Schools get $17 million for literacy program
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
Hawai'i public schools will receive $17.7 million in federal money during the next six years to improve reading skills in young children in a program intended to reach every classroom from kindergarten through third grade.
The first $2.7 million will go to 25 elementary schools that will have to compete for the money, the U.S. Department of Education announced yesterday. Eventually, 75 Hawai'i schools will receive money for improving reading instruction, though teachers in all schools will get special training.
The state is one of 17 so far to receive the money under Reading First, a major component of the No Child Left Behind Act, the new federal law that mandates improvement in math and reading scores in high-poverty schools.
President Bush has touted Reading First — which will give out as much as $900 million to states in its first year and more than $1 billion in subsequent years — as a way to make sure children are reading on level by grade three.
And while the Reading First money falls short of what Hawai'i received under the 1996 Reading Excellence Act, the DOE's Judy McCoy said the $17.7 million grant is a welcome infusion of federal dollars at a time when the state is trying to build its reading programs.
The grant will be in addition to what the state spends to run classrooms, and should help schools add depth and richness to the curriculum, said McCoy, administrator for the languages section of the DOE's office of curriculum, instruction and student support. Also, about $600,000 will be spent in the first year to train teachers around the state — not just at the 25 selected schools — in the latest reading instruction techniques.
Susan Neuman, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education for the U.S. Department of Education, said the effects should be far reaching.
"Every teacher, K-3, will be touched by Reading First," she said. "Every special-education teacher in the state, K-12, will be touched by this."
Neuman also said the federal government was sticking by strict requirements that state reading plans be based on research in order to qualify.
"Most of our problem in reading is not the children; It's quality instruction," she said. "Hawai'i should be proud of itself: Winning this grant shows that they understand what is needed to improve."
To receive the grant, schools must plan to teach five components: vocabulary, fluency, reading comprehension, phonics (understanding the relationship between letters and sounds) and phonemic awareness, recognizing that letters and sounds make up words.
"Most of the basal programs don't meet all the criteria," McCoy said. "Some schools use literature-based reading programs, but they may not have phonics. Research shows you want to have all of those elements to be successful."
Although many high-poverty schools have purchased school reform programs that target literacy, such as Success For All or America's Choice, schools do not have to buy into such programs to qualify for the grant, McCoy said.
Hawai'i schools will have to apply for the grants, and a panel of reading experts will decide which schools should receive money. To qualify, schools must have at least 45 percent of their student population eligible for the free or reduced lunch program, a widely used indicator of poverty.
Schools that are not high poverty must have at least 30 percent of their students scoring in the lower third on the reading portion of the Stanford Achievement Test, the standardized test given to Hawai'i students each spring, and have at least 20 percent of students on the free or reduced lunch program.
Schools could receive the money by the end of the school year, McCoy said.
Reading First will give $17.7 million to 75 schools in six years, while the Reading Excellence Act provided $18 million to 60 schools in three years beginning August 2001. That represented the first time Congress released grant money specifically to help schools teach reading.
"It will be more competitive this time, so there will be more schools disappointed," McCoy said.
The state will have to show that campuses that receive the grants are improving in reading to continue receiving grant money.
"This mirrors the Board of Education policy that calls for reading proficiency by the end of grade three, and underscores the maxim that reading is the first and most important skill in learning," said Superintendent Pat Hamamoto. "Educators often say, 'Learn to read by grade three; read to learn for life.'"
