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Farewell to reading
Filed under: Development/Milestones: Babies, In The News, Day Care & Education, That's Entertainment
As a kid, I read voraciously. Rarely was I without a book in hand. I was, it seems, unusual in that respect, however. Not every family valued books as highly as mine did and many kids did not have easy access to lots of books early on. I do remember, however, a program that provided books to kids who otherwise wouldn't have them -- Reading is Fundamental.It always made sense to me to encourage reading in kids -- if you want a literate populace, you need to get them reading early on, and if you want a successful, functional society, you need a literate populace. Otherwise, you have to get a lot more park benches and open a lot more McDonald's.
Well, it turns out that that program is still around, providing books and reading encouragement to 4.6 million children across the country. The program hands out 15 million (wow!) books to young and at-risk kids each year. RIF got started way back in 1966 and has been funded continuously by Congress and six Administrations since 1975.
All that may change, however. President Bush has eliminated funding for RIF in his proposed budget. Gone. Kaput. And how much did this program cost us each year? A mere $25.5 million dollars. I know that's a lot to you and me, but to keep things in perspective, the cost of the war in Iraq is estimated to be as much as $255 million dollars per day. That's ten times as much as the RIF program needs yearly, every single day.
I remember seeing Leslie Nielsen's public service announcement for RIF from the late 70's where he says "To a child who doesn't read, the world is a closed book." That really struck home for me -- I couldn't imagine not having lots of books, filled with adventures and excitement. So as you might guess, I am definitely in favor of funding the RIF program.
If you agree, now is the time to ring up your representatives in Congress and let them know that you think the Reading is Fundamental program is worth funding. Otherwise, we may end up with a lot of kids for whom the world is a closed book.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
2-13-2008 @ 9:57AM
Lisa said...And under what clause in the Constitution does the federal government have the power to use taxpayer funds for giving away books? Oh that's right, there isn't one. Sorry - it shouldn't be funded in the first place then. Besides, every kid having a math tutor would be great, too, but seriously - we can't fund everything!
It is a great program, and I've given money to it, but if it's that valuable to society, then it should be able to survive on donations.
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2-13-2008 @ 1:24PM
SKL said...As an officer on the board of my county's leading literacy organization, I am knowledgeable about literacy programs and literacy funding.
RIF is only one of hundreds or maybe thousands of literacy programs - many funded by the federal government, many funded by state and local governments, and many funded by (imagine!) corporations and the foundations that those evil rich people give their ill-gotten gains to. Actually the biggest chunk of money comes from corporate America, but that's another story.
RIF has been evaluated against other literacy programs that the US government has tested and funded. There are various factors involved in this evaluation - some meaningful, some political.
For example, studies have shown, and it's the concensus of literacy organizations, that Head Start is pretty much a waste of money, but because it is so hard politically to stop funding it, it continues to pull money away from other programs that actually work better.
If RIF goes away, there will be other programs to take its place, but the question is, how are decisions being made about which programs really increase literacy? Obviously the mere existence of a funded program doesn't mean more kids will read well. And throwing good money after bad is worse than funding nothing at all. If you really care about this issue, you should get involved and work to really understand what's out there in the literacy community, and what will have the best impact on literacy for all, and then get off your duff and do something about it (e.g., volunteer to tutor kids in schools or donate good books or something besides just bitching about what someone else is or isn't doing).
Unfortunately, making books available to kids only helps those who are motivated to read, and this motivation comes more from educating caring parents than from offering free books. Our organization receives thousands of books and works hard to find someone to distribute them to. Up to a point, and especially when they are distributed to programs that actually work with parents, they find their way into children's personal libraries, and some of them even get read. But for many of these books, we can't get people to take them for free. In our case, because the government doesn't fund our book distribution program (all are donated by, e.g., Scholastic, Borders, etc), we can still continue it, but honestly, any meaningful accountability standard would dictate significant changes if not termination of such a program were it funded by taxpayers.
The fact is, for most of the target population, literacy isn't about access to books, but about good role models in the early years and meaningful motivators after that. Like, seeing your parent actually having to use academic skills in order to support the family, and openly admiring successful public figures who worked and studied hard to become successful, which many "disadvantaged" kids don't see.
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