Evansville

Here is an example of where the money is going from the huge childcare grant from Welborn. To me it seems a far cry from childcare. If the childcare world of providers does not already know that story time is essential as a part of early learning, we are farther behind than I thought.


By JOHN MARTIN Courier & Press staff writer
May 16, 2006

Evansville's education roundtable is working on initiatives to increase the number of local college degrees awarded and push high school graduation rates higher.

To accomplish the latter, the roundtable chaired by Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel is focusing on preschoolers. The Welborn Baptist Foundation has contracted with the National Center for Family Literacy, based in Louisville, Ky., to assist the roundtable in developing a communitywide early literacy program.

An efficiency and effectiveness study done this year for the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp. recommended the creation of such a program. EVSC Superintendent Bart McCandless said ages 3 to 5 represent "a tremendous brain-development stage," and when those children are exposed to books and other learning opportunities, "the better they will do" in school.

The National Center for Family Literacy's senior director, Cindy Read, said her staff will do needs assessment studies in Evansville and develop an action plan for the roundtable.

That plan will have several planks, one of which will involve getting information to parents about ways to help young children learn to read, said Phyllis Bussing, director of the Diocese of Evansville Schools.

Bussing and EVSC Assistant Superintendent Cathy Gray co-chair a roundtable subcommittee on improving high school graduation rates. Early childhood reading, said Gray, "was the main thrust of our conversations."

The other subcommittee roundtable, on higher education degree attainment, is utilizing resources of the National College Access Network to develop a plan, said Ivy Tech Chancellor Dan Schenk, who co-chairs the panel with Evansville businessman Robert Koch.

The National College Access Network is a nonprofit organization that will expose the roundtable to model programs aimed at improving college access, Schenk said.