Starting in 2010, Congress invested more than $1 billion to assist states with their literacy improvement efforts through the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) program. SRCL was designed to target funding toward disadvantaged schools (defined in several ways), encourage staff to use evidence-based practices, and support teachers in providing fully comprehensive literacy instruction. In total, this competitive program has awarded grants to fourteen states through two application rounds (with a new round just concluded). A recent study from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) assesses how well SRCL implementation has been aligned with program goals and whether student learning in grant-winning states has improved as a result.
Specifically, analysts examined data from the eleven states—Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oklahoma—that won awards in 2017 during the second round of grants. The average award was $33 million and was intended to provide three years of literacy support. Data come from school leader surveys describing their approach to using the grant funds during the 2018–19 school year, district staff surveys describing how SRCL funds were used that year, wide-ranging teacher surveys in both 2018–19 and 2019–20, and state grant director interviews. The U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and Evidence for ESSA databases provided curriculum rating information. Administrative and academic data on students were gathered from various national and state level sources through the 2018–19 school year.
First up, targeting. Overall, the grant funding went where it was supposed to. On average, SRCL schools were relatively disadvantaged compared to non-SRCL schools. Across the four types of student disadvantage that states most commonly considered—low socioeconomic status, English learner status, disability status, and migrant or foster care status—73 percent of SRCL schools ranked in the most disadvantaged quartile in their state on at least one type. In contrast, just 53 percent of non-SRCL schools were disadvantaged in any way, and very few of those were in the top quartile. However, this overall finding masks some problematic targeting in certain states, where student disadvantage was minimally considered as a subgrant criteria or considered at a lower priority than SRCL intended. The analysts note that “some states that placed a heavy emphasis on targeting in the subgrant competition did not achieve it.”
Second, spending. The vast majority of districts (82 percent) used SRCL funds to purchase a core literacy curriculum for all students or a supplemental program to help struggling readers. Unfortunately, many of these curricula were not high quality, meaning they were not supported by strong or even moderate evidence of effectiveness. Of the 236 programs purchased with SRCL funds, only 12 percent had a strong or moderate evidence review rating. No published research could be identified for almost half of the programs purchased. The fault for this is laid at the feet of skittish state grant directors. According to interviews with state officials, only two states (Montana and North Dakota) emphasized the importance of strong or moderate evidence in their grant competition process. Other frequent purchases included literacy-related professional development (84 percent of SRCL districts), books unrelated to a specific curriculum (64 percent), or parent engagement activities (50 percent).
Third, implementation. The researchers looked at six key practices of effective and comprehensive literacy instruction, including an emphasis on phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing; frequent opportunities to practice reading and writing; and regular use of formative assessments. They then assessed each district and school on its adherence to these practices. Overall, no more than 11 percent of teachers in any grade band engaged in all six practices; approximately 80 percent of K–8 teachers met at least three of the six applicable to their grade. The percentage for high school teachers was considerably lower (63 percent). Additionally, high school teachers reported emphasizing practices more common to lower grades (decoding, comprehension, grammar, etc.), which may be an indication that their students were still reading and writing at an elementary school level.
Finally, outcomes. Evidence from the first year of grant implementation shows no difference between SRCL and comparable non-SRCL schools in English language arts achievement trends overall. Combining results across states and grades, the overall difference in ELA achievement between SRCL and non-SRCL schools with similar demographic characteristics was very close to zero and not statistically significant. A tiny glimmer of hope comes from Louisiana and Fordham’s home state of Ohio, which both showed small positive differences in achievement overall. However, disadvantaged students—those specifically intended to be helped by the SRCL grant effort—showed no difference in achievement whether attending SRCL or non-SRCL schools in any state or grade.
The analysts stop short of calling the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy program a failure, citing the possibility that a further year of implementation might yield some actual improvement. There is no concrete reason, however, to assume that previous state decisions on unproven curriculum and established patterns of weak on-the-ground implementation would change significantly without additional incentives or intervention—none of which was forthcoming. And of course, that following year of implementation was 2019–20, when Covid-mitigation disruptions wiped out both data and the positive momentum of many students who had it. Moving forward from pandemic learning losses, states can likely learn a valuable lesson from this example: Money can’t buy success in the realm of literacy interventions without focusing on evidence-based best practices that are implemented faithfully.
SOURCE: Michael S. Garet et al., “Did the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant Program Reach Its Goals? An Implementation Report. Evaluation Report,” National Center for Education Evaluation at IES (May 2024).
