New Orleans has a big goal for its 300th birthday in 2018: Leaders want to make New Orleans the most literate city in America through a program called Turn the Page. The initiative kicked off January 22 with an effort to break the Guinness world record for the largest read-aloud event. About 500 kids attended to hear some of the city’s finest musicians play, including Grammy-winning bandleader Irvin Mayfield, one of the major forces behind the literacy campaign, and New Orleans actor Wendell Pierce, known for his work on “The Wire” and “Treme,” who read aloud from “The Bourbon Street Band is Back.”
The Turn The Page program unites 11 library systems and many media organizations throughout southern Louisiana in a simultaneous effort to improve school readiness among preschoolers, reading ability among school-age kids, digital literacy, and literacy among adults. Last month’s kickoff began a blitz of 30 literacy-encouraging events in 30 days, such as the “Super Bowl of Reading,” through which people vote for their favorite author to be featured at area libraries, individual computer classes to help people get online, and a pajama story time for kids. The Turn the Page website will make literacy tools available.
Central Connecticut State University conducts an annual literacy survey of in cities across America, measuring such factors as educational attainment, the number of booksellers, and the availability of library resources, and ranks cities. Last year New Orleans ranked 25th out of 75. Given all the efforts the people of New Orleans are making to improve literacy, 2013’s number one city, Washington D.C., is going to have to hit the books to hold off New Orleans’ challenge.
MORE: What Looks Like A Birdhouse And Promotes Literacy?
Tag: Literacy
To Change Public Education, This Nonprofit Is Hacking the System
In order to effectively change American education, it’s imperative to understand what schools, students and their teachers are lacking. DonorsChoose, an online nonprofit that has channeled more than $220 million to classroom projects, has been collecting data on the country’s educational needs and charitable donations for the past 13 years, gathering a treasure trove of information into giving in the U.S. education system. Now, for the first time, DonorsChoose, in partnership with Looker, a software company that focuses on data discovery and business intelligence, is releasing this unprecedented data collection to the public, free of charge, through their Hacking Education initiative, in order to allow citizens to generate their own insights into the state of public education.
MORE: The Radical School Reform That Just Might Work
Starting today, anyone with a valid email address can request access to explore DonorsChoose’s more than 20 million records, which Looker has combined with public education data. This allows people to learn about what schools need and which causes donors are more apt to support. “Exploring and analyzing our data through Looker has helped us develop strategies to increase charitable donations to schools,” Charles Best, CEO of DonorsChoose said in a press release announcing the initiative. “By identifying giving trends, we can better restructure and target our fundraising.”
DON’T MISS: The Surprising Secret to Improving Math Skills
So what factors do drive funding to schools in need? Here are some examples [PDF] from DonorsChoose’s 2013 Giving Index — a report that analyzes 340,000 donors, $60.2 million in donations and more than 130,000 school projects during the course of the year:
- People are far more likely to donate funds to schools within 25 miles of their zipcodes.
- Elementary education received the most funding, topping other grades by more than $3 million.
- Literacy and language projects received 42 percent of funding, followed by math and science, which received 30 percent. Health and sports received the least amount of funding, with 3%.
- 50 percent of projects requested basic school supplies and books.
- STEM projects were most funded for older students (grades 9–12).
These types of insights — many and more of which can be found through DonorsChoose’s Hacking Education initiative — can chart the course for research, spending and fundraising to help teachers find the tools they need to provide students with the quality education they deserve.
ALSO: Is This the Pinterest of Math and Science Education?
Meet the Incredible 13-Year-Old Who Delivered a Million Books to Kids in Need
Maria Keller loves to read—and she’s determined to share that love with everyone around her. The 13-year-old bookworm founded the nonprofit Read Indeed five years ago with the goal of delivering 1 million books to low-income children before she turned 18. At the halfway point, the organization has already exceeded her ambition, donating 1,032,067 books worth roughly $4 million.
Read Indeed collects donations through book drives and drop-offs offs at the organization’s Plymouth, Minnesota, warehouse, and the books are delivered to schools, hospitals, community centers and churches, according to Women You Should Know. Some of Keller’s favorite books include The Giver, The Help, Hatchet, Treasure Island, Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and the Harry Potter series. “I love the fact it can kind of take you anywhere and you don’t think about the life outside of reading,” she told MyFox9.
Keller’s next goal is to deliver books to all 50 states and to every country in the world. “You are never too young or too old to make a difference,” she said.
MORE: This Could Be the Greatest Business School Hack Ever
What Looks Like a Birdhouse and Promotes Literacy?
In 2009, Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisc., had a brilliant idea to honor his mother, a bookworm and retired schoolteacher: He built a small model of a one-room school house, filled it with books, and stuck it on a pole in his yard with a sign that said “Free Books.” His little library became so popular that Bol built more and gave them to people to install in their yards. Eventually he teamed up with Rich Brooks of the University of Wisconsin, who had an idea to turn this effort into something much grander—a way to promote literacy nationwide, give people access to free books in communities where they’re hard to come by, and encourage more reading. They initially set a goal of building 2,509 of these birdhouse-like “Little Free Libraries,” the same number of libraries that Andrew Carnegie supported at the turn of the 19th century. But in the past five years, they’ve far exceeded their hopes. As of this month, Little Free Library counts between 10,000 and 12,000 registered small libraries across the world, with more built every month.
On its website, Little Free Library offers instructions on how to build and maintain libraries using recycled materials, and for the less-handy, it sells libraries that are already built and ready to install.
Every year, more people and organizations become involved in the Little Free Library movement. For example, The United Way of Northwest Georgia recently undertook a project to build and install 25 little libraries, inspired by member Carey Mitchell’s outsized book collection that he wanted to share with others. While Little Free Library warns people not to install libraries in public places without permission, communities throughout northwest Georgia have embraced the idea, and 25 libraries will soon be installed in public parks and areas. Now they’re just looking for a few volunteers to help maintain the libraries, keeping them clean and stocked with books. Especially in towns where bookstores have closed or libraries are distant, these little beacons of literature are welcome additions to the landscape.
This Non-Profit Is Teaching Immigrants Much More Than Just Language
The Burmese Immigration Project is a nonprofit organization in Milwaukee that helps new arrivals from Myanmar learn English and settle in to their new lives. As volunteer coordinator Becca Schulz explains in this video, people fleeing ethnic conflict in Burma often end up in places they’d never imagined—like Wisconsin. The 35 volunteers in the Burmese Immigration Project use English immersion to teach immigrants the language, and provide kids with tutors twice a week to help with homework. Another part of their mission is introducing the kids to American culture—so the Burmese Immigration Project takes the kids to Brewers games and the zoo, and throws parties for their families to experience Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Halloween.
What These Kids Do For Their Parents Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity
Kids of first-generation immigrants often find themselves playing the role of translator for parents trying to navigate the English language. The Literacy Council of Montgomery County in Maryland decided to encourage those kids’ roles as important teachers for their parents by offering multi-generational English classes for immigrants. The classes are offered once-a-week at several schools, and encourage parents and children to work together on literacy skills, especially those that are useful to parents on a day-to-day basis, such as making budgets and reading supermarket signs—though the kids might be hesitant to teach their parents to read report cards too closely.
Poetry Program Offers Hope to Detroit Schoolchildren
Poet Terry Blackhawk founded the InsideOut Literary Arts Project as a way to help public schoolchildren and teenagers in the struggling city of Detroit express themselves and assure them that their voices matter. InsideOut brings volunteer teacher-poets into 27 Detroit public schools and serves 5000 kids each year through writing workshops during classes and after school. At the end of the year, InsideOut gives each student a published book featuring their work. InsideOut also hosts regular poetry readings by students, some of whom continue to write poetry after graduation.