The report, compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Everyone Graduates Center and the Get Schooled Foundation, offers the first national
glimpse at the prevalence of chronic absenteeism in our schools. Johns Hopkins researchers Robert Balfanz and his team studied trends in six states that have calculated their numbers: Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon and Rhode Island.

Among the findings:

• A projected 10 to 15 percent of students nationwide are chronically absent, generally defined as missing 10 percent of school days.
• The rates are highest in kindergarten and in the high school years.
• Chronic absenteeism affects students in urban, rural and suburban communities. In some urban districts, a third of the students are chronically absent, while poor, rural areas are in the 25 percent range.
• Children in poverty are more likely to be miss school regularly. In Maryland, more than 30 percent of poor children were chronically absent, compared to 12 percent of others.
• Chronically absent students tend to be concentrated in a relatively small number of schools. In Florida, 52 percent of chronically absent students were in just 15 percent of schools.

“This research reinforces what we’ve found about the prevalence and pernicious effects of absenteeism on school performance,” said Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, a national initiative that promotes better policy, practice and research on chronic absence. “It also underscores how little attention is paid to this critical early warning sign. I hope that the report and the policy recommendations it offers will encourage more states and school district to
start monitoring chronic absence data so they can intervene and prevent students from missing so much school that they fall behind academically.”

Parents and students can track absences on this online calculator on the Get Schooled website. Get Schooled is a nonprofit that runs nationwide
Attendance Challenges to improve school attendance and high school graduation rates.

The video contest is strictly voluntary and will have no influence on the outcome of the 2012 All-America City/Grade -Level Reading Awards. Consider it an opportunity to be creative and have some fun, while letting others know of the innovative work you are doing in your community.  We are hoping to get as many entries as possible and to show the best of the videos during the conference and awards presentation June 30-July 2 in Denver, Colorado.

Specs

Videos should be no more than three minutes in length. The focus should be on how your community is responding to one or all of the challenges identified by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading:   school readiness, school attendance, and summer learning loss. The video could be about:

• Something the community has already accomplished (success stories)
• How the community is going about engaging the public in a plan for the future.
• The particular challenges and opportunities the community faces as it prepares to address these issues.

We encourage creativity, good story-telling, and effective use of the medium, recognizing that most of you are not professional videographers and may be using basic equipment or even smart phones or iPads. We want you to have fun!   Use whatever software you have at your disposal to make the videos—Windows Moviemaker, iMovie, Final Cut or any video-making software you prefer.

For those who are interested in improving their video production savvy, we have produced this useful The GLR Technical Assistance Guide for Video! You can access it by linking here.

Delivering the video

Videos should be completed and sent to the National Civic League no later than  June 21.  We will post them as soon as we receive them and viewers can begin voting for them.   You can deliver the edited video to us in the following ways:

• Send us a file (preferably a Quicktime or WMV file) on a jump drive or DVD.  It can be sent to the attention of: Mike McGrath, National Civic League, 1889 York St., Denver, CO, 80206.
• Use a third party “large file sharing provider” such as YouSendit to e-mail the file or upload it to a server and send a link to mikem@ncl.org.
• Upload your video on You Tube or Vimeo and e-mail us a link to the video.*

Even if you choose to send your video electronically, please make sure and supply a copy of the video on a DVD or jump dive to NCL by the time of the event in Denver (June 30-July 2) so we can play it if your community wins.

The videos will be posted on the All-America City Facebook video page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-America-City-Awards/277887828621?sk=videos

Please do not use copyrighted music on your videos. Facebook will not allow us to post videos with copyrighted media on it. If you want to use music, there are websites you can visit to obtain royalty free music for a minimal fee.

Voting Instructions

Encourage everyone you know to “vote “for their favorite (hint, hint, your community’s) video by visiting the All-America City Award Facebook page. Use social media to spread the word. You can even use regular media (newspapers, TV news, etc) if they are willing and able.

Step 1: Voters should visit the All-America City Facebook page and click on “like” if they haven’t already done so.

Step 2: Click on the word “videos” on the upper, right side of the screen and go to our Facebook Video page.

Step 3: Click on the video to watch it.

Step 4: Click on the word “like” that will be displayed to the right of the video once it begins to play.

The video with the most “likes” will be declared the winner.

Note: when the video is first posted, it will appear in the Facebook newsfeed. People can “like” it in the newsfeed and that will be tallied also.  Videos will be posted as soon as we receive it so the sooner you send your entry, the more time it has to get “votes” by the public.

For updates on the All-America City Award Video Contest, visit www.allamericacityaward.com

We’re looking forward to seeing all the great grade-level reading work in your communities and sharing it with the world!

*Do not post the link directly on the AAC Facebook page newsfeed yourself. NCL has to put it on our video page for the “likes” to count.

As we await the Denver decision, it has become clear that what was once considered to be largely a public school commitment to proficiency for all students in the third grade (The Third Grade Promise) has become a Community Promise.

The core set of initial partners have continued to find ways of supporting each other’s strengths in promoting third grade reading proficiency.  For example, the leaders of a wide range of summer programs supported by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving are meeting with reading experts from the Hartford Public Schools, who are offering to work with them on integrating literacy activities in their summer recreation programs.

Another development revolves around the work of the Connecticut Humanities Council in its family reading programs.  The council will be aligning its content and curriculum with the common core standards applied in Hartford and Connecticut, helping to meet the goals of the Third Grade Promise.

Clearly, the process of developing an action plan has started the ball rolling in Hartford  by building upon efforts already underway, but initially
disconnected.  We look forward to Denver and the possibility of being designated an All American City to catapult these efforts to the next level.

What’s the state of Arizona doing in the All-America City contest? The short answer is: We listened when the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading called for pulling together resources toward a common goal. Foundations across Arizona decided a unified, statewide effort to improve early literacy would produce more impact than campaign in individual cities.

For years we have approached key policy and social issues by funding various initiatives, which has contributed to the development of many valuable programs but at the same time added to the fragmented approach.  Recognizing this, three funders—Helios Education Foundation, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, and the Arizona Community Foundation—agreed to approach the grade-level reading opportunity using a systems approach versus
the submission of multiple applications by individual cities.

To achieve this goal, the three funders reached out to four United Way organizations in the state: Valley of the Sun United Way, United Way of Tucson
and Southern Arizona, United Way of Northern Arizona, and the United Way of Yuma County. Collectively the United Way organizations agreed to coordinate the development of the plans from each of their communities, so that we could identify common themes, share best practices, and align indicators and outcomes to address the issues of school readiness, summer learning loss, and chronic absenteeism across the four communities.

The three funders, along with new philanthropic partners, intend to fund selected projects and strategies from the Community Solutions Action Plan (CSAP) that share the most common goals and outcomes among the four communities. The work within this campaign will also link to a broader Early Childhood Education system conversation being facilitated by the BUILD Initiative.

Helios Education Foundation, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, and the Arizona Community Foundation understand the urgency around grade-level
reading and we are working to improve the quality of the early learning environment by strategically collaborating with local and state partners to help bring resources that will create professional development opportunities for the teachers of children aged birth to 8.

Promise Neighborhoods embrace children from birth through college to make sure they succeed. Beyond education, they provide health and social services for chldren and families. In 2010, 21 communities received planning grants, and five of them received implementation grants last year. Another 15 were awarded planning grants in 2011. About half of the Promise Neighborhood communities are also part of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading network.

The latest round of grants will provide 15 new planning grants of up to $500,000 each and 5-7 new implementation grants of up to $4-6 million each, as well as funding for the five implementation grantees selected last year.

The Education Department is planning webinars on May 7, in advance of the June 8 deadline for letters of intent. Another webinar is set for June 14.

Check the Promise Neighborhoods Institute website, which offers tools and resources, updated “How to Apply” guides, webinars, and regular updates.

• The McKnight Foundation has committed nearly $6 million to two Twin Cities school districts to increase third grade reading proficiency. Prior to receiving the grants, the two Minnesota districts worked with the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute for a year to examine the full scope of research on preK-third grade education, and how best to use the grant dollars to boost literacy.
• The Grossman Family Foundation awarded $200,000 to one of our Bright Spot programs, Reach Out and Read. The funds will support the expansion of the organization’s early literacy efforts in Fairfield County, Conn. Three cities in this county – Bridgeport, Danbury, and Norwalk – have submitted their Community Solutions Action Plans for the All-America City Grade-Level Reading Awards.
• Also in Connecticut, the New Alliance Foundation has developed a grant program called READy for the Grade. The initiative will award between $90,000 and $150,000 to public libraries for programs addressing grade-level reading and summer learning loss. READy for the Grade has requested proposals from public libraries in 42 towns, and the programs developed will be funded from summer 2013 to the summer 2015.
• The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust has funded the creation of a literacy director position for the state of Arizona. The director will be a dedicated expert supporting Arizona’s literacy directives and ensuring that all children are learning to read. The Trust, along with the Helios Education Foundation and the Arizona Community Foundation, is involved with a state-wide early literacy campaign.

Some of the legislation calls for holding back struggling readers, an issue documented in this Education Week article and one being closely watched by the Campaign. We can’t afford to view this as a simple solution to a complex problem. We need a responsible approach to promotion that recognizes the path to third grade reading proficiency starts long before children arrive at school.

The bills include:

• In Connecticut, HB 5350, An Act Concerning Achieving Universal Literacy by  Grade Three, includes pieces on workforce development, parent
  engagement, and curriculum alignment as they pertain to grade-level reading. Connecticut is one of the best-represented states in the Grade-Level
  Reading Network with 13 communities involved.
• The Iowa House has passed a sweeping education reform plan that includes a controversial third grade retention measure. The Senate version of the
  bill doesn’t include the retention element.
• Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s new education initiative also recommends third grade retention in some cases. Under the plan, Ohio would test students every year beginning in kindergarten and would offer additional instruction as needed. Students not reading proficiently by the end of third grade and who had already participated in intervention plans for at least two years would automatically be held back.
• The Colorado House approved the Colorado Early Literacy Act, focused on improving reading skills in kindergarten through third grade. An earlier
  version of the bill would have required schools to retain third graders who were deemed to have “significant reading deficiencies.” After much
  opposition, the current incarnation of HB 12-1238 requires a meeting of parents, teachers, and school administrators to discuss retention.
• The Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education voted favorably on An Act Relative to Third Grade Reading Proficiency (H.1853/S.188), a bill introduced last year. The bill focuses on five areas: curriculum, instruction, professional development,
  assessment, and family partnership, and would establish an Early Literacy Expert Panel.

The localities that submitted plans by Monday’s deadline are now part of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading network, which will provide access to experts, policymakers, and foundations investing in early literacy. Many of the plans will also serve as applications for the All-America City awards, which will be announced by the National Civic League in July.

The communities—ranging from big cities such as Los Angeles, Boston, and Seattle to smaller places like New Britain, Conn.— (see list here) are addressing what is clearly a national crisis: a full two-thirds of U.S. students, and fourth-fifths of low-income children, fail to become proficient readers in the early grades.

The third grade milestone marks the point when children shift from learning to read and begin reading to learn. Students who haven’t mastered reading by that time are more likely to get stuck in a cycle of academic failure, drop out of school, and struggle throughout their lives.

“The reading problem is stark, but the solutions are clear,” said Ralph Smith, the Annie E. Casey Foundation senior vice president who is managing director of the Campaign. “By working together and focusing on school readiness, attendance, and summer learning, communities can start to improve reading success today.”

After logging in, you will have the option to either upload your application as a file or to write the application in the text fields. Both Microsoft Word and PDF files are acceptable formats for uploaded documents. If you decide to complete the application by completing the text fields, you may do so over a couple of days.

The online filing system will save your content and will not time out.  Please remember that all CSAPs should be filed by no later than 11 PM PST on March 12, 2012.

The President proposes an $85 million increase in funding for Head Start and a $300 million increase for child care quality improvement. Another Race to the Top competition will be on the way – the Department of Education budget requested $850 million for a contest for states and districts, and in a press release the department said “a significant portion of the funds would be dedicated for early learning.”

While no direct funding is proposed for the Striving Readers program, it has not been eliminated – the Department of Education has proposed consolidating several education programs, and funding for Striving Readers may be folded into other areas. Early Ed Watch provides a breakdown of this year’s proposals compared to appropriations in past years. Elsewhere in the budget, Obama recommends spending $470 million on child nutrition and $190 million in housing initiative for children, part of 1.8 percent overall increase in spending on children according to an analysis by First Focus.