Adolescents and Literacy: Reading for the 21st Century

The Alliance for Excellent Education is a national policy, advocacy, and research organization created to help middle and high school students receive an excellent education. The Alliance focuses on America's six million most at-risk secondary school students–those in the lowest achievement quartile–who are likely to leave school without a diploma or to graduate unprepared for a productive future. Based in Washington, D.C., we work to make it possible for these students to achieve high standards and graduate prepared for college and success in life. To inform the national debate about education policies and options, we produce reports and other materials, make presentations at meetings and conferences, brief policymakers and the press, and provide timely information to a wide audience via our biweekly newsletter and regularly updated Web site, www.all4ed.org. His most recent publications include a co-edited volume (with Dorothy Strickland) on professional development, Professional Development for Teaching Reading, as well as many other chapters and articles in professional journals. His research explores the effects of computer technologies on literacy and learning and the acquisition of literacy in first and second languages. School Students. That report contained a call to Congress and the administration to adopt, nationally, four research-based initiatives to dramatically improve the culture and conditions of America's secondary schools. When implemented, we believe that these initiatives will create an academically rich, supportive environment that will help assure that every student—regardless of socioeconomic status or race—graduates from high school with the skills necessary to succeed in college. Nationally, 25 percent of our secondary students are reading at " below basic " levels. Therefore, they are unable to understand or comprehend the advanced material that is an integral part of the high school educational experience. Is it really surprising , then, that only 70 percent of the children who enter the eighth grade actually graduate from high school; that in many urban areas, only 50 percent of students will receive a high school diploma; and that every school day, three thousand students drop out of school, rarely to return? The first of the Alliance's recommended initiatives focuses on these problems, addressing the urgent need to improve the reading, writing, and comprehension skills of our middle and high school students. The Adolescent Literacy Initiative, described in the box that follows, recognizes that the approximately six million secondary school children who read well below grade level have little chance of academic success without …