Davis Promotes Literacy Initiatives for Schoolchildren

Seeking to focus additional public attention on boosting the reading skills of struggling schoolchildren, Gov. Gray Davis joined business and academic leaders Monday to promote twin literacy initiatives.

Davis announced the opening of summer institutes at college campuses statewide designed to train 6,000 primary grade teachers in techniques of early reading instruction--the result of legislation Davis pushed earlier this year.

The governor also blessed a new public service and volunteer recruitment campaign, backed by The Times and other Southern California businesses, to address the alarming rate of illiteracy in the region’s elementary schools. The initiative, known as Reading by 9, is designed to help more than 1 million students in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties learn to read at grade level in English by third grade--typically age 9. It is scheduled to run for at least five years at an estimated cost of $100 million.

The reading initiative aims to have 6,000 trained reading tutors and literacy volunteers working with children by September, and to put 1 million new books in kindergarten-through-third-grade classrooms over the next school year.

“If children are to become competent learners, they must become competent readers,” Davis told educators and others at Cal State Los Angeles. “Learning to read is an essential part of the American dream.”

Both the reading campaign and the teacher training institutes are vital to fixing a glaring deficiency in the region’s schools, where the vast majority of children are unable to read at grade level, Davis said.

“Reading by 9 is focused around making sure that 95% of our children learn to read at grade level by the third grade,” said Mark H. Willes, chief executive officer of Times Mirror Co., who along with Times Publisher Kathryn M. Downing addressed the Cal State audience. “This program will be relentless in holding all key participants accountable for measurable improvement in results,” Willes said.

The $100-million regional initiative will include English and Spanish public service announcements on television and radio, as well as advertisements in local newspapers. Parents who want help can call a toll-free hotline: (877) ReadBy9.

In addition, The Times will sponsor a conference on reading this fall for teachers, administrators, parents and others. An additional reading program is envisioned for next summer.

More than a dozen businesses and organizations--including Bank of America, Univision Communications, Harley-Davidson/Love Ride, Rotary International and the Screen Actors Guild--have joined as partners in the Reading by 9 effort.

The initiative’s education advisors include the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators, and the Governor’s Elementary Reading Initiative Institutes.

The first of the governor’s new summer institutes opened Monday, with 118 teachers beginning 40 hours of summer training at Cal State Stanislaus in Central California, Davis said. A second institute will begin next week at UC Santa Cruz, and 64 others will take place during the summer at 32 colleges and universities.

The institutes are a result of four education laws Davis pushed through the Legislature this year. The other measures require a high school exit exam, establish peer review for teachers and create a new accountability system for schools.

Educators who attended Monday’s event applauded the varied efforts to tackle the state’s literacy crisis.

“We’re just thankful for a focused effort on reading,” said Kathy Perini, principal of Emperor Elementary School in San Gabriel, where 10 teachers will undergo training through the governor’s institutes this summer. “It’s something we’ve needed for a long time.”