Why Literacy Intervention Matters: 2021 NYC Disparity Report
The Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence (CIDI) and New York City's Young Men's Initiative (YMI) recently released an updated 2021 Disparity Report, after originally releasing a Disparity Report in 2016. The report analyzes the following markers of socioeconomic wellbeing in the city by race/ethnicity and gender:
Education
Economic Security
Health and Well-Being
Youth Justice
Literacy Trust (LT) is proud to be a multi-year partner of YMI. The LT-YMI partnership impacts the youngest program participants in YMI’s portfolio of causes and initiatives. Literacy Trust’s Reading Rescue programming directly impacts 1st and 2nd graders in YMI priority communities, including the South Bronx, East New York, and the North Shore of Staten Island, many of which are heavily segregated. New York City has consistently been identified as the most segregated school district in the country, and we know that each school across the city may serve very different demographics of students. Our Reading Rescue engagement with schools prepares students for short-term and long-term success by supporting their educators with robust professional development and intervention management. The reading intervention they receive at a young age impacts their reading progress while also making them perform better in school overall, increasing their confidence, and allowing them to be literate at age level, including in both reading and writing. Literacy skills contribute to a person’s long-term ability to thrive academically, professionally, and overall be an active member of society. At Literacy Trust, we believe that adequate literacy intervention contributes to a student’s ability to thrive in the short-term and long-term, and should be available to all students who need it. We know that racial disparities exist despite a large DOE budget and ample professional development opportunities across all 790+ NYC elementary schools.
While there is still significant disparity in academic assessment outcomes across the main racial/ethnic groups in NYC, the data suggests that there have been meaningful improvements in English proficiency (which includes the ability to read fluently) since the 2016 report:
“The Outcome Rate for meeting the NY State proficiency standard for English increased by more than 100 percent for both Black and Hispanic males. Black and Hispanic females experienced slightly smaller but still impressive improvements. These dramatic improvements show that major gains are possible in relatively short periods,” (Disparity Report, Page 7).
The charts below demonstrate the continuing improvement of each group, particularly for students of color.
Christina Henriquez leading small-group Reading Rescue instruction at P.S. 24 in Brooklyn.
Literacy Trust is proud and excited to celebrate these improvements with our YMI and DOE colleagues. We will continue to keep our eye on future improvement in these metrics, as well as to prioritize bringing evidence-based and evidence-validated programs into NYC schools serving high numbers of students of color. While standardized test outcomes are not the only measure of success for NYC’s lower income students and/or students of color, they indicate how resources should be equitably distributed across the city. Literacy Trust is determined to bring resources into NYC schools and build capacity where it is most needed, so students of all backgrounds can thrive in our system and beyond.
We celebrate the NYC Young Men’s Initiative and the Center for Innovation and Data Intelligence for prioritizing this crucial report, and appreciate YMI’s leadership in decreasing racial disparities across our city.