Gov. Meyer declared a literacy emergency at the start of his term after years of stagnant reading proficiency scores.
The state’s Department of Education Secretary Cindy Marten has since put together a strategic plan through 2028, the Department’s first in over a decade. One of its tenets is devoted to getting 53% of students reading on grade level by third grade.
Reading proficiency sat at 52% for students third grade and younger before the pandemic, and Marten said she aims to get students 1% higher than that by 2028.
Right now, that number sits at 38%.
“That's as measured by the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium),” Marten said. “That is not the only measure, and/or in some ways, not necessarily the most important one, but it is a North Star for 2028… And so all of this investment, if we've legislated and we've done the fiscal appropriations, now we need to do the implementation, and that's what this is all about.”
Accelerate’s $1.9 million State Implementation Fund grant and $6.1 million from Bridge to Practice grants will help put Delaware’s Early Literacy Plan into action, Marten says.
That will go toward teacher training, leadership development and data systems to track proficiency.
“The most important place to check that progress towards 2028 is at the school level,” Marten said. “The assessments that are closest to the students are actually the most meaningful. So school principals get together in data teams, school superintendents look at their district-wide data.”
Focusing on having kids reading on grade level by third grade ensures more positive life outcomes, Marten says.
