This fall, over four million five- and six-year-olds are beginning an amazing journey—one that takes them from their homes and has the potential to open up the entire world for them. They are starting kindergarten. Meet the Class of 2025.
It's a great time to start school. Advances in neuroscience have yielded fresh insight into how the brain develops and the physiological processes that drive learning. New classroom technologies help teachers engage students, personalize instruction, and capture information to better meet individual needs. The Common Core State Standards—adopted by 45 states—set a high bar to ensure that rigorous expectations remain constant from district to district and state to state. These standards renew the national focus on preparing our children for success in a competitive global economy by clearly defining what it means to be college and career ready, starting in kindergarten.
The Readiness Gap
Yet, statistically, 30% of these children won't graduate in 2025. As expectations of our youngest learners increase, demographic trends paint a picture of decreasing readiness. Nationally, more than 1 in 5 children are poor—with many more at risk of slipping below the poverty line. Poverty is rising, especially for young children. Children under five are the poorest age group in America, with 1 in 4 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers living in poverty during the years of greatest brain development. Poverty and weakened families play out in decreased opportunities for young children to learn and succeed in school.
Our First "Minority Majority" Generation
The class of 2025 will also be more diverse than at any time in our history. In 2011, over 50 percent of all babies born in the United States were non-white. Immigration from around the world, particularly from Spanish-speaking nations and Asia, has resulted in an increase in English Language Learners. One in 20 U.S. school children struggles with English. These students will require an intensive focus on oral language development, vocabulary, and syntax if they are to have equal access to the American Dream.
Business as Usual Is Not Working
Reading is the gateway to success in every subject, including math and science. Yet our nation's only consistent yardstick, The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), paints a sobering picture of reading achievement:
Fourth grade reading scores are the product of instruction in the primary grades. Despite years of focus, too many young children are still not building the foundation they need to tackle the increasingly complex text of fourth grade and beyond. Without the ability to read, children may fall further behind every year, eventually finding themselves unable to succeed in the workforce.
Increasing Urgency, Decreasing Supports
Educators have long relied on supports like public PreK and full-day kindergarten to help our youngest learners close the gap. Yet financially challenged states and municipalities are cutting back on these supports, at the very time they are needed most. According to the 2012 Primary Sources survey of America's PreK–12 teachers by Scholastic Inc. and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, only 12% of teachers "agree strongly" that students enter their classroom prepared for on-grade-level work.
College and Career Readiness = Opportunity in an
Unpredictable Future
What will the world these students enter look like? Many of the careers today's students will enter don’t exist yet. Jobs that yielded solid, middle-class careers 20 years ago have all but vanished, and new careers that no one imagined—app developer, for instance—have emerged. Given the challenges, how do we prepare the class of 2025 for a world we cannot yet visualize? We cannot afford to let our young students disengage from the excitement of learning. We have to teach Americans of all races and all backgrounds what it takes to be the best. But to feel the passion of self-motivation and develop the habits of persistence and resilience, children must first experience success through their earliest encounters with school. This is the task ahead of America's 3.7 million teachers as school begins.
We Must Start Early
While we can't predict what careers these students will enter as adults, it's clear that the ability to learn and to keep learning throughout life is the one skill that will serve them regardless of what the future holds.
The gateway to achieving these dreams is a solid foundation in literacy, for all students. This is what will ensure that the class of 2025 is prepared to succeed in college and careers.
The gateway to achieving these dreams is a solid foundation in literacy, for all students. This is what will ensure that the class of 2025 is prepared to succeed in college and careers.
Call to Action: Reading Mastery by Third Grade
We must close the gap before it begins and put all students on a predictable path to college and career readiness. It is time to invest in our children and take action early—in kindergarten, first and second grade. We know what it takes:
- Universal access to public PreK and full-day kindergarten
- Equal access to high quality, evidence-based instruction in foundational literacy skills like phonemic awareness, phonics, and decoding, with assessments that ensure mastery
- Deep immersion in text that includes stories, nursery rhymes and fables, as well as nonfiction that builds background knowledge, language, and vocabulary
- Personalized instruction tailored to students' specific needs, leveraging advances in technology and neuroscience to teach foundational skills in ways that are engaging and accountable
- Resources for families and communities that help them create a supportive environment for learning
The class of 2025 will come of age in a time of rapid change where information is available at the swipe of a finger. This multicultural, technologically sophisticated generation of students will solve the most complex challenges of our time—if we prepare them.
As a nation, we know much of what we need to know to close the achievement gap for the young citizens of this country. America must make reading proficiency the guaranteed birthright of every child. We must advocate for the future of our children, and we must act now.
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