What's Lucy Reading?

I wonder how many Americans understand we're the only industrialized nation where young people are less likely to be high school graduates than their parents' generation? And that for the first time in our history, we're raising children who may live sicker, shorter lives than their parents? I was struck by both points when I joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America for a discussion of their policy brief, Education Matters for Health. After-school can help with two of the commission's ten recommendations: require all K-12 schools to have time for every kid to be physically active each day, and to feed children only healthy foods in schools.

And speaking of child health and after-school, a new report from the National Academy of Sciences recommends that local governments should support after-school programs that offer fitness activities and healthy snacks.

One more on this topic: here is Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, expounding in The New York Times on the value for kids of one hour of vigorous play each day.

I've been reading the new book by journalist Beth Fertig, “Why cant u teach me 2 read?” She gets deep inside the complicated machinery of NYC schools to show us how everyone – from the Mayor to reading coaches to the architects of the Department of Education data systems -- are grappling to help kids with severe literacy problems. One school that's making things work, I was pleased to see Ms. Fertig note, is PS 188 in Manhattan, a pilot Expanded Learning Time/New York City school.

I know that at this time of year, programs are on the hunt for projects that will expand kids’ visions of themselves and the world. Expanding Horizons: Building Global Literacy in Afterschool Programs is a helpful new guidebook from the Asia Society on strategies and resources for integrating global literacy—international knowledge, skills, and perspectives—into after-school and summer programs.

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