Brownback Lays Out Three Goals For Literacy In Kansas

Thu, December 08, 2011

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KMUW / Carla Eckels

Governor Sam Brownback held a literacy summit in Emporia Wednesday. KMUW’s Carla Eckels reports, education leaders took part in a discussion on how to improve children’s literacy skills in Kansas.

Gov. Brownback challenged the group to meet three measurable objectives as part of his Road Map for Kansas.

First, to increase the percentage of 4th grade reading state assessment scores in 2013 by nine percent, second, for Kansas to be in the top five states for reading by 2014 and third, for Kansas to be number one in average 4th grade reading scores in 2018. Brownback says to meet these objectives, support is needed inside and outside of education.

Brownback: It’s going to require people in the private sector putting in more time and money, it’s going to require some different organizational structures that what we are currently in, but that’s also kind of the mood of what people are in right now is let’s figure out how we tackle an old problem, reading, in new ways that are effective. It’s got to be effective or don’t waste your time.

Don Deshler of the Sunflower Literacy Project and University of Kansas Professor of Special Education says there was a great deal of consensus at the summit.

Deshler: That we do know the things that we need to do, and what it requires is a committment to a collaborative effort of coming together with a heavy focus on preventative efforts before children get to school and then high quality instruction when they arrive, and recognizing that we need to attend to literacy instruction throughout the K-12 learning continuum.

Brownback says information collected from the summit will become part of an action plan to improve the state’s role in literacy.