Last week, policymakers announced that the Fiscal Year 2011 federal budget increases funding for education, but a closer look at the proposed budget indicates that direct funding for effective literacy programs such as Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), Literacy Through Libraries, Even Start, Ready to Learn TV, Striving Readers, and the National Writing Project (NWP) will cease under the new budget. Money historically allocated to support these programs will be folded into a larger, competitive grant program offered to states.
Please contact your congressperson and show your support for these programs. Both RIF and NWP include additional information on their sites, accessible through the links here. With so many questionable educational initiatives, we must fight to keep literacy programs that have been proven to work.