by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Mayor John Peyton is serious about improving the literacy level of Jacksonville.
While campaigning for his first term, Peyton stressed that early literacy was a major issue. Once elected, he quickly established Rally Jacksonville!, an early literacy initiative aimed at preschoolers with the goal of better preparing them to enter kindergarten.
Since the start of Rally Jacksonville! during the 2004-05 school year, over 25,000 kids have joined the Mayor’s Book Club. Last summer, Rally Jacksonville! celebrated the collection of its one-millionth book.
In April, Peyton and the Jacksonville Children’s Commission, which oversees Rally Jacksonville!, will take the literacy initiative to the next level when they host a literacy summit aimed at teaching mayors from across the country, community leaders and the heads of non-profits the value of being a more literate society.
“We have invited 55 mayors and we hope to get 20 to 30,” said Linda Lanier, CEO and executive director of the Children’s Commission.
Lanier said the summit is designed to help leaders learn what they can do for kids after school.
“The mayor can’t do much because he doesn’t run the school system,” said Lanier, adding Peyton has a limited affect on kids when they are in class between the hours of 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.
However, she said he can affect the rest of their day. “The rest of the day, which is most of the day, the kids are in the community, in the community centers and in the libraries,” she said. “Because of this, a mayor does have the opportunity to do a lot.”
Lanier said the summit was the brainchild of the Children’s Commission, and she and her staff will organize and manage the two-day affair at the Main Library. The Mayors Literacy Summit starts at noon April 10. The following day, a complimentary learning summit starts at noon and runs until the end of the business day.
Lanier said she has secured three well-known speakers for the two-day event. Dr. Heather Weiss, Dr. Ronald Ferguson and Margaret Doughty are all scheduled to speak during the two summits. Weiss is the founder and director of the Harvard Family Research Program, while Ferguson is a professor at the Harvard graduate school of education.
Doughty is a native of England who in 1990 was appointed the executive director of the Houston READ (formerly Reading Education and Development) Commission, an initiative aimed at improving adult literacy. She is also the co-founder of Literacy USA and was the first president of the board of directors of the National Alliance of Literacy Coalitions.
“Those are three very, very powerful speakers,” said Lanier, adding the speakers won’t just present, but will work with those in attendance to development better literacy initiatives.
Doughty said she’s in a different city every week, analyzing the issues and making recommendations based on what has worked elsewhere and what may work in that city.
“I’ll bring my knowledge of community literacy and what’s happening with trends across the country,” she said, adding several cities are having great success in raising their literacy rates.
“There are some real interesting models,” she added. “Buffalo (N.Y.) has done an outstanding job. They put a regional literacy plan together.”
Doughty said the entire Buffalo community, including the local work force, came together and helped generate the financial resources to implement the literacy plan.
“Literacy doesn’t belong in fragments. It belongs in a community-wide effort that everyone embraces,” said Doughty. “It takes a very, very high level of leadership commitment to make change.”
Doughty said the crime rate in most major cities is tied directly to the local literacy rate. She said education surveys indicate that cities with high illiteracy rates have low high school graduation rates.
“Illiteracy is the root cause of other issues,” she said. “There’s a direct relationship between illiteracy and crime. It varies from state to state, but of the number of people incarcerated, on average 76 percent don’t have their high school diploma. Of those on death row, it’s upwards of 85 percent without their diplomas.”