The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has been awarded $38 million through the United States Department of Education’s Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program. The states winning the Striving Readers Grant are:

Georgia, $25.65 million
Louisiana, $28.5 million
Montana, $7.6 million
Nevada, $14.25 million
Pennsylvania, $38 million
Texas, $66.5 million

Pending legislative approval, the program is projected to span five years with matching awards each consecutive year. Pennsylvania was one of 35 states that applied for the award.

The Striving Readers Grant was awarded to support Pennsylvania’s comprehensive approach to improving literacy outcomes for all children including disadvantaged students, limited English proficient students and students with disabilities. For more information on the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program visit: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/strivingreaders-literacy/index.html.

Pennsylvania will hold competitions to award 95 percent of the funds as “sub grants” to school districts and early learning providers. Preliminary criteria for the sub grant competition include:

• Need
• Capacity
• Comprehensive literacy plan (birth through 12th grade)    
• Quality of proposed or existing program
• Target population
• Quality of data

• Fifteen percent of funds will serve children from birth through age five
• Forty percent of funds will support students in kindergarten through fifth grade
• Forty percent of funds will serve middle and high school students  
• Five percent is set aside for state administration

Funds will support programs that advance literacy skills through:

• Professional development
• Screening and assessment
• Targeted interventions for students reading below grade level  
• Research-based methods of improving classroom instruction and practice

Part of the 5 percent set aside for administration that PDE will incorporate into the first year implementation of the grant will include district training by intermediate units in the following areas:

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and digital technology
• Building Blocks for Elementary Literacy
• Successful Transitions Along the Literacy Continuum
• Reading Apprenticeship (RA)
• Implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC)
• Family literacy and parent engagement
• Supporting learners with special needs
• Navigating content with English language learners (ELL)
• Data analysis and decision-making

No vendor’s products, services or publications are endorsed by this grant. Pennsylvania’s intermediate units are the recommended service organizations that will provide training on the key elements required for the implementation of the Striving Readers Grant.

Detailed information relating to the application process is expected to be available in November.   Below is the tentative timeline for submission. This timeline is subject to change. Details will be posted on the PDE’s federal programs web page when the application process is finalized.

Request for proposals released: November 2011
Application review: December 2011
Awards announced: February 2012   

For more information contact:
Jo Beth McKee
Striving Readers Project Director
Pennsylvania Department of Education
jobmckee@pa.gov or 717-787-7815