After a busy legislative session, state legislators heard reviews for government contracts at a recent committee meeting. One of these was the assembly’s agreement with the Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) grant, awarded to the Kentucky Department of Education.
The program, also called Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy 2025, focuses on providing what it calls high-quality instructional resources, like engaging reading and multimedia materials, to public schools. These funds aim to support struggling readers, increasing literacy and reading scores across the Commonwealth.
Legislators provided mixed views on the program. Kentucky State Representative Rachel Roarx voted to approve contract with the CLSD initiative. She said one of the keys to early literacy is more reading inside and outside of the classroom, and providing educators with engaging resources is vital to encouraging young students.
“Of course with childhood literacy, it's not just about the act of reading and really honing in on our earliest learners between k-3. But also, fostering the love of reading and finding that at a very early age,” she said.
While the contract received a unanimous yes vote, Senator Stephen Meredith spoke about possible problems with the state’s current literacy programs. He said while data collection has been strong, Kentucky’s reading scores have continued to decline, and Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy 2025 is not dissimilar to previous approaches the KDE has tried to no avail.
“This is my ninth year in the legislature, and it’s been an issue each and every year. And the theme seems to be, 'let’s collect more data' and then we don't ever move the needle,” said Meredith. “The reason I ask the question about, 'do we look for additional appropriation with this next budget cycle?', is because I don’t want to spend money when we're not seeing tangible results. We need to start seeing something that truly is moving the needle.”
All schools are encouraged to apply for the grant funding, and officials with the KDE said some schools that would benefit have not yet applied. More information on Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy 2025 and CLSD funding is available on the KDE website.