Central New York community foundation determines how to use government aid to improve literacy rates among children, adults

By: Candace Tracy

Posted: 2/11/08

To Bruce Carter, teaching literacy goes beyond the books in a classroom.

"It's not just about reading. Kids are playing video games and negotiating the web -literacy is all of those things," said Carter, associate professor and associate dean in the College of Human Ecology. "We shouldn't be focused on just what's in print."

Onondaga County is one of the state's eight "literacy zones," which are impoverished areas that the state, like Carter, wants to revitalize via community efforts to improve general literacy skills. New York State has budgeted $5 million for this cause, offered by the Regents Board, with Onondaga County as one of the recipients.

Guided by the Central New York Community Foundation, more than 160 Onondaga county officials and community members met last week to discuss the specifics of the literacy coalition - tentatively set to be made public in April

Local non-profit and private organizations have been promoting literacy in the city of Syracuse for years, but this new program hopes to tackle the issue on a broader, countywide scale.

"The goal of the initiative is 100 percent literacy through 100 percent community engagement," said Sara Wason, executive director of Development for Syracuse University Foundation Relations and coalition member.

The aim will be to help kids in the school system, maybe even before school and those who are still illiterate as adults, she said.

Carter asserted that adult literacy is no longer just about reading and writing.

"Employee literacy is a broad discussion," he said. "Should we teach them to just be literate in their jobs or literate and armed with tools at a more general level?"

Representatives from institutions of higher learning, local businesses, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, adult and family literacy advocates and the K-12 school system were present at the literacy coalition, said Kathy Hinchman, professor and department chair of Reading and Language Arts and coalition member.

"The task force is identifying action steps and priorities for literacy," she said.

The coalition will work on developing a set of "measuring tools" to determine what steps to make along the way, as well as when the goal has been achieved.

Along with Carter, Wason, Hinchman and many SU faculty and students are members of the coalition, involved in the planning process and the ultimate implementation of the initiative.

Currently, the SU Literacy Corps is one organization that works to fight the city's literacy needs and, although it is a separate entity, it will continually be involved in the county's initiative as it develops.

"SU Literacy Corps has been involved in improving literacy since the 90s; it makes sense that we would be involved in this," said Pamela Heintz, director of the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service (CPCS).

The Corps was formed in 1997 to answer a desperate need for literacy support in the community and to mobilize SU students to tutor and mentor at local elementary and secondary schools and community centers, according to a pamphlet.

"Literacy Corps is different from other volunteer organizations because we are consistently sending tutors. We're always filling the gap," said Meghan Dilks, a senior political science and English major and four-year SU Literacy Corps' veteran.

Tarell Hoskey, a sophomore children and family studies and pre-med major, has been a member of SU Literacy Corps since his first semester freshman year. The Syracuse city school district is "terrible," he said, but he's hopeful the efforts are making a difference.

"The kids get so attached to you," Hoskey said. "They actually get mad at you when you leave for winter break because they don't understand."

Because of a severe lack of funding, the CPCS can only afford to hire and support approximately 250 tutors for the academic year - hardly enough to make a significant dent in greater Syracuse's literacy crisis, Heintz said.

"We've had the largest returning numbers and the largest number of applicants this semester," Heintz said. "But, we can only take as many as we can accommodate, because of certain restraints - like funding and transportation."

Heintz expressed difficulty in finding sustained funding to help programs like her own. She hopes this initiative will help create new collaborations in the community that will yield consistent support for city and county-wide literacy improvement.

cktracy@syr.edu