Name of the Project

Educational Quality in Family Literacy

Grantee Contact

Cheryl Keenan, Director

Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education

Pennsylvania Department of Education

333 Market Street, 12^th Floor

Harrisburg, PA 17126-0333

Tel: (717)722-3737 and Fax (717)783-0583

E-mail: ckeenan@state.pa.us

Even Start Statewide Family Literacy Coordinator

Don Paquette, Coordinator of Family Literacy

Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education

Pennsylvania Department of Education

333 Market Street, 12^th Floor

Harrisburg, PA 17126-0333

Tel: (717)787-5532and Fax: (717)783-0583

E-mail: dpaquette@state.pa.us

Even Start Statewide Family Literacy Initiative Project Goals

• To develop interagency collaboration at the State and local level that ensures existing resources are shared and support the expansion and improvement of family literacy services
• To establish a family literacy program improvement system that promotes continuous program improvement and builds local capacity to improve and expand high-quality services
• To provide high quality professional development opportunities for family literacy providers

Project Description

Members of Pennsylvania's consortium will participate in planning and implementing public relations and information dissemination efforts, assist in setting priorities and criteria for selection of demonstration projects; and participate in evaluation activities. Specific among those activities are promoting local collaboration among their programs, supporting a family literacy web site with links to affiliates' sites, developing press releases for agency newsletters, and modifying the existing State family literacy brochure to reflect consortium support.

Selected family programs will pilot newly developed family literacy performance standards. Based on their feedback, the standards and related guidelines for their use will be finalized, applied to all family literacy programs, and serve as the basis for performance funding. Software to collect valid and reliable family literacy data to measure performance against the standards will be developed. Regional family literacy assistants will be trained in the program improvement process and use of a self-assessment guide. As part of this initiative, a new professional development plan to promote high quality, integrated family literacy programming will be designed and implemented.

Priorities

• Using research on reading and literacy in program planning
• Implementing a professional development plan for staff
• Increasing the intensity of family literacy activities for school-age children (up to 7 years old)
• Improving local evaluation methods and practices
• Absolute Priority: Family Literacy Performance Indicators