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What happened
During the first Indianapolis City-County Council Education Committee meeting since last September, the Office of Education Innovation team presented $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding to increase literacy rates across Marion County schools through the Circle City Readers program.
“This is a new program that was created to fill a nationwide need for foundational literacy,” said Brooke Arnett-Holman, Circle City Readers program director. “This is also backed in the ‘science of reading,’ which makes it tutor-friendly and efficient for our staff to use even if they don’t have backgrounds in education.”
Takeaway
The Circle City Readers program tutors 354 kindergarten to third grade students across nine schools.
Of those children, 86% were considered below the benchmark at the beginning of the school year. At mid-year, 81.9% were considered below the benchmark, an improvement of 4.1 percentage points. Last year, close to 3,500 third grade students in Marion County did not pass the IRead standardized testing. Circle City Readers focuses on schools and students that show the most need. The program is already showing improvements in participant literacy rates.
“When looking at data from the beginning of the year 36.1% of students made well above average or above average growth in just six to 13 weeks of tutoring,” said Holly Morgan, assistant director of Academics at OEI.
Morgan said that students at schools with consistent tutors and teacher buy-in are most successful in improving literacy rates.
“Those are those students who are outpacing the average student and closing the achievement gap,” she said.
Summary
The City-County Council Education Committee reviews the Circle City Readers program progress, funding, and tutoring impact, emphasizing literacy improvements among high-risk students.
What’s Next
- The next City-County Council education committee meeting will be held on March 5, 2024, at the City-County Building.
This brief is adapted from notes taken by Documenter Anita Jackson, who covered the February City-County Council Education Committee meeting. Read more about what happened here.
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