October 10, 2024
STATE OF LITERACY IN BROWN COUNTY, TWO YEARS LATER
Green Bay, WI – In October of 2022, the Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership hosted an event focused on the 5-year decline of third grade reading proficiency data in Brown County. Two years later, Brown County has made significant progress in community resources and data trends show a slow rise in rates, but it is not enough.
*LINK: Learn About Third Grade Reading Data
In partnership with the Brown County Library, the Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership convened over 200 community members in the fall of 2022 to educate the community on the state of literacy.1 In third grade, students shift from learning to read, to reading to learn. Data shows that young people who struggle with reading in third grade are four times more likely not to finish high school by the time they’re 19.2 During the 2020-2021 school year 27% of third graders were reading proficient and now that rate is up to 36% in the 2022-2023 school year.
*LINK: Breakdown of Recent Third Grade Reading Data
So, what happened? The members of the Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership have created and supported local efforts, within their own individual organizations and within collective action initiatives across the Brown County community. Local efforts include the Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership initiative Reading for the Future, a UW-Green Bay Literacy Initiative, Howe Community Resource Center’s launch of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, the Volunteer Center of Brown County’s Reading Coaches for Kids program, Brown County Library’s early literacy programming, the Friends of the Brown County Library’s new initiative, Pages & Stages, a free book program to serve WIC of Brown County in partnership with N.E.W. Community Clinic, and others.
Although a 9% increase in reading proficiency is significant, The Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership says it is still not enough.
“With over 60% of Brown County’s young people currently not reading proficiently, our community recognizes the crucial time we are in. Our schools are already making changes to address this issue, but schools cannot do it alone. This is a community issue. We, as individuals and as a county, need to take action to support the future of our community and the success of our young people.”
Visit https://achievebrowncounty.org/reading-for-the-future/ for upcoming events and ways you can join the movement.
Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership
Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership is a community-wide, mostly volunteer, network of committed individuals and organizations that use data and rally community to co-create equitable conditions so every young person can thrive.
Quotes from a press event held on October 2024, at the Brown County Library
“This is a social issue that isn’t going to change overnight.”
– Achieve Brown County Executive Director, Sarah Beckman
“Our community’s overall wellbeing is predicated on the success of our children, and if this is how we will allow it to continue, then we are only setting ourselves up for future problems. So, this is a call to action for the rest of our community to figure out, what can you do?”
– Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach
Supporting Data
1 Reading Success Summit Opening Video
2 Data shows that young people who struggle with reading in third grade are four times more likely not to finish high school by the time they’re 19. (source: Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs))
According to a 2020 study by Gallup and the Barbara Bush Foundation, “Income is strongly related to literacy. The average annual income of adults who reach the minimum level for proficiency in literacy (Level 3) is nearly $63,000, significantly higher than the average of almost $48,000 earned by adults who score just below proficiency (Level 2) and much higher than those at low Levels of literacy (Levels 0 and 1), who earn just over $34,000 on average.”
