Stimulus for Literacy

The Pittsburgh Public School District is to receive $43 million in federal stimulus funds over the next two years and Superintendent Mark Roosevelt wants to use the money for literacy programs...specifically to make sure 9th graders are ready for 9th grade academic expectations. Roosevelt says the district has had success over the last few years boosting reading proficiency of third and fourth graders to 65% but they have to focus on the middle grade students who are not proficient. Roosevelt told DUQ News that he's proposing a 2 pronged approach to improve middle grade literacy: interventions during the regular school year and a summer program filled with fun activities ranging from sports to theater to chess "but all suffused with literacy." Roosevelt says one goal for the summer program is to get the students to do something that is difficult, well, and they will realize they can do it with their school work also. Roosevelt says the interventions during the school year would involve creating an individual literacy plan for every child who is not proficient in reading by grade 6 and diagnose the skills they lack, and develop a plan that involves in-school time, after school time and the summer programs. Roosevelt says the federal government asked that the money be used for job creation and for student growth and achievement....."we're going to error on the side of student achievement" because that is "our moral duty." He says there will be some job creation by contracting out some of the summer programs and there will be retention of jobs that might have been lost in the district. Roosevelt is to present his proposal to the Pittsburgh School Board Tuesday.