Evaluation of the Milwaukee Community Literacy Project

The Milwaukee Community Literacy Project supports 300 struggling readers in kindergarten through 3rd grade in reaching proficiency through support in three spheres: the school sphere, the community sphere and the family sphere.

The school sphere provides targeted students with a reading intervention through one-on-one tutoring following a research based structure provided by trained tutors. The community sphere provides one-hour supplementary reading sessions three times per week after school using a project based learning approach and providing increased independent reading time.

The family sphere includes regular contact with parents and home visits to increase parent skills in supporting their child's literacy education.

The goal of this project is to demonstrate an impact on improving student growth in reading for high-need students by expanding the implementation of and investment in community literacy.

The objective to significantly improve reading performance of K-3rd grade students through literacy work in three spheres.

Participating students will be reading at grade level by the beginning of fourth grade putting them on the right path to academic success.

The Milwaukee Community Literacy Project (MCLP) is a partnership between the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee (BGCGM), the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), and the Value-Added Research Center (VARC) in the Wisconsin Center of Education Research.

One of only 49 projects funded by an Investing in Innovation (I3) grant, of 1,600 proposed, this five-year project will provide intensive literacy instruction to students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade across seven low-performing Milwaukee public schools.

A random selection of participants in these schools will receive intensive one-on-one tutoring, after-school literacy instruction designed to promote a love of reading, and family literacy supports designed to promote literacy development at home.

VARC's summative evaluation of the MCLP will utilize a randomized-control-trial (RCT) design, with more than 300 students randomly selected to participate each year, to determine how much of an impact the MCLP has on student reading achievement. Further, VARC will be conducting a formative evaluation which will include studies of fidelity of implementation and how to foster effective district-school-parent-community agency collaboration.