Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque_All America City Letter of IntentOctober 12, 2011
All- America City Awards
National Civic League
1899 York Street
Denver, Colorado 80206
RE: 2012 All- America City Awards Letter of Intent to Apply
Dear All- America City Awards,
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
of Greater Dubuque
700 Locust Street, Suite 195
Dubuque, Iowa 52001
Phone: 563.588.2700
Fax: 563.5 83.6619
www.dbqfoundation.org
We are submitting this Letter of Intent to Apply for the 2012 A11- America City Awards. I understand
that by submitting this letter by October 14, 2011 that our community is eligible for training and
technical assistance to develop a plan to move the needle on third -grade reading success.
After gathering a broad base of support and commitment among our colleagues; the public, private,
civic, philanthropic, and faith communities, it is with great enthusiasm that Dubuque, Iowa
announces intent to apply for this award. We are ready to put together an effective and compelling
plan for addressing the challenges in improving reading achievement in our city - particularly
among our at -risk children. We will work in a collaborative manner with focus areas including
school readiness, chronic absence, and summer learning loss.
Our growing network of committed partners includes the:
City of Dubuque
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Every Child /Every Promise
Dubuque Community School District Foundation
Holy Family Schools
Iowa State Extension Office
Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce
Dubuque County Early Childhood
All of these partners have experience working together. As we prepare our formal application, we
are solidifying a committee to assess the current efforts to support grade -level reading in our
community. Our current data indicates that we have opportunity to improve our reading success.
MAP scores indicate that 42.1 percent of our third graders are meeting their reading growth targets
at the end of the 2010 -11 school year. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) shows 80.6 percent of
our third graders proficient in reading. We need an effective, coordinated and data driven plan to
reach the remaining children who are not achieving proficiency, many of whom we know are non-
white students and living under the average income level in our community.
We are gathering data to serve as a baseline on school readiness, attendance and summer learning,
which we will use to identify specific goals and map progress as we work to ensure that children
are proficient readers by the end of third grade. We will use the data to set goals and create action
plans for mobilizing the broader community, including parents, child care providers, educators, and
others to work toward helping more children enter school ready to learn, build a strong
commitment to regular school attendance in the early grades, and provide meaningful learning
opportunities to keep kids on track during the summer months.
A few important resources are already in place to support this effort:
• Four -time award winner of the "100 Best Communities for Youth"
• Every Child /Every Promise Youth Indicators Report - a report distributed to the entire
community that displays a set of indicators measuring our youth's progress toward
receiving all 5 Promises.
• Every Child /Every Promise Youth Master Plan - a comprehensive community plan that
outlines community efforts and resources needed to provide better outcomes for our young
people.
• Empowerment Parents as Teachers- a proven parent education model featuring
intimate, in -home visits with parents and children that helps children, age birth through
kindergarten grow up healthy, safe and ready to learn.
• Literacy efforts supported by Mercy Hospital, Loras College and our school district also play
a role and can engage community and business in the effort. Another existing effort that can
be leveraged is the St. Marks Community Center offers after school programs that focus on
supporting some of our children most in need with reading tutoring in a fun and caring
environment.
Additionally, our community has a successful history of collaboration around important issues.
Envision 2010 facilitated a community visioning process that identified 10 big, bold ideas to move
the community forward, the results included an expansion of the Carnegie Stout Library, the
opening of the Crescent Community Health Center and the implementation of a Spanish Immersion
program in a Holy Family elementary school. In 2006 Every Child /Every Promise gathered the
community to identify goals and engage community members in the needs of our children. This
effort and our Mayors proclamation made Dubuque a Community of Promise and resulted in a
Youth Master Plan and the development of a platform to make data about our children's outcomes
and needs available to the community.
We stand ready to accept the challenge, put forth by the All- America City Award, to improve school
readiness, attendance and summer learning in order to increase third grade reading success.
Sincerely,
Lo,
Mayor Roy D. Buol
City of Dubuque
p- C an
Community oundation of
Greater Dubuque
Dubuque, Iowa Contact:
Eric Dregne
Vice President of Programs
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
700 Locust St. Dubuque, IA 52001
eric@dbqfoundation.org
563 - 588 -2700
Doug Horstmann- Chairman
Every Child /Every Promise
Page 1 of 3
Mike Van Milligen - More Than 150 Communities Pledge to Make Early Reading an Urgent
Priorityade
From: "National Civic League" <ncl @ncl.org>
To: <ctymgr @cityofdubuque.org>
Date: 10/17/2011 3:58 PM
Subject: More Than 150 Communities Pledge to Make Early Reading an Urgent Priorityade
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Cities, Counties Pledge to Make Early Reading an Urgent Priority
October 17, 2011
Contact Mike McGrath
303 5714343; mikem @ncl.org
Mayors, county officials, and other civic leaders from more than 150 U.S. communities
have agreed to target early literacy as an urgent priority, recognizing that children who
don't learn to read well by the end of third grade are more likely to struggle academically
and less likely to finish high school.
A pact between the National Civic League and the foundation -led Campaign for Grade -
Level Reading allows these communities to join the Campaign's network, which will
provide assistance throughout the application process and help cities develop community-
wide plans for improving reading achievement by the end of third grade. These localities
will also be on the radar screen for the Campaign's 80 foundations and philanthropic
donors, who fund early childhood and early learning and literacy projects.
The cities and counties, representing more than half the states and millions of school
children, are addressing what is clearly a national crisis: A full two thirds of U.S. students
fail to become proficient readers in the early grades, and schools cannot fix this without
community support.
The communities— ranging from big cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore
to smaller places like El Dorado, Kansas ( see full list) —are developing strategies to
tackle three underlying issues that have consistently kept children from learning to read
well:
• school readiness — too many children are entering kindergarten already behind
• school attendance — too many young children miss too many days of school
• summer learning — too many children lose ground academically over the summer
The cities and counties have signaled their intent to apply for the 2012 All- America City
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Awards, which will go to those that develop the most comprehensive, realistic, and
sustainable plans to deal with these three challenges.
The concerted local action comes at a time when states and the federal government are
paying particular attention to early education through legislation and grant programs. It
also complements efforts underway by United Way Worldwide and the National League
of Cities, both key partners in the Campaign. Other major partners include the United
States Conference of Mayors, America's Promise Alliance and the Council for a Strong
America, whose Mission: Readiness affiliate brings a strong national security message to
the Campaign and other efforts to improve the prospects of the nation's youngest children.
"We've put a stake in the ground to cut the number of high school dropouts in the U.S. by
half, and we know that boosting reading proficiency by the end of third grade is critical to
meeting our goal," said Brian A. Gallagher, president and CEO of United Way
Worldwide.
The national movement focusing on grade -level reading responds to a "call to action"
issued by a special Annie E. Casey Foundation KIDS COUNT report, Early Warning!
Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters. The 2010 report underscored the
troubling data on student achievement and poverty: Only 17 percent of low- income
children scored proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Half of them hadn't even mastered basic reading skills.
Children who don't read well by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop
out of high school than proficient readers, 2011 research shows. Poverty compounds the
problem: Poor children who don't read proficiently early on are 13 times more likely not
to finish high school than good readers who have never lived in poverty, according to
Double Jeopardy: How Third -Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School
Graduation.
"Those numbers are catastrophic and they bode ill for those children," said Ralph Smith,
the Casey foundation senior vice president who is managing director of the Campaign.
"They bode ill for their families. They bode ill for our communities, and they bode ill for
the nation as a whole. Clearly, we must hold schools accountable for helping all children
achieve. But schools cannot succeed alone. We need to bring together communities to
help solve these problems."
The All- America City Award is given annually to 10 communities recognized for
outstanding civic accomplishment, with an emphasis on innovation, inclusiveness, and
collaboration among community leaders. It does not come with a cash prize, but cities
have touted it to attract new businesses and seek higher credit ratings. The Campaign will
provide assistance to cities to develop their final applications, which are due in March.
Finalists will be selected by April, and the winners will be announced in June.
"Any community that works collectively and passionately to get all children reading and
succeeding in school will see tremendous benefits," said Gloria Rubio - Cortes, president of
the National Civic League. "Regardless of whether a community wins, this process will
allow places across the country to develop ambitious, doable, and coherent plans that can
help close the academic achievement gaps, improve graduation rates and guarantee a
better future for our children."
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The local push complements what state and federal leaders are doing to improve early
learning:
• On Tuesday, U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin (D -Iowa) and Michael Enzi (R- Wyoming) will
begin mark -up on a plan to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary School Act
(ESEA). The draft plan includes provisions for early learning.
• On Wednesday, as many as 43 states will submit applications for $500 million in
grants from the federal Early Learning Challenge Fund. The program, administered
jointly by the U.S. Education and Health and Human Services departments, will
reward states with the best plans to improve learning in the years before a child
arrives at kindergarten.
"City leaders are uniquely positioned to champion local efforts to boost early reading
proficiency, which can not only bridge the achievement gap and reduce dropout rates, but
will also strengthen a city's workforce and advance its broader economic development
agenda," said Clifford Johnson, executive director of NLC's Institute for Youth,
Education and Families. "We are excited to lend our support and resources to cities
participating in the Campaign for Grade -Level Reading."
For more information, contact the National Civic League at 303 571 4343.
1889 York Street 1 Denver, CO 80206 US
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