re-segregation of American public schools poses a greater threat to the trajectory of America’s progress than terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and Russian meddling in our elections. Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board, the GAO (Government Accountability Office) reported that from the years 2000-2014, both the percentage of K-12 public schools in high-poverty and the percentage of African American and Hispanic students enrolled in public schools more than doubled, and the percentage of all schools with so-called racial or socioeconomic isolation grew from 9 percent to 16 percent.
Research shows that racial and socioeconomic diversity in our classrooms leads to higher than average test scores, greater college enrollment rates, and the narrowing of achievement gaps. These gains don’t just apply to poor and minority children either—every student benefits from learning and engaging with peers from different backgrounds. Despite the evidence, today our public schools are more segregated than they were 40 years ago.
As an advocate for children and families, and as a public servant, who has fought for more resources for students, I believe we must act boldly to save free, high-quality public education for all.
Some of the very leaders tasked with solving the negative effects from school re-segregation offer shortsighted policies that exacerbate racial and economic divisions. The ripple-effect, consequences of their misguided thinking remains the greatest policy foible of the modern era. Lazy logic behind bad policy feeds a perception that that the achievement gap exists simply, because poor and minority students learn differently than their wealthier, White peers. Rather, it is directly tied to declining enrollment, lower property values, and the dwindling resources available to tackle mounting challenges in the communities that surround underperforming public schools.
The greatest irony remains that those promoting harmful education policies use the same language of “giving every child a chance at a high-quality education” to pitch their tax-dollar-poaching and resource-pilfering experiments to desperate parents.
Rather than making public education a number one priority, a Hunger-Games-like competition for vouchers and charter schools leaves parents and students fending for themselves. The families that lose the education lottery end up at schools with increased needs and declining resources. In Maryland, our Governor’s BOOST voucher program set aside $5 million dollars of public money to help 2,400 families pay for their child’s education. Yet, 80 percent of the families receiving these grants had children who were already enrolled in private schools.
Vouchers, whose American roots can be traced back to some Southern states’ attempts to avoid integration, perpetuate segregated education and are nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to cut off funds to public schools. It gets even worse. Some communities have simply seceded from the larger school district, as we’ve seen in Alabama and Tennessee, to keep from integrating their schools. Since 2000, the U.S. Justice Department has released 250 communities from their desegregation orders and consequently facilitated their financial and administrative secession from their school districts.
After all those factors lead to a dip in school performance, students and their communities are stigmatized as “failing.” Schools close. Quality of life drops; economic prospects dwindle; public safety decreases; and the cycle repeats, so that higher needs populations receive even fewer resources.
I know. I’ve lived through it. It’s time to back up the big talk of “opportunity for all” with policies that don’t ask parents to compete for a few spots, but instead, make public dollars work for every child.
We’ve embraced this mission in my home of Prince George’s County, Maryland where I serve as County Executive. Though we know our best days are to come, we’ve seen incredible progress: increased enrollment; higher graduation rates; an increase in innovative academic programs; and more students receiving college scholarships.
The debate over how we improve public education can’t begin with state-funded segregation, which harms communities and students, especially our most vulnerable. Let’s secure our children’s futures and the future of America by making a meaningful investment in quality public schools for all.
Rushern Baker, a graduate of Howard University, is the county executive in Prince George’s County, Maryland. You can follow him on Twitter at @CountyExecBaker.
By Lynette Monroe (Program Assistant, NNPA ESSA Media Campaign)
In my role as the program assistant for the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s (NNPA) Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Public Awareness Campaign, I closely followed the proposal process for the District of Columbia’s ESSA plan. I have to admit, I was disappointed by the final version of the plan submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. Overall, D.C.’s ESSA plan is, at best, an incomplete assignment. The ‘to be continued’ tone of the plan could be partly due to the discontent expressed by many community members during the final stakeholder meetings. Parents and educators alike expressed concern about the lack of resources and implementation strategies to support the Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s (OSSE) aggressive goals for academic proficiency and high school graduation. The participants at the meetings noted the glaring socioeconomic disparities throughout the district and the unique resources required to increase achievement in each ward. One could conclude that OSSE’s aggressive academic goals are mirroring the affects of a rapidly gentrifying city that continues to marginalize the needs of its majority Black residents.
According to District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), 71 percent of their student population is Black and 70 percent of the entire student population qualifies for free or reduced lunch. In August, DCPS released the latest scores for tests under the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC). Black students showed the smallest improvements with a 4.8 percent increase in English Language Arts proficiency and a 2.1 percent increase in math proficiency. In both categories, less than 20 percent of Black students achieved proficiency in reading and math. This increase is compared to a 6.2 percent increase in English Language Arts proficiency for Hispanic students in the district and a 9.6 percent increase by their White counterparts. Similarly, Hispanic students showed a 5 percent increase in math proficiency while White students increased their proficiency by 4.8 percent. According to the PARCC assessment, less than 30 percent of Hispanic students are proficient in reading and math. While more than 80 percent of White students, according to PARRC, exhibit proficiency. White students make up just 10 percent of the DCPS student population.
DCPS needs to try harder to raise the test scores of its Black students. DCPS should also quickly work to reaffirm their commitment to expanding college and career support for students, especially Black students.
At a recent town hall meeting hosted by the National Newspaper Publishers Association in Atlanta, Ga., Vickie B. Turner, a school board member for District 5 in the DeKalb County School District, encouraged participants to reach out to parents, who were not present at the town hall and who are not engaged, declaring “we are preaching to the choir.”
Nevertheless, we all share a responsibility to educate our children. Some parents may not be able to dedicate as much time to participate in their child’s education as others. You can help out by dedicating an hour, as often as you can, to make sure Black parents are present, represented, and fighting in the best interest of our children. “It takes a village” is not just a cliché or an excuse to discipline a stranger’s child. It is a vow to develop the whole child, irrespective of his or her parent’s shortcomings.
To learn more about the District of Columbia’s plan, or your state’s plan, to implement ESSA, the nation’s new education law, visit nnpa.org/essa.
Lynette Monroe is a master’s student at Howard University. Her research area is public policy and national development. Ms. Monroe is the program assistant for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow Lynette Monroe on Twitter @_monroedoctrine.
Schools in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico are slowly getting to their feet, but the struggle is particularly difficult in areas outside major urban centers, as Congress and federal officials continue to work out aid packages that could help the island’s still mostly shuttered educational system.
When Hurricane Maria struck the island Sept. 20, the nearly 1,200 schools in Puerto Rico went dark, leaving about 350,000 students in the public K-12 system out of school. And many schools that began to reopen in recent weeks were operating largely as community-support centers, rather than normal instructional environments, until recently.
As of the week of Oct. 23, 119 schools had officially opened their doors for instruction in the cities of San Juan and Mayaguez, according to Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher. Some of the 190 schools on the island that had been operating as community centers since Maria have consolidated their operations.
Keleher said she hoped that approximately 150 more schools in Bayamon and Ponce (two relatively large cities in the U.S. territory) could restart classes this week.
At the moment, Keleher said her schools’ biggest need is electricity. She said she did not know how many of the schools that had opened were doing without electricity.
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been revised by Congress several times. In 1965, Congress created the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was later reauthorized as The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and was most recently reauthorized in 2015 as The Every Student Succeeds Act. This act is important because it means that States and school districts are responsible to ensure that every child achieves.
According to the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), this bill is important for Special Education because it “…goes even further than the original NCLB in many ways to assist these students to successfully graduate and become college and/or career ready.” The ESSA ensures three important things for students with special needs including ensuring:
Access to the general education curriculum
Access to accommodations on assessments
Concepts of the Universal Design for Learning will be used The Every Child Succeeds Act includes provisions that require schools to provide evidence of interventions in schools with consistently underperforming subgroups. The ESSA also requires states to address things like how they will improve conditions for learning, reduce harassment and bullying, and prevent overuse of discipline practices including restraints and seclusion.
The ESSA does other important things to help students in Special Education including:
Takes a proactive role in making sure students with learning and attention issues have access to general education curriculum and are not off track from being able to receive a high school diploma
Maintains annual reporting of assessment data disaggregated by subgroups of students including students with special needs
Maintains a 1% cap (with some modification provisions) of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who can take alternative assessments that are aligned to alternative academic achievement standards
Requires disaggregation of key data about student progress to ensure that students with disabilities receive the supports they need The Every Student Succeeds Act also recognized that the IEP team (including parents) is in the best position to make important decisions related to a student’s academic, assessment, and social emotional needs.
The Every Student Succeeds Act also recognized that the IEP team (including parents) is in the best position to make important decisions related to a student’s academic, assessment, and social emotional needs. The ESSA also mentions Specialized Instructional Support Personnel (SISPs) which are able to implement early intervention programs for students who need specific support and help them to transition into a general classroom. For states that allow parents or guardians to do, the ESSA acknowledges the rights of parents and guardians to opt their children out of statewide academic assessments.
As part of each episode of Transition Tuesday, we provide additional tips, teacher tools, and resources related to the topics we cover. For this week’s bonus, we are providing a PDF with three great resources regarding the Every Student Succeeds Act, which can be accessed by clicking this link – http://tensigma.org/episode84bonus
To learn more about Ten Sigma’s educational resources for teachers or parents, please visit our website http://tensigma.org and you can also connect with us on social media at:
If you know anyone else who would benefit from the information we share in these videos, please share this video and invite them to visit http://transitiontuesday.org We hope you enjoyed this episode and that the information we shared about the Every Student Succeeds Act is helpful to you.
THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION — This post is from blogger Jillian Luchner, who is a Policy Associate with the Afterschool Alliance. The Afterschool Alliance is a nonprofit public awareness and advocacy organization working to ensure that all children and youth have access to affordable, high-quality afterschool programs.
The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the long-awaited successor to No Child Left Behind, creates a unique framework for school boards, teachers, administrators and communities to work together to make sure all children have access to high-quality, well-rounded education.
At the NSBA’s January 19 forum, “Public Education Agenda for America’s Success,” panelists discussed how the new law, new administration, and new Congress would affect education across the nation. Despite some level of uncertainty, panelists spoke to how school boards and local – even family level -decision making could be expected to play a larger role than in the recent past. When asked specifically about what school boards might do, much of the panelists’ conversation focused on the regular school day, but panelist Gerard Robinson of the American Enterprise Institute noted that afterschool programs are a time-tested, research-based part of the solution that should not be overlooked.
Afterschool and summer programs across the nation have a strong history of supporting school systems’ efforts to provide students with a well-rounded education that puts them on the path to wellness and success. These out-of-school-time programs provide students with educational opportunities, enrichment activities, access to physical activity and nutritious meals and snacks, as well as opportunities to build leadership and social connections. Notably, afterschool programs do all that during what’s sometimes called “prime time for juvenile crime” – the afternoon hours when children are most likely to be either perpetrators or victims of crime and when working parents worry most about their children’s safety.
Research shows that students who regularly attend quality afterschool programs improve their academics, have better school attendance and are more likely to graduate. Moreover, , the Afterschool Alliance’s recurring, nationally representative parent survey, consistently finds that parents strongly support afterschool programs. In the 2014 survey, the most recent, 89 percent of parents with a child in a program reported being satisfied with the program. In addition, 84 percent of all parents supported public funding for afterschool, while more than 7 in 10 said they think afterschool programs reduce the chance that their child will participate in risky behavior. Additionally, 80 percent of parents report that their children’s programs offer students opportunities for physical activity, and three in four parents are happy with the healthy snacks their student’s program provides. Despite high demand, for every child enrolled in an afterschool program, the parents of two more children say they would sign their children up, but cannot either because a program isn’t available or because it isn’t affordable.
District school boards often play an important role in leveraging resources to expand access to afterschool and summer opportunities. Afterschool and summer programs are frequently operated as a partnership among community nonprofits and school districts, with funding from federal, state and local sources as well as businesses, foundations, parent fees and other contributions. The average 21st Century Community Learning Center (a federally funded program that supports competitive grants in every state) has nine partner organizations with which it coordinates, which contribute in financial and in-kind support.
Across the nation, school system partnerships with afterschool programs have expanded opportunities for students while helping districts meet their goals for student success and family involvement.
The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Public School System has an out-of-school-time office that works with 80 different district partners to oversee summer programming for thousands of district students. Using research-based systems of support, the office coordinates closely with out-of-school time providers in the district and supports data, quality and systems-building to meet the city’s goals of graduation and college- and career-ready students.
In the early 1990s, the Corbin Independent School District (Kentucky) created the Redhound Enrichment afterschool program after conducting a community needs assessment in the district. Originally focused on providing a much-needed safe place for children in the afternoon hours, the program subsequently expanded its offerings to include more academic components, with the support of a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant. Twenty-five years later, the program is still in operation, employing a project-based learning model to provide a mix of academic supports, hands-on activities, physical activity and opportunities to primary and secondary students.
In Redwood City, CA the district builds partnerships with non-profit and private providers including youth centers, parks and recreation, Boys and Girls Clubs and the YMCA to offer afterschool opportunities. The programs give children opportunities for academic support, developing new skills and relationship building as well as other opportunities. Parent surveys show 97% satisfaction with the programs.
Such efforts are the tip of the iceberg, as afterschool programs across the nation work with school districts to promote student success.
With the Every Student Succeeds Act going into full implementation this year, now is a perfect time for districts to coordinate more closely with afterschool and summer learning programs. Final state plans are due to the federal Department of Education in either April or September and many state drafts (see our map) are out now. As part of that process, school districts will engage parents and other community stakeholders to consider how to meet state goals for improving graduation rates, academic achievement and student engagement and reducing chronic absenteeism.
Afterschool and summer programs are well-poised to help meet all these goals, and the 50 statewide afterschool networks stand ready to help connect school districts with afterschool and summer learning programs in their communities.
Jillian joined the Afterschool Alliance team as a Policy Associate in 2015. Her work involves tracking trends in afterschool policy and programs at the state and federal level and communicating successful and innovative approaches toward supporting youth during out-of-school time. Jillian worked for years as a teacher and afterschool educator in the Washington D.C. region. She also served as an AmeriCorps VISTA and community development director in California’s Central Valley. She holds undergraduate degrees in Economics and Geology and a Master’s in Public Policy specializing in education from the University of Maryland at College Park.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The West Virginia Board of Education (WVBE) received an update on the SecondLaunch Initiative at its October board meeting. The initiative, which was created by the West Virginia Department of Education in June 2015, continues to expand its reach, providing much needed technology to students throughout the state. Now, in its third year, SecondLaunch has saved the state $3 million in technology costs and has provided more than 8,000 computers to students in 47 counties.
Computers and other technology equipment are donated to SecondLaunch from West Virginia government agencies as well as private industry. Equipment is then wiped, cleaned and upgraded to meet the requirements of the programs used in schools. Computers, monitors, keyboards and mice are packaged together for ease of use and assembly, and schools can pick the computers up at the SecondLaunch warehouse in Charleston.
“Through the SecondLaunch Initiative, we are working to ensure that all students have access to technology and resources they need” said West Virginia Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Steven Paine. “Our goal is to have the program in all 55 counties, and work with educators to make sure that a lack of resources is never an obstacle for educators to provide the best education possible for our students.”
In addition to state agencies, private industry has also joined in and donated equipment to SecondLaunch.
“The program’s success depends on the donations we receive,” said David Cartwright, who oversees the program. “We have been fortunate to form a partnership with Toyota Motor Manufacturing in West Virginia, who has become a generous and recurring participant. Our hope is to expand our private partnerships so we can continue to see the program grow.”
SecondLaunch helps students interact with the technology they will encounter in life after high school, whether it be college or the workforce. Some of the state’s earliest learners also have access to the SecondLaunch materials, allowing West Virginia students to utilize 21st century learning resources every day.
CHICAGO – Libraries are taking a proactive approach toward engaging parents and caregivers in supporting the early literacy development of their children, and the Every Child Ready to Read® @ your library® (ECRR) Program is an excellent tool to ensure libraries’ success. These were two of the key findings of a study released this month by Dr. Susan B. Neuman, a professor of childhood education and literacy development at New York University.
Andrea D. Lewis is Assistant Professor and Chair of the Education Department at 
By Rushern Baker (County Executive, Prince Georges County, Md.)
Schools in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico are slowly getting to their feet, but the struggle is particularly difficult in areas outside major urban centers, as Congress and federal officials continue to work out aid packages that could help the island’s still mostly shuttered educational system.
