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News Release - For immediate release
Contact: Barbara Myerson Katz, Communications Specialist
Collaborative for Teaching and Learning
502-895-9500 x-319
bkatz@ctlonline.org
Nationally Recognized Louisville Educational Consulting Firm Completes Initial Teacher Training for Kentucky Content Literacy Consortium, Part of Key National Effort to Improve Adolescent Literacy
LOUISVILLE, KY (August 8, 2006) - On Friday August 11, The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning (CTL), a major partner in a $17 million, five-year Striving Readers grant from the United States Department of Education, will complete the initial phase of professional training for teachers, school administrators and literacy coaches, including a series of five-day Content Literacy Summer Institutes, through which more than 900 Kentucky teachers have begun learning how to boost student literacy in all subject areas.
One of only eight such grants awarded nationwide, and the only one to focus on a consortium of rural schools, the Striving Readers initiative is enabling the Kentucky Content Literacy Consortium (KCLC) to increase student achievement by improving the literacy skills of middle and high school students, including English language learners. KCLC also includes Danville Independent Schools as fiscal agent for the grant, and both the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. The Kentucky Department of Education is a supporting partner, helping to build connections between this project and other work statewide.
KCLC includes six Kentucky school districts in addition to Danville that are also partners in the Striving Readers grant: Eminence Independent, and Bullitt, Pike, Washington, Jessamine and Rowan County Schools. Twenty-one middle and high schools are participating in KCLC activities over the next five years. Each is implementing two programs: A previously tested school-wide initiative to boost literacy in all subject areas for all students, and a research-based intervention for struggling sixth and ninth grade readers.
CTL has developed and is leading all professional development for the consortium, including the teacher institutes which are being provided for all teachers in the KCLC schools each summer for the next five years. CTL staff will also continue to mentor participating teachers throughout the course of the project. In addition, in partnership with the University of Louisville College of Education and Human Development, CTL staff is training literacy coaches to work with teachers to implement the CTL-developed Collaborative Model for Content Literacy in each of the 21 KCLC Striving Readers schools.
The model is based on CTL's prior work in content literacy, including research sponsored by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, and takes a school-wide approach to teaching literacy, based on the developmental needs of adolescents. The first coaches' training is being conducted August 7-11 at CTL's Louisville professional development facilities. CTL staff will continue to work with the coaches monthly during the school year. Under the grant, coaches who complete 100 hours of training annually will be eligible to receive a Master's degree in secondary literacy and leadership from U of L.
In addition, on Monday August 7, principals and district administrators of the 21 KCLC schools convened at CTL for a leadership development session designed to help them support their literacy coaches and teachers throughout the coming school year. CTL staff will work with administrators three times over the course of the year.
"The collaborative nature of the model emphasizes work among teachers across disciplines who work with common groups of students," says CTL Coordinator of Program Design and Research and Striving Readers project director Amy Awbrey. "This ensures that teachers will use common methods over time, so they can build new habits of literate learning behaviors with students who would otherwise struggle to apply these skills as they learn."
Responses to the initial summer teacher institutes were extremely positive, with participants noting that the content literacy model has completely changed the way they think about teaching adolescents in all subject areas-from language arts, math and science to physical education. The training, which allows teachers to learn as their students will when they implement the content literacy model in their classrooms, "changes how teachers view what it means to be a facilitator of learning," Awbrey says. The institutes demonstrate for teachers, "how to help kids learn and apply skills with increased understanding no matter what you're teaching."
In each KCLC school, the literacy coaches will also provide intervention for struggling readers through the Learning Strategies Curriculum, a targeted intensive program developed at the University of Kansas for sixth and ninth grade students who are reading at least two years below grade level. The University of Kentucky Collaborative Center for Literacy Development will provide ongoing evaluation of all aspects of KCLC Striving Readers work.
In September 2005, CTL also received a grant from the Lumina Foundation of Indianapolis to work with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) to develop and implement instructional strategies to boost the literacy skills of community college students.
Founded in 1994 by Dr. Linda Hargan, a former Kentucky State Assistant Superintendent for Special Education and Associate Commissioner for Learning Program Development, the Collaborative for Teaching and Learning specializes in school reform at the state, district and local levels in Kentucky and nationwide. The Collaborative provides professional development and technical assistance, and has worked with the Kentucky Department of Education, the Council of Chief State School Officers and IBM, the Kentucky Arts Council, the Satellite Education Resources Center, and Jefferson County Public Schools, among others. CTL provides professional and leadership development for GEAR UP Kentucky and Western Kentucky GEAR UP/SOAR, parts of the national GEAR UP program designed to promote awareness and preparation for postsecondary education among underserved populations.
CTL is also a partner in the Appalachian Regional Educational Laboratory, a $26 million, five-year federally funded consortium that will conduct research to support improvement in student outcomes and achieve other key goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. In addition, CTL is a partner in a $2.1 million three-year federal grant to the University of Memphis, College of Education to implement its groundbreaking Reinventing Teacher Education initiative. The Collaborative received the 2001 Kentucky Governor's Education Award in the Arts, and the 2003 International Communicator Award of Distinction for excellence in multi-media professional development.
As recognized experts in professional development with extensive experience training teachers in effective classroom strategies that improve student performance, The Collaborative is particularly well qualified to provide professional development for the Kentucky Content Literacy Consortium under the national Striving Readers initiative. CTL staff includes Kentucky certified teachers with special expertise in reading, writing, math, sciences and the arts, the ability to integrate literacy skills across content areas, and a repertoire of approaches that enables students to approach core content areas in new ways, including through the arts.
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