Nebraska Department of Education receives $55M federal grant to improve literacy

The Nebraska Department of Education will receive $55 million in federal funds from President Joe Biden’s administration to improve literacy rates throughout the state, the agency announced in September.

The money is part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Comprehensive Literacy State Development grant. The award will span five years, with Nebraska’s first-year award set at approximately $11 million. It’s the largest grant the Nebraska Department of Education has ever received, the agency says.

Project 2025, a conservative roadmap for a Republican presidency in 2025, calls for dissolving the federal Department of Education — which could eliminate the grant program, and future programs as well.

CLSD grants were authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, with the purpose of advancing literacy skills in K-12 education.

Allyson DenBeste, the Nebraska Department of Education’s chief academic officer, said the agency intends to use the funds to train teachers in the latest and most effective methods for teaching K-3 students to read and write.

“We want every student in Nebraska to be able to read better tomorrow than they can today,” DenBeste told the Nebraska Independent. “I think the nice thing about that vision is there really are no limits. To the parent of a child who is already a proficient reader, we are still going to support their teachers with professional learning that will allow the teachers to extend their own learning and knowledge and therefore extend the learning of the students.”

According to a press release from the state Education Department, teachers statewide will be trained in evidence-based literacy strategies, including “development of phonemic awareness, decoding words, analyzing word parts, writing, recognizing words, and fluency activities to help students read effortlessly.”

DenBeste said that while teachers already successfully teach literacy skills in Nebraska, the grant funds will help make them that much better.

“I can assure you that teachers across the state, as well as beyond Nebraska, teach reading. They teach reading every day. And this has happened for decades,” she said. “And I do think that we’re getting much more clear, just as educators, about what are the most effective strategies and what are the components that must be embedded within reading instruction. And so that’s what we want to make sure, that every teacher is very well versed in that.”

The state will also use the funding to focus on family literacy, DenBeste said.

Specific programs haven’t been developed or identified yet, according to DenBeste, but the state Department of Education intends to create tools and resources “to ensure families and caregivers, including early childhood education centers, can equip literacy at home.” The department will likely capitalize on existing family literacy centers to enhance what is already in place, she said.

“Certainly, most of the literacy that happens prior to children entering formal education happens in the family,” she said. “And so we do have some plans to supplement and support family literacy programs across the state.”

The state Board of Education’s goal is to increase third grade proficiency in English language arts test scores from 62%, as measured in 2023 statewide assessments, to 75% by 2030, according to the Department of Education press release.

DenBeste cited a state research brief that shows sweeping differences in outcomes for Nebraska students based on their reading proficiency levels in third grade.

As many as 97% of students who exceeded reading proficiency standards at that grade level in 2012 went on to graduate from high school nine years later, according to the brief, and 86% of those students went to college; 79% of students who were below reading proficiency standards in 2012 completed high school, and 53% of those students attended college.

“Having students proficient on their third grade reading scores absolutely has implications as to whether or not they graduate on time, attend college, certainly are able to succeed in the workforce,” DenBeste said.