PAGING
MRS. BUSH
Friday, March 17, 2006 • BY
KASI ADDISON • Star-Ledger Staff
Laura Bush went back to her roots as a grade-school
teacher yesterday in a visit to Newark.
Before reminding educators and
politicians that children must be able to read if they are
to have healthy and successful lives, she sat in on a
literacy lesson with a group of Avon Avenue School
sixth-graders.
As the kids showed off their reading and
writing skills, the first lady listened, smiled and
congratulated the youngsters on a job well done.
"Thanks for letting us join you for this
great work," she said with a soft Texas drawl.
Bush and U.S. Education Secretary
Margaret Spellings were at Avon Avenue yesterday to present
Newark Public Schools with a $14 million grant that, over
five years, will finance reading programs in the
academically struggling district.
Out of more than 140 school districts
around the nation vying for the literacy grants, Newark was
chosen along with seven others -- Chicago Public Schools;
Danville Schools in Kentucky; Multnomah County in Portland,
Ore.; Ohio Department of Youth Services; San Diego Unified
School District; Springfield Public Schools in
Massachusetts, and Memphis City Schools.
The grants will help finance Striving
Readers programs, which promote literacy in those middle and
high schools with large numbers of struggling adolescent
readers.
Eligibility for the grant rested on
whether the district had a high percentage of low-income
students and whether reading intervention programs were in
place.
The Striving Readers grant is a program
developed under the landmark No Child Left Behind Act, which
demands that all students be learning at grade level by
2014. The grant funds basic skills classes, professional
development and other literacy initiatives. The success of
the program has to be monitored by an independent
researcher.
The federal law imposed a stringent
monitoring system that requires schools to meet
test-performance goals each year, and those that don't
measure up face sanctions. In New Jersey, more than 900
schools missed their goals last year -- and some of those
were in Newark.
Avon Avenue is one of those city schools
struggling to meet the federal mandates, and the grant will
make that job somewhat easier, Newark Superintendent Marion
Bolden said.
"We'll be able to train our teachers on
how to implement winning literacy strategies," she
said.
The first lady was tapped by her husband,
President Bush, in 2005 to lead the Helping America's Youth
effort that promotes family, community and school as the
keys to children's success.
She plugged Helping America's Youth
during her speech yesterday, urging her listeners to work
together to ensure Newark children are safe, healthy and
learning.
"To the educators here, your
encouragement is vital to help young people so they can set
good goals for themselves, and then develop the confidence
and the skills to reach those goals," Bush said.
Students who can't read well are at risk
for becoming disengaged, disaffected and falling behind in
their studies, Spellings said
"The president calls it 'the new civil
right' throughout one's lifetime," she said. "And we just
were able to see this in action in this very
school."
In the moments before Bush's arrival,
kids mouthed greetings and practiced breathing exercises to
calm nerves. After the first lady sat through the
presentation and began to ask questions, the children's
nervousness seemed to subside, especially when she asked
what authors they liked.
When the popular children's series
Goosebumps by R.L. Stine came up, the first lady chimed in
with a story about her trip with the author to
Russia.
"He's not actually scary in person," she
said to laughs from the children.
Reading is essential if a child is going
to succeed, she said, and the Striving Readers program gives
schools the financial resources they need to improve reading
skills of older children.
"We know that with stronger reading
skills, these students are more likely to graduate, less
likely to drop out of school and more likely to go on to be
able to find good jobs," Bush said.
With the grant, Newark Public Schools'
reading intervention program, Read 180, will be expanded
into 21 schools, Bolden said.
The grant, the single largest the
district has received, will cover teacher training sessions
and evaluations by an independent researcher who will look
at whether the programs are working, she said.
She invited Spellings to come back in two
years to see how the district has changed.
"We are doing good things but, by getting
the grant, we will be doing great things," she said. "We
have taken on the challenge of doing whatever we need to
do."
Kasi Addison covers Newark Public Schools. She may be
reached at (973) 392-4154 or at kaddison@starledger.com.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
|