AGENDA National Partners Meeting

Location: Thurgood Marshall Southwest, Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel 2660 Woodley Road, NW, Washington, DC

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 – 11:00AM–5:00PM

11:00AM–12:00PM Brunch Available 11:00AM–12:00PM Partner-to-Partner Table Talks 12:00PM–12:20PM Welcome, Opening Remarks and Video Presentations Leslie Boissiere, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Ralph Smith, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading 12:20PM–12:35PM Founding Partners Recognition 12:35PM–1:00PM National Partners: Accelerating Grade-Level Reading Success Leslie Boissiere, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

1:00PM–2:30PM Featured Presentation: Powered by VROOM, A Parent Success Initiative Jackie Bezos, Bezos Family Foundation Ellen Galinsky, Families and Work Institute 2:30PM–2:45PM Break 2:45PM–3:00PM 2012 Grade-Level Reading Pacesetter Partner Award Presentation 3:00PM–4:30PM Panel Discussion: Word Gap and Language Nutrition Yolie Flores (Moderator), Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Andrea Riquetti, Providence Talks Ann O’Leary, Next Generation, Too Small to Fail Burnie Bond, The Albert Shanker Institute 4:30PM–4:45PM 2013 Grade-Level Reading Pacesetter Partner Award Presentation 4:45PM Closing Remarks and Adjourn

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SUNDAY, APRIL 27

OPTIONAL 6:00PM–7:30PM GradNation Summit Welcome Reception All Registered GradNation Summit Participants Invited Location: Marriott Ballroom

Partners Meeting Speaker Biographies

Jackie Bezos President Bezos Family Foundation

Jackie Bezos loves the intersection between a big idea and passion, what she refers to as the sweet spot of philanthropy. And for the Bezos Family Foundation, that sweet spot is the field of education from birth through grade 12. Through investments in research, public awareness and programs, the foundation aims to elevate the field of education and improve life outcomes for children. At the core of the foundation’s work is a belief that rigorous, inspired learning environments will allow students to put their education into action. Bezos has pioneered partner-driven initiatives such as the Bezos Scholars Program at the Aspen Institute, The Aspen Challenge and Students Rebuild, engaging young people as co-creators of powerful solutions for current issues. Bezos and her husband Mike established the foundation in 2000, and along with their three children and spouses, serve as the foundation’s directors. A graduate of the College of St. Elizabeth with a B.S. in Psychology, Bezos serves on the board of directors for the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS), Thrive by Five Washington, Robin Hood, Families and Work Institute, and the Character Lab. She serves as an Advisor to TED-Ed and on the Advisory Board of Global Nomads Group. But her most prized position is “Creator of Chaos” at her annual grandmother-run summer camp for her 11 grandchildren.

Burnie Bond Director of Programs Albert Shanker Institute

Edith Burnett (Burnie) Bond is director of programs at the nonpartisan, nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute, where she works on a range of projects related to the institute’s key issue areas of educational excellence and equity, unions as advocates for quality, and the support of democracy and democratic institutions, both at home and abroad. Previously, she served as assistant director of the American Federation of Teachers’ Educational Issues Department. In that capacity, she monitored educational research on programs and teaching strategies to raise student achievement — especially for “at-risk” students in low-performing schools. She also worked on several related issues, including early childhood education, improving beginning reading instruction, research on and implementation of school turnaround strategies, standards-based reform, Title I, multicultural education

and efforts to improve the reliability and utility of educational research. She is a former staff assistant in the Office of AFT President Albert Shanker, where she served as coordinator of the AFT’s Education for Democracy Project, a program to promote a rigorous history and civics curriculum, and was formerly the director of research and publications for the International Affairs Department of the AFL-CIO, where she worked on international trade and labor rights issues. She also served on the 1992 Clinton Transition Team at the United States Information Agency.

Yolie Flores Senior Fellow The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

Yolie Flores joined the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in early 2014 to support the development of a new frame around “successful parenting” and the work of a small group of state cluster leaders who are helping Network communities make progress on school readiness, school attendance, summer learning and grade-level reading by 2016. Flores has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Redlands and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a master’s in Social Welfare. She has 25 years of management and leadership experience in program, policy and advocacy work addressing the needs of children and families. She served as CEO of the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council — a public/private collaborative working to improve outcomes of child well-being through systems change and community engagement efforts; was elected in 2007 to the LAUSD Board of Education where she served as vice president throughout her four-year term; served as CEO of Communities for Teaching Excellence, a national nonprofit advocating for effective teaching for every student in every classroom, every year; and is in the process of joining Attendance Works as a senior associate. Flores lives and plays with her puppy Molly in Los Angeles.

Ellen Galinsky President and Co-Founder Families and Work Institute

Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of Families and Work Institute (FWI), helped establish the field of work and family life during the time she was at Bank Street College of Education, where she was on the faculty for 25 years. Her more than 100 books and reports include the best-selling Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs, Ask The Children, and the now classic The Six Stages of Parenthood. She has published over 300 articles in journals, books and magazines.

At FWI, Galinsky co-directs the National Study of the Changing Workforce, the most comprehensive nationally representative study of the U.S. workforce — updated every five to six years. She also co-directs When Work Works (a project on workplace flexibility and effectiveness first funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that has produced a series of research papers and has launched the Sloan Awards) as well as conducted the National Study of Employers, a nationally representative study that has tracked trends in employment benefits,

policies and practices since 1998. Information from FWI’s research has been reported in the media more than three times a day since January 2010. In 2011, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Families and Work Institute formed a ground-breaking, multiyear partnership that takes When Work Works out to employers in 50 states.

At FWI, Mind in the Making (MITM) is an unprecedented effort to share the science of children’s learning with the general public, families and professionals who work with them. Projects include: Learning Modules for Teachers (in English/Spanish) that have been implemented in 10 states; Seven Essential Skills Learning Modules (in English/Spanish) that are being implemented in six communities through community schools with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in partnership with the Institute for Educational Leadership and in an additional eight communities/systems; a DVD collection of 42 videos showing important experiments in child development research; Prescriptions for Learning — downloadable tip sheets for health care professionals and others; and a partnership with First Book where it has created a library of children’s books and accompanying tips to promote life skills. Mind in the Making has sold more than 100,000 copies and had more than 1.5 billion media impressions since April 2010.

A graduate of Vassar College and Bank Street College of Education, Galinsky is a leading authority on work family and child development issues. She was a presenter at the 2000 White House Conference on Teenagers and the 1997 White House Conference on Child Care. She was a planner and participant at the March 2010 White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility. She served as the elected president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the largest professional group of early childhood educators. Galinsky is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from Vassar College and the Seven Wonders of the Work Life World from Working Mother magazine. She was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005. She is also the recipient of the 2014 Friend of Children Award from the Southern Early Childhood Association.

She is married to artist Norman Galinsky, and they are the parents of two grown children: Philip, an ethnomusicologist and founder-director of Samba New York — an inspiring new performance group — and Lara, senior vice president at Echoing Green — whose mission is to unleash the next generation of talent to solve the world’s biggest problems — and co-author of Be Bold and author of Work on Purpose. Norman and Ellen Galinsky have two grandchildren — Antonio and Azaiah.

Ann O’Leary Vice President & Director, Children & Families Program Next Generation

Ann O’Leary directs the Children and Families Program at Next Generation, which includes spearheading “Too Small to Fail” — Next Generation’s joint initiative with the Clinton Foundation to help parents and businesses take meaningful actions to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to 5; developing a national research portfolio; and leading policy activities in California.

O’Leary also serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress where she writes about work-family policies. She previously served as a lecturer in health law at UC Berkeley School of Law; executive director of the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security at UC Berkeley School of Law; a Deputy City

Attorney for the city of San Francisco; and legislative director to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. She led the children and family policy team on the White House Domestic Policy Council under President William J. Clinton and served as a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, advising the incoming administration on early childhood education issues.

O’Leary is a member of the board for KQED, Northern California’s public news provider, and the East Bay Community Law Center, a legal aid clinic for low-income community members in Berkeley, California. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College, a master’s in education policy from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

O’Leary is a resident of Oakland where she lives with her husband, Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California, and their two children, Violet and Emmett.

Andrea Riquetti Associate Director Providence Talks

Andrea Riquetti serves as the prime point of contact for parents and caregivers participating in Providence Talks. She brings a wealth of experience in managing early childhood education programs, most recently at Meeting Street. A teacher by training, she has worked as an elementary school principal and teacher. Riquetti received her M.A. from University of Rhode Island and earned her B.A. at Stohehill College.

States and communities across the country are working hard to ensure that more students from low-income families read proficiently by the end of third grade. The websites and resources listed here estab-lish the need for intervention with struggling readers and the best practices for reaching them. Toolkits can be found on the websites, and research can be found online at http://gradelevelreading.net/resources/research-index.

Reading by the End of Third Grade

Website: Campaign for Grade-Level Reading: www.gradelevelreading.net

Video: The Statisticks Lottery, The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

Reports:

• Fiester, Leila, Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters, Annie E. Casey Foundation KIDS COUNT Special Report, Annie E. Casey Foundation, May 2010

• Fiester, Leila, Early Warning Confirmed, Annie E. Casey Foundation. June 2013

• Hernandez, Donald J., Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, updated March 2012

• Lesnick, Joy et al., Students At and Above Grade Level for Reading in Grade 3 Graduate from High School at Higher Rates Than Students Below Grade Level, Chapin Hall, 2010

School Readiness and Preschool

Reports:

• Hart, Betty M. and Todd R. Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1995

• Heckman, J.J., “Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children,” Science, 2006; 312(5782): 1900–1902

• Heckman, J.J., “The Economics of Inequality, The Value of Early Childhood Education,” American Educator, Spring 2011

• The 30 Million Word Gap: The Role of Parent-Child Verbal Interaction in Language and Literacy Development, The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

RESOURCE GUIDE

Summer Learning LossWebsite: National Summer Learning Association: www.summerlearning.orgReports:

• Making Summer Count, How Summer Programs Can Boost Children’s Learning, The Rand Corporation, June 2011

• Alexander, Karl R. et al., “Lasting Consequences of Summer Learning Gap,” American Sociological Review, April 2007

• Moving Summer Learning Forward: A Strategic Roadmap for Funding in Touch Times, National Summer Learning Association

• Healthy Summers for Kids: Turning Risk into Opportunity, National Summer Learning Association, May 2012

Chronic AbsenceWebsite: Attendance Works: www.attendanceworks.org

Reports:

• Attendance in Early Elementary Grades: Why it Matters for Reading, Attendance Works and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, February 2014

• Attendance in Early Elementary Grades: Association with Student Characteristics, School Readiness and Third Grade Outcomes, Applied Survey Research, May 2011

• Balfanz, R., and V. Byrnes, The Importance of Being in School: A Report on Absenteeism in the Nation’s Public Schools, Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools, 2012

• Chang, Hedy and Mariajose Romero, Present, Engaged & Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades, National Center for Children in Poverty, September 2008

• Durham, Rachel and Stephen B. Plank, Maintaining High Achievement in Baltimore: An Overview of the Elementary School Trajectories of Four Recent City Schools First Grade Cohorts, Baltimore Educational Research Consortium, March 2010

Toolkits: Bringing Attendance Home, Attendance Works, May 2013 Make Every Day Count, Attendance Works, August 2012

Healthy ReadersArticles and Resources:

• Smith, Ralph, Confronting the Health Determinants of School Success in the Early Grades: A Commentary from the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Grantmakers In Health, March 2012

• “Health Care Crucial for Kids’ Reading,” Op-Ed, Greg Landsman and Ralph Smith, The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 23, 2013

• Growing Healthy Readers: Taking Action to Support the Health Determinants of Early School Success, The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, April 2014

• Growing Healthy Readers Starter Kit, The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, September 2012

Learning Disabilities

• Fiester, Leila, Don’t ‘Dys’ Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency. Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, October 2012

• Don’t Dys Our Kids Action Brief, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, October 2012

Family EngagementReports:

• Belfield, Clive and Emma Garcia, Parental Notions of School Readiness: How Have They Changed and Has Preschool Made a Difference? National Institute for Early Education Research, February 2012

• Gelber, Alexander M. and Adam Isen, Children’s Schooling and Parents’ Investment in Children: Evidence from the Head Start Impact Study, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2011

• Guernsey, Lisa, Michael Levine, Cynthia Chiong and Maggie Severns, Pioneering Literacy in the Digital Wild West, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, December 2012

• The Head Start Parent, Family and Community Engagement Framework: Promoting Family Engagement and School Readiness from PreNatal to Age 9, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start, August 2011

• The Dual Capacity Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships, U.S. Department of Education, April 2014

Volunteer Engagement

• Impact Evaluation of Minnesota Reading Corps K–3 Program, Corporation for National and Community Service, March 2014

• Reading Partner Success Stories, Reading Partners

• Assessment of Volunteer Tutoring Effectiveness, GiveWell, 2010

• Starting a Volunteer Program, HandsOn Network, revised 2010

• Let’s Read, Let’s Move, United We Serve, Corporation for National and Community Service

For links to the research, go to http://gradelevelreading.net/resources/research-index

4-24-14