The National Civic League (NCL), which sponsors the annual All-America City Awards competition, recently announced that it is putting its model of community engagement and community solutions to the test by challenging applicant cities across the country to help increase the number of low-income children reading on grade level by the end of third grade.
Recognizing that educators and researchers have long recognized the importance of mastering reading by the end of third grade, yet two-thirds of U.S. schoolchildren are not reaching that benchmark and that children who do not read by the end of third grade and live in poverty are six times more likely to fail to graduate from high school, NCL is joining forces with The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. The Campaign’s goal is to increase by 50 percent the number of low-income children reading on grade level in 3rd grade in at least a dozen states during the next ten years.
In 2012, NCL will focus the All-America City Award on communities that work collaboratively to develop strategies for locally-owned community solutions in the three areas that have real potential to drive improvements in grade-level reading including school readiness, attendance, and summer learning.
Over the next year, the NCL will work closely with its national partners - the National League of Cities, United Way Worldwide, and the United States Conference of Mayors - to provide technical assistance to those communities who step up to the reading challenge. These national partners also plan to engage in extensive collaborative efforts with their own constituencies to further broaden the Campaign’s impact across the U.S.
For more information about this campaign, please visit:
NLC: All-America City Competition Will Challenge Communities to Help Children Read
NLC: Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
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