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Many area children not ready for kindergarten
Nearly four in 10 Dayton children are not prepared for kindergarten, and the reason is mirrored throughout the area: Kids from low-income families are more likely to struggle early on.
School officials in Jefferson Twp. are familiar with the pattern. It’s almost 50 percent there. Other communities such as West Carrollton and Trotwood are forced to deal with a high percentage of students who aren’t ready when school starts.
In Dayton, officials will soon launch a three-year pilot program targeting 100 families with expectant mothers, babies or preschool-age children from the east and west side.
Based on the successful Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, it will attempt to link families with parenting classes, school readiness programs and social services beginning in October.
The Montgomery County Family and Children First Council set aside $1.2 million over three years for the Taking Off to Success program. The money will be divided equally among two nonprofits.
Crystal Spencer, 30, a single mom with four children, welcomes the help. Her 9-year-old son Jerry had to repeat kindergarten. She hopes 22-month-old Aden will be ready when he starts school. “My main concern is the learning Aden is going to be getting,” she said.
TOTS program modeled after Harlem Children’s Zone
A year ago, a dozen nonprofit and education leaders from Dayton went to New York City to learn more about the Harlem Children’s Zone, which dramatically boosted student achievement in some of the city’s most poverty-stricken neighborhoods.
“The results they’ve been able to produce have been amazing,” the Dayton Urban League’s Nina Carter said. “They certainly serve as a positive example for other communities.”
Carter is program manager for the Edison PreK-8 School Taking Off to Success (TOTS) program.
TOTS is modeled after The Baby College in Harlem, which offers a nine-week parenting workshop to expectant parents and those raising children up to age 3.
The three-year pilot program will work with 100 families living in distressed neighborhoods near Edison and Ruskin PreK-8 schools.
The Human Services Levy will fund the effort, with $200,000 being allocated annually over three years to East End Community Services and the Dayton Urban League if they demonstrate progress is being made.
Former University of Dayton President Brother Raymond L. Fitz, a force behind the neighborhood initiative and member of the Family and Children First Council, said the key to success is “mending the pipeline at the very beginning” before children fall too far behind.
Federal money could find way to Dayton
Kathy Emery, community affairs manager for the city’s Planning and Community Development department, said a local coalition plans to apply for the federal Promise Neighborhood grant program, an Obama initiative to put education at the center of efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas.
Local officials see a basis in successful local programs such as Dayton Public Schools’ focus on improving its K-3 curriculum and EDvention, a collaborative dedicated to accelerating science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) talent.
“The whole idea of Promise Neighborhoods is to target neighborhoods were there really are a lot of challenges,” Emery said, “but also a lot of assets that we can build upon.”
Incentives big part of TOTS budget
Diane Brogan-Adams, program director of East End’s Lynda A. Cohen TOTS program, said parenting sessions will start in October.
Both agencies have been recruiting parents to participate in three-hour classes on Saturdays that run for nine weeks on topics such as literacy and immunization. Participants will have a chance to connect with other parents and put in touch with other resources in the community.
TOTS officials will offer incentives such as $10 grocery store gift cards. At the end of the nine-week sessions, any parent who has attended all of them would be eligible for something like one month’s free rent.
“That’s a big part of our budget, the incentives,” said Brogan-Adams, former executive director of Project Read.
Kindergarten readiness a key Robyn Lightcap, director of Ready, Set, Soar, an early childhood collaborative in Montgomery County working to ensure every child is ready for kindergarten, has studied state Kindergarten Readiness Assessment — Literacy (KRA-L) data. The KRA-L scores help educators evaluate children’s literacy skills at the beginning of the kindergarten year.
The KRA-L measures six essential indicators of success: answering questions, sentence repetition, rhyming identification and rhyming production, letter identification and initial sounds. The composite scores fall between three score bands.
Lightcap noted that 73 percent of students in Oakwood fall into Band 3, which indicates advanced students, some of whom may be reading. Dayton students, meanwhile, have about 80 percent across Bands 1 and 2 .
“It’s almost flipped,” Lightcap said, noting a child in Band 1 may not be able to identify letters.
The scores don’t show some of the hidden struggles facing poor families.
“Clearly, in low-income situations, they could be moving constantly. They are highly mobile.
They could be trying to get food and basic needs met,” Lightcap said. “Learning to read may not be at the top of a family’s list.”
Fitz said the University of Dayton and Wright State University will evaluate the program’s effect on KRA-L scores.
He also wants to know if it will improve third-grade reading scores.
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he said.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
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By Emily
December 7, 2010 3:43 PM | Link to this
I’d really like a follow-up report on the TOTS program.
By Anon
September 28, 2010 12:37 PM | Link to this
I am going to listen to the former President of UD over these commentators who seem to believe all the stereotypes and have little actual awareness of the facts. Their comments also show they have forgotten the basic Christian teaching of compassion for the poor. Also, this “silly” idea comes from a Harvard graduate in Education.
By Max
September 28, 2010 10:56 AM | Link to this
While this whole issue is best addressed by non-profits, Ohio and all other 49 states and territories are going to have to create distinct boundaries - parameters, if you will - between education’s function and the scope of its responsibilities. My point of view is when education addresses home and larger social issues outside its legal mandate, then it is usurping its authority, and, thusly, the quality of its performance. When education became advocates and surrogate parents to students, and their parents, its efficacy as a system of education collapsed. It is a positive move that non-profits and faith-based organizations are assuming their tax-exempt responsibilities. This advances my position that high schools should not be providing day care for the children of students. Everyone wins when everyone does the job they are supposed to be doing including parents. Keep social services out of public education. When NCLB is effectively translated by urban districts as No Parent Left Behind, then education has failed at multiple levels. The Human Services Levy, well, I guess I could support it IF it relieved all county school districts of the financial burden regarding non-education ‘social’ programs. Again it’s a matter of education and social services, public and private, to collectively understand their boundaries and job description. When they understand it, then the voters will.
By MoM
September 27, 2010 1:22 PM | Link to this
Ready for kindergarten? What a silly statement! Next you know there’ll be an entrance exam into pre-school. Five year-olds can learn all the ABCs and read simple words by the end of kindergarten even if they came in not knowing the entire alphabet. Let kids be kids, for goodness sake! Don’t fret over grades in elementary school, just help them like learning and they will do well by themselves. I fussed over my first kid, but by the time my second one went to kindergarten, I’ve learned about parenting and let him do it at his own pace. In 3rd grade now and doing really well in math and reading. He didn’t know all the ABCs entering kindergarten. We feel for kids from troubled families. That’s why my husband tutors them in math in high school. Involve more volunteer tutors!
By Jose
September 27, 2010 1:11 PM | Link to this
Does anyone believe that learning is low on the priority agenda for poor families because they are consumed by meeting basic needs like food? My guess is most of these “families” aren’t families in the traditional sense and are subsidized by the government for food, clothing, etc. The lack of a family being the actual reason these kids aren’t prepared to learn. Another attempt by school administrators and teachers to waste taxpayer money and to over emphasize their questionable importance
By Gom
September 27, 2010 12:56 PM | Link to this
This column confuses and confounds me. What does the comment that poor families have learning at the bottom of their “to do” list because they are just trying to get food, etc. mean? Does anyone really believe that’s why kids from the “poor” areas cannot learn? These families are subsidized to the max by our government and aren’t in the fields everyday share cropping in order to put food on the table. Could the real issue be that there isn’t a family structure here to begin with? In my opinion, this is another plan for teachers to over emphasize their importance and make themselves irreplaceable. Plus, waste a ton of taxpayer money battling windmills
By NCF
September 27, 2010 11:13 AM | Link to this
That just seems like a foreign concept to me. Home schooled our first three, but kid four went to regular kindergarten. I don’t recall anything extraordinary about her being “ready.” Next kid goes in three years. I bet he gets to read to his class like I did when I was in kindergarten. I gave him his first dictionary at the hospital instead of a ball glove.