Ten Percent

 Hello, hello! I've been away, finishing a book (The Night War, release date April 9, 2024), galivanting with friends, and then being sick for two weeks. That last I don't recommend, but there you are.

You all know about Appalachian Literacy Initiative , the nonprofit my friend Tracy and I started six years ago to give low-income Appalachian schoolchildren free books. We designed our program as a specific and researched response to the question, "Why are poor kids two-and-a-half times less likely to read at grade level than their wealthier peers?" Tracy and I really did spend a whole year looking up the answers to this and figuring out the most cost-effective way to help, and now, for the first time, I have proof that we nailed it.

All along, we intended to track test scores to see if our program was having an effect. Now, of course there are limitations--testing is flawed, and teachers are doing their best to teach all their students, and may have access to many other interventions beyond our free books. BUT in a giant meta-study of reading interventions, the only thing that consistently raised reading scores was giving kids books. I always hoped we could see some sort of effect.

However we hit a little glitch with the global pandemic. Not only was there no testing for two years, but comparing post-pandemic numbers to pre-pandemic numbers makes no sense at all. So we waited, and kept telling everyone we thought this was a great idea, to hand out books, (as an aside--there's new research that correlates increased reading proficiency with lowered teen pregnancy rates--so, yay books!) and happily lots and lots of people agreed with us, so that every year out of our first five our program doubled in size and last year we gave books to 455 teachers and 8353 kids. 

And finally we're getting some test scores where we can compare, before and after our program. We're in six different states which all test differently, and some schools have their results back and others don't. I spent yesterday making a spreadsheet of all the information I do have and I can tell you--

roughly, we increase reading proficiency by 10%.

Ten percent!

Does that sound small to you? Because I'm here to tell you, it's huge. Last year our program cost $28 per student enrolled. If we helped 10% of our students reach proficiency, that's 835 kids.

The greatest predictor of graduating from high school is whether kids read proficiently by the end of 4th grade (we enroll 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades). High school dropouts have an estimated net lifetime cost to the government (these numbers are five years old, I'll have to get new ones) of $292,000; high school graduates (again old numbers) have an estimated lifetime gain to the government of $180,000. Take 835 kids and get them on the track to high school graduation: a potential swing of $394,120,000. 

Three hundred ninety four million dollars.

Another way of saying it: each dollar we spent giving books to kids could produce $1685 future benefit to society.

One of the studies I read, back when Tracy and I were doing our research, showed that giving kids $50 worth of books of their choice at the beginning of the summer had a greater impact on their reading scores than $3000 worth of summer school. What I'm saying today is that $50 worth of books can be worth $84,250. The support you all give us really does and will change lives.

Hooray.

Our applications are open on our website--if you teach at a low-income Appalachian school, by all means, apply to be part of our program next school year. 

If you're feeling generous--there's a donate button there too. Every year we've doubled, and every year we've had to turn otherwise qualified schools away once we've committed all our funds. The money we bring in now will be spent on next year's students.