Literacy project’s strong leaders go for difficult goal

Powerful forces have united in Fort Worth to build literacy among the city’s youngest residents.

There is no more fundamental building block for success than literacy — and that’s as true for a city as it is for individuals.

What’s most impressive about the Fort Worth literacy project is that so many segments of the community’s leadership have united behind it.

At the official announcement on Monday, local government was represented by Mayor Betsy Price, the business community by BNSF Railway Executive Chairman Matt Rose and educators by Fort Worth school district Superintendent Kent Scribner.

Impressive as those leaders are, they are but the top of a long list of supporters. Funding is expected to come from business and philanthropic organizations, with support already from the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, the Miles Foundation, the Amon G. Carter Foundation and The Commit! Partnership.

Also on hand for the kickoff, held at Oakhurst Elementary School northeast of downtown Fort Worth, were other civic and business leaders.

While that deep support would be the envy of any local project, it will be needed and must be sustained to meet the literacy challenge in Fort Worth.

Scribner, who has been on the job as Fort Worth school superintendent for only a year, recognized the need for targeting literacy shortly after his arrival. And from the beginning, he has talked about uniting the business and philanthropic communities in that effort.

The heart of the problem, Scribner has said, is that today only 30 percent of Fort Worth third-graders can read at grade level.

Grade-level reading by third grade is the goal of schools across the nation, because that’s when students need reading skills to build the rest of their learning.

Educators have also recognized the benefits of pre-school in helping students begin to read, recognize numbers and colors and work in groups.

But while 80 percent of Fort Worth’s 4-year-olds attend pre-school, only 50 percent are ready when it’s time for them to move on to kindergarten.

Those numbers clearly must be turned around. As Price, Rose and Scribner pointed out, education — founded on reading skills — is essential in building a strong local workforce, which in turn is necessary for attracting new 21st century businesses and jobs.

The goal of the literacy project is ambitious: to have 100 percent of the Fort Worth school district’s third-graders reading at grade level by 2025.

Moving from 30 percent to 100 percent in nine years will be difficult. Sustaining this top-level leadership will be important in achieving that goal.

This story was originally published September 26, 2016 at 6:35 PM with the headline "Literacy project’s strong leaders go for difficult goal."