ATLANTA — Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, the current chair of the nonpartisan Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), will present a major new SREB report on May 1 in Washington, D.C., calling for states to begin immediately to improve students’ reading and writing skills in the middle grades and high school.
Governor Kaine will address the Education Writers Association’s national convention at the 8 a.m. breakfast session at The Madison Hotel, 1177 15th Street in Washington. Representatives of the news media and education policy organizations or government are asked to register for all or part of the conference or notify SREB if they wish to attend. Visit www.ewa.org for more details about the conference.
Governor Kaine led the SREB Committee to Improve Reading and Writing in Middle and High Schools. The Committee’s recommendations are the basis for the report, A Critical Mission: Making Adolescent Reading an Immediate Priority in SREB States, to be released on May 1.
Building on several SREB states’ successes in raising reading achievement in the early grades, the new report urges states to develop comprehensive adolescent literacy policies that establish improvements in reading and writing in the middle grades and high schools as the most immediate critical priority for public schools.
The Committee included members across the political spectrum and was guided by some of the nation’s most prominent researchers and policy experts in literacy, including Donald Deshler of the University of Kansas, who is scheduled to speak at the May 1 event. SREB President Dave Spence also will speak.
In addition, Governor Kaine is scheduled to speak at a 9 a.m. session on early childhood education issues at the EWA conference.
For more information, contact SREB Communications.
The Southern Regional Education Board, or SREB, based in Atlanta, was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. More information is available online at www.sreb.org.
