NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LITERACY

**ADVISORY BOARD MEETING**

**\* \* \***

**SUMMARY MINUTES**

**\* \* \***

**November 2 - 3, 2005**

**\* \* \***

The Advisory Board met at 8:00 a.m. at the University Center Club,
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. M. Carmel Borders, Board
Chair, presided.

**[PRESENT]{.underline}:**

M. Carmel Borders Advisory Board Chair

Douglas W. Carnine, Ph.D. Advisory Board (via teleconference)

Blanca E. Enriquez, Ph.D. Advisory Board

Carol C. Gambill Advisory Board Secretary

William T. Hiller, Ph.D. Advisory Board

Juan R. Olivarez, Ph.D. Advisory Board Vice Chair

Jean H. Osborn Advisory Board

Richard K. Wagner, Ph.D. Advisory Board

Mark G. Yudof, LL.B. Advisory Board (via teleconference)

Sandra L. Baxter, Ed.D. Institute's Director

**[ABSENT]{.underline}:**

Phyllis C. Hunter Advisory Board

**[PRESENTERS]{.underline}:**

# Chris Lonigan, Ph.D., *Associate Director, Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) and* 

#  *NELP Member and Head Start Panel Member*

# Chris Schatschnieder, Ph.D., *Associate Professor of Psychology, Florida State University*

John Strucker, Ed.D., *Lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education*

Joe Torgesen, Ph.D., Director, *Florida Center for Reading Research
(FCRR) and Professor of*

*Psychology, Florida StateUniversity*

Russ Whitehurst, Ph.D., Director, *Institute for Education Sciences,
U.S. Department of*

*Education*

Nancy Cordill, Ph.D., *Bureau Chief, Program Development and
Improvement, Florida*

*Department of Education*

Roxanne R. Campbell, *Program Director, Governor's Family Literacy
Initiative, Volunteer*

*Florida Foundation*

Barbara Van Camp, *Director, Leon Adult Education, Tallahassee, FL*

**[WEDNESDAY, NOV. 2, 2005]{.underline}**

**Approval of Minutes**

Chairperson Borders called for a motion to approve the minutes from the
previous meeting, and the motion carried unanimously.

**Board Chair's Report**

Chairperson Borders called the meeting to order at approximately 8 a.m.
Ms. Borders said she could see "forward movement" in the Board's work.
She asked members to critique the Board briefing book, which the
Institute staff assembles and mails to the members prior to each
meeting. She asked: "Has it been helpful in preparing you for the
meeting? Is the structure, the format and the information serving you
well? Are there other things that you need in the Board book, things
that you think should be deleted? Is it easily followed in its
presentation?"

Ms. Borders said she wanted to revisit a few matters from previous
meetings. She reminded Board members that they had agreed to Mark
Yudof's idea of establishing a national literacy research agenda. She
said the timing is right for it to take place. She said there is one
item in the budget for next year that will begin the work, but she said
Board members must decide how they are going to develop this project.

She also noted that, based on a previous discussion, Board members need
to determine how they are going to build relationships with foundations.
After a presentation of the results of the Carnegie Adolescents Survey,
she said Board members had another discussion on foundations and what
the Institute could accomplish in that arena.

Ms. Borders said Board members need to review the dissemination plans
for Institute products. She pointed out that Bill Hiller had requested
that the Institute have a list of products aligned with its projects.
She said now that the products are available, "we need to fully
understand how these products will get out to the communities that they
are designed to serve."

She then asked if her colleagues had any questions or issues that they
would like to have addressed. Dr. Hiller suggested that they examine the
program goals that are in the crosswalk and the program development
paper from the beginning to see if they are still current for 2005,
vis-à-vis the products and activities. He raised questions regarding the
Institute's goal to "support rigorous research." "What does support
mean?" he asked. "What does initiate mean? Supporting research to what
level? Are we the partner with one other organization where we're strong
support, or are we in a group of supporters with 10 other
organizations?"

Ms. Osborn said she was impressed with Reid Lyon's presentation at the
May 19-20 Board meeting. She said his address implied much action. She
wondered to what extent the Institute and the Board had followed-up on
his recommendations and to what degree they were feasible.

With the departures of administrators Susan Sclafani, Windy Hill and
Reid Lyon, Dr. Hiller said he would like to hear from the Institute
staff to determine if there has been a change in direction from the Bush
administration or the Interagency Group.

## Director's Report

Dr. Baxter noted that several key players who represented their
organizations as members of the Interagency Group that governs the
Institute have left their positions. Dr. Susan Sclafani has left the
U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education. Dr.
Baxter said Robin Gilchrist, her replacement, "has been tremendously
supportive" in helping to craft an agreement on the specific role ED
will play as the Institute's administrative and management support arm
and what ED policies and processes the Institute is bound by. She said
Ms. Gilchrist also has been helpful in the development of a new early
childhood initiative.

Windy Hill is no longer with the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human
Services. The agency has not determined whether Dr. Hill's replacement
will join the Interagency Group. Marty Dannenfelser is still on board as
the agency's second representative.

Dr. Reid Lyon, formerly with the National Institutes of Health, was
never an official Interagency designee, Dr. Baxter said. He worked on
the Partnership for Reading Capital Program through his affiliation with
the White House and ED. Dr. Baxter said the Institute has been working
closely with his successor, Peggy McCardle.

Despite these changes, Dr. Baxter said, there has been no "real
interruption" to the Institute's relationship with the Interagency
Group. In fact, she said, the changes have resulted in a stronger
relationship with ED.

She then turned Board members' attention to the Policy Program
Integration Matrix, formerly called the Crosswalk, which was included in
their briefing books. She contended that the initiatives fit the goals
that Board members and Institute leaders have developed. She agreed with
Dr. Hiller's suggestion that they revisit Goal 1 and specify the meaning
of the phrase "support rigorous research."

Dr. Baxter and Ms. Reddy provided details on several activities. RMC
Research Corp. will conduct Activity 5.1 (a), the Teacher Survey. RMC is
revising its draft, based on the Institute's comments. Dr. Baxter said
on Sept. 30, 2005, the Institute let the contract on Activity 5.2, the
Public Policy Information Analysis Project. Ms. Reddy held a kickoff
meeting with the contractor, ABT Associates, prior to the Nov 2-3. Board
meeting. Ms. Reddy said the ABT team would conduct what it considers an
unprecedented survey of all 50 states concerning the adult literacy
policies they have in place and the impact those policies have on
student outcomes. In states that have no such policies, the researchers
will explore the reasons they have none and whether or not they are
using instruments such as quality indicators that serve the same purpose
as a policy would serve. She said the first deliverable, a data
collection and analysis plan, is due in mid-November. Dr. Baxter said
Activity 5.2 (b) focuses on using experts to advise on projects.

Dr. Baxter described Goal 6 as internal management improvement projects
begun in the past two years. Activity 6.1 (a) is the branding
initiative. Following the consultant's recommendation, the Institute has
begun using a new logo that emphasizes the full name of the
organization. Activity 6.2 (d), the Bridges to Practice program review,
has been in the planning stages for some time. The Institute approved
the \$822,000 contract Sept. 30, 2005. The organization wants to work
more closely with the trainer certification program to make certain that
the materials being used are aligned with the latest research on
learning disabilities. The Institute will review this project in October
2006 to determine whether the agency will continue its role in learning
disabilities.

Dr. Baxter said the Institute has expanded its programming from
2002/2003 to the present to encompass substantive work across the
lifespan. Dr. Carnine said Board members must be kept informed about
what the organization is doing so that they can voice legitimate
concerns. Dr. Baxter said the matrix serves this purpose. She said the
organization routinely provides Board members with copies of statements
of work and deliverable due dates, which constitute, in effect, a
timeline. She said the matrix, or annual work plan, will measure not
only the agency's progress but also individual staff members' progress
on their projects.

She urged Board members to review the chart, "thinking about whether or
not we have actually captured everything that you thought was important
to be achieved this year, asking any questions for us so we can talk
with you about the timelines for the work that is going on and the
priorities that we have given that work in the coming year."

Ms. Borders asked Institute leaders to discuss the status of Activity
1.1 (c), the Community Wide Literacy Project. Ms. Reddy said there had
been a kickoff meeting with the contractor. She said the project leaders
would gather a steering committee of experts to help define the agenda
for a national summit. She said the goal is to emphasize the integration
and coordination of services as well as an evaluation.

Dr. Hiller suggested that the work plan be included in the briefing book
for every meeting so that Board members can use it as a guide. Dr.
Carnine suggested that the work plan include the names of the experts
who will be consulted for each project. Dr. Baxter agreed to attach a
list of experts. When naming them in a public document is inappropriate,
the Institute will provide the names to the Board's Program Committee.

Dr. Wagner asked about the status of the Commission on Reading Research.
Dr. Baxter said the Institute hopes soon to name a replacement for Jack
Fletcher, who stepped down as chairperson because of additional
professional duties he had to assume. She said the Institute has
considered splitting the Commission leadership between two co-chairs:
one with expertise in methodology, the other with expertise in reading.
The co-chairs and Institute leaders will review the 144 nominees and
begin selecting the 12- to 15-member panel. She said the Institute would
solicit reaction to the panelists from the Interagency Group. She said
the RMC Research Corp. is managing this project.

Concerned about an apparent duplicative effort, Dr. Carnine asked why
the Commission would be involved in the review research related to the
project that identifies effective reading programs. Dr. Baxter and Ms.
Reddy replied that the goal of this task is to structure the proficiency
by grade level rather than merely searching for general findings. Dr.
Baxter said this work is a different task than what the Commission is
doing and exceeds the work of the National Reading Panel.

Dr. Baxter then discussed the timeline for releasing results of the
National Early Literacy Panel. She said a draft report was not completed
by September, as had been expected. She said after meeting with the
National Center for Family Literacy, Chris Schatschnieder and Chris
Lonigan, they have decided to release the results in stages. She said an
interim report from Questions 1 and 4, the primary areas of study, would
be released by the end of January, followed by findings from Questions 2
and 3. Question 1 refers to the skills children need to develop in early
childhood, "sort of the precursor skills to reading," she said. Question
4 refers to the effectiveness of interventions. She said Drs.
Schatschnieder and Lonigan would elaborate on Questions 2 and 3 during
their presentations later. The Institute expects to release the full
report in June 2006.

Dr. Wagner questioned whether releasing part of the report would delay
its completion and diminish the impact of the finished product. Dr.
Baxter said this plan would not be problematic. After much discussion,
Institute leaders and Board members determined that it might be wiser to
release the findings from Questions 2 and 3 as a separate report, rather
than imply that the results from Questions 1 and 4 are part of an
incomplete document.

Dr. Baxter discussed some recommendations. She said RMC researchers are
developing an online reference library about high-performing schools
that they expect to launch in March 2006. In addition, the Institute for
Education Sciences is collecting data as part of the national evaluation
of early Reading First programs. IES expects to release that data in
Spring 2006. The Partnership for Reading is working diligently to give
technical assistance to parents and educators of children K -- 3,
primarily through publications designed for them. She showed Board
members a draft of *Shining Stars* and a newsletter for fathers of young
children. She told them about *"Big Dreams*,*"* which gives parents with
low literacy skills tips for helping their children develop the tools to
become skilled readers.

Dr. Olivarez stressed the importance of aggressively disseminating these
products. Dr. Baxter said Head Start, Reach Out and Read and other
organizations have committed to distributing the material. Ms. Reddy
added that state and local pipelines could be used as well.

Dr. Baxter touched on other Institute projects. She said RMC is
developing an assessment of teacher knowledge of scientifically based
reading research. In the field of adolescent literacy, the Institute is
organizing, synthesizing and evaluating the state of knowledge about
striving middle-school readers. George Washington University is working
on a summary of 25 key research documents. In addition, Bonnie
Armbruster and Mary Beth Curtis are studying the scientific literature
on reading research in grades 4 through 12. Dr. Baxter said work on math
instruction is in the planning stages.

Dr. Baxter then discussed personnel matters. She said the majority of
her time would be spent on identifying and hiring qualified staff. Over
the past few months, the agency has launched a national recruitment
campaign, advertising for six positions: Human Resource Officer, Budget
Analyst, Early Childhood expert, English Language Literacy expert,
Workforce Development expert and Policy Analyst. The Institute has
posted the vacancy announcement on its website and sent "Dear Colleague"
letters to researchers and key organizations. The Institute has access
to U.S.A. Jobs, the government's official job vacancy website. She said
the Institute would contact placement offices and faculty at graduate
schools. She said Shelly Coles, her former executive assistant who has
five years of human resources experience in the federal government, has
been reassigned to help in the recruitment effort.

Filling the vacancies is important, she said, because she needs to shift
her attention away from daily managing projects to taking on leadership
of the agency. Response to the jobs posted has stalled, however, because
the positions are only 13-month appointments, and the high-cost of
housing in Washington has discouraged applicants. As an alternative, she
said, the Institute has considered reviving the fellowship program as a
means of enlisting the expertise of senior program officers who could
live outside the Washington area while hiring junior staff to work in
Washington. On the administrative side, the Institute would like to
offer career positions to the human resources director and the budget
analyst but must first find out if it has the authority to do so.

## Programs Committee Report

Dr. Carnine discussed activities related to the methodology for
high-performing programs. He asked Institute leaders to explain the
difference between two adult education projects outlined in the Policy
Program Integration Matrix. Dr. Baxter and Ms. Reddy said the
Evidence-Based Practice Project is a series of symposia and workshops
designed to help researchers overcome some of the challenges they face
conducting adult literacy research so that that the work they produce
helps to improve instruction. The other project, Adult Literacy Program
Planning, is a broad planning initiative designed to identify the work
the Institute will carry out over the next few years.

Board members and Dr. Baxter then discussed the timeline for redesigning
the LINCS pages on the Institute's website. Dr. Baxter said her agency
received a final evaluation report Sept. 26, 2005, and will develop a
solicitation based on the report's recommendations. After Ms. Borders
raised concerns about the length of time it would take to begin seeing
changes, Dr. Baxter said a contract to reconfigure LINCS could be
awarded by July or August 2006. In the meantime, the LINCS team is
working to improve navigation and some design elements. Spurred by Dr.
Carnine's suggestion, Dr. Baxter agreed to establish a relationship with
the ERIC database, which contains information similar to LINCS.

Dr. Carnine asked for details about an aspect of the learning
disabilities planning program that would translate research into
practice. Dr. Baxter said the Institute plans to release papers by the
end of 2006. She said the agency would get input from the National
Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

With regard to adolescent literacy, Dr. Carnine suggested that National
Institute for Literacy (NICHD) leaders reconsider plans to host a
National Summit of Teachers, since summits generally are comprised of
leaders. He said teachers often need the support of principals to
address problems of adolescent readers. Dr. Baxter said the summit would
focus on what teachers need to do to convert research into instructional
practice and serve as a follow-up to previous meetings on the topic.
Board members and Dr. Baxter agreed to expand the participant pool of
the meeting to include principals, school district officials and
adolescents. Instead of one national meeting, they considered a series
of regional meetings that would be co-sponsored by school districts or
some other regional body. Dr. Baxter agreed to follow up with Everett
Barnes of RMC to determine what reading products the Institute could
deliver to comprehensive reading centers around the country.

Dr. Baxter said researchers at NICHD and the Institute for Education
Sciences have discouraged her agency's attempts to establish a literacy
agenda, contending that the Institute's role is to disseminate
information, not conduct research. She urged Board members to inform
Russ Whitehurst during his presentation later that day that they have
directed the Institute to carry out this work. Acknowledging the
sensitivity of the matter, Dr. Carnine said the Institute could gather
information about research agendas that are in place. If none exist, the
agency could facilitate discussions between NICHD and IES on how the
Institute "might help in laying out an agenda."

Dr. Carnine informed his colleagues that the Institute has received a
proposal to support research examining the effectiveness of teacher
preparation programs. Dr. Baxter said this project was one of three
unsolicited proposals the agency has received. She said the Institute
would convene a panel that will evaluate the technical and cost aspects
of the proposal and recommend whether or not to fund the project. She
said the other unsolicited proposals are to fund the State Policymaker
Reading Academy under the No Child Left Behind plan and to conduct the
Longitudinal Study of Adult Learning.

## Strategic Planning Committee Report

Dr. Hiller said it is important for Board members to view questions in
the PART plan, which measures a program's performance, in case they want
to discuss them with Russ Whitehurst. PART asks:

-   "Does the program effectively articulate potential public benefits?"
    Dr. Hiller said this question requires the Institute to conduct
    surveys and clearly identify working partners and customer bases.

-   "Does the program have a limited number of performance goals that
    demonstrate progress toward achieving the long term goals?"

-   "Do all partners, grantees, sub-grantees, and contractors support
    program planning efforts by committing to the annual and/or long
    term goals of the program." To achieve this aim, he said the
    Institute must continue to meet with key constituents and focus
    groups.

-   "Are independent and quality evaluations of sufficient scope
    conducted on a regular basis or as needed to fill gaps in
    performance information to support improvements and evaluate
    effectiveness?" He said the agency must determine how to obtain this
    data.

-   "Is the program budget aligned with the program goals in such a way
    that the impact of funding, policy and legislative changes on
    performance is readily known? Budget decisions are directly tied to
    the scope and methodological rigor of assessment activities." He
    said the Institute must stay focused on this question.

-   "Has the program taken meaningful steps to address its strategic
    planning deficiencies?"

Dr. Carnine motioned that the Institute staff present to the Board a
recommendation on how the agency can meet the PART requirement for
independent and quality evaluation of sufficient scope conducted as
needed to fill gaps in performance information to support program
improvement and evaluate effectiveness. Dr. Hiller seconded the motion,
which passed unanimously.

## Personnel Committee Reports \[Closed Session 2:00 pm -- 3:00 pm\]

Presentations by Dr. Russ Whitehurst and Dr. Chris Schatschnieder
immediately followed the closed session. (See Appendix)

[Adjournment]{.underline}

The meeting adjourned for the day at 5:44 p.m.

# THURSDAY, NOV. 3, 2005

## Committees Wrap-Up

### **Personnel Committee** 

Dr. Enriquez updated Board members on activities of the Personnel
Committee. She said the Board would meet Dec. 12, 2005 to conduct an
interim performance review of Dr. Sandra Baxter, the Institute's
Director. The purpose of the first review is to provide feedback and
redirection, if necessary, to prepare for the first full assessment
period from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006.

The committee requested that Dr. Baxter conduct a self-assessment of her
accomplishments since her official appointment as Director of the
Institute. Dr. Olivarez, president of Grand Rapids Community College in
Michigan, said Dr. Baxter was the keynote speaker at a community
literacy summit earlier in 2005. "Having somebody from Washington come,
and from the Institute, especially, was quite dramatic," he said. "She
did an awesome job."

### **Strategic Planning Committee**

Dr. Hiller directed attention to the crosswalk, which he referred to as
the Funding Stream Analysis of Policy and Programs. He recapped the
Board's previous day's plans to identify an expert or experts under the
quality assurance section and add the products to this list. After a
brief discussion, Board members and Dr. Baxter decided that the analysis
would maintain separate column headings for "products" and "impact
outcomes" rather than combining them. They also agreed that the document
should be dated "As of December 2005," for example, to reflect current
changes.

Regarding the annual work plan, Dr. Hiller reiterated the need for
clarity in defining the Institute's goal to "support rigorous research."
Can the agency "initiate" such work or merely "disseminate" it? For
example, he asked Dr. Baxter to explain the Institute's role in the
National Early Literacy Panel. She said the agency initiated, funds and
partly manages the work by overseeing a grantee.

Dr. Hiller said, "It's very easy for big cabinet agencies to take credit
for what we do. So why not, for organizational identity, just claim what
you outlined?" Thus, Dr. Hiller and Institute leaders agreed that the
organization should, when appropriate, assert that it "facilitates"
rather than merely "supports" work in the literacy field.

Dr. Baxter outlined three points regarding strategic planning:

-   What are the big ideas? The goal here, she said, is "to move us away
    from thinking about small discreet projects and to begin thinking
    about what the big issues are that we want to take on."

-   "We have to start thinking about where are the access points are for
    us, and where we want to be able to have the most influence," she
    said. "Are we concerned with posing and achieving a legislative
    solution, or do we want to affect what's happening in the
    classrooms?"

-   "Whom do we enlist to help us achieve these ends?" she asked. "It's
    important to establish who our most-important partners are. Who are
    the people who absolutely have to be at the table?"

Ms. Osborn linked these matters to the national agenda on reading
research. Dr. Wagner noted that in June the Institute for Education
Sciences is hosting a conference that will inform researchers about the
work IES is doing. He said Dr. Whitehurst has suggested that the
conferees form a small panel made up of researchers from IES, NICHD and
the National Science Foundation to flesh out the discussion. Ms. Osborn
said a document summarizing that discussion would be helpful. Ms.
Borders and Dr. Wagner said the Advisory Board and the science
foundation board could collaborate to make the project happen.

Dr. Baxter said that the Institute is working on two projects with IES
through a grant IES has with the National Center for the Study of Adult
Learning and Literacy. One project is the development of a paper that
will examine the challenges involved in conducting research in adult
literacy and how those challenges can be addressed. The other is the
development of a website with content on Meta-analysis.

## Budget Committee

Dr. Baxter expressed pleasure that, for the first time in her tenure at
the Institute, the organization did not close the Sept. 30, 2005, fiscal
year facing "11^th^-hour changes and spending plans going to the Office
of Management and Budget requesting approval to fund some activity that
had not been envisioned," she said. "In fact, we completed every
procurement that we received approval for in the original spending plan,
except for one for which we did not receive acceptable proposals." She
said the Institute would remount that competition.

She explained some line items that experienced significant increases.
Under the Bridges to Practice program review, the experts have 16
additional days to study the literature and make recommendations on how
to revise the material. After discovering some unused funds in the area
of personnel, the Institute also funded an optional task that had not
been planned.

She said that in the past year the organization has used more experts on
contracts. Ms. Reddy said in years past they were paid about \$250-\$300
per day. Today's daily rate for experts is about \$650-\$700. Dr. Baxter
said the Institute spent \$6.4 million of its \$6.6 million budget. The
\$200,000 surplus will cover expenses that come in after the close of
the fiscal year.

## Administrative Matters

After much discussion, Board members tentatively scheduled their 2006
meetings for March, June and November. Ms. Borders asked for feedback
regarding the briefing book so that the staff could make the necessary
adjustments regarding the material placed in it. There was extensive
discussion on the briefing book materials. Dr. Wagner suggested that the
Crosswalk be the sole document for updating the Institute's ongoing
activities. In other words, he said, if the Crosswalk becomes the major
document for the briefing book, it would eliminate the need for
extraneous material to be reviewed. "Having one document, we could spend
a good half-day working through it. It would be the only document \[the
Institute\] would prepare," he said. Ms. Borders and Dr. Baxter agreed
on the need to simplify the Board book.

## Debriefing on Presentations

Ms. Borders asked members if there were any issues they wanted to
address. Board members agreed to check on the status of the National
Early Literacy Panel report at the end of January 2006, connect it with
the PCER evaluation and determine the best strategy for releasing the
information. Dr. Baxter said she would check with Dr. Whitehurst on
whether the IES meeting in June 2006 is open to the public.

Board members said the research studies presented during the two-day
meeting had been interesting but were not always completely relevant to
the Board's work, and that the sheer volume of information and the
length of the presentations had left little time for the Board to
conduct its business.

The group also discussed logistics. Dr. Wagner said meeting in Florida,
Texas and other large states helps increase the Institute's presence
nationally. Dr. Baxter said when the Board meets in Washington, D.C.,
not all Interagency Group members need to speak at every meeting.
Furthermore, those who do speak perhaps should submit a written report
for the briefing book so that the Advisory Board will be provided with
background information about the agencies' projects. Consequently, when
an Interagency Group representative meets with the Board, she said, the
meeting participants can focus on agenda items and future work. Ms.
Borders concurred.

Board members revised their tentative meeting schedule: This time they
proposed to meet in February, May, August and November 2006, but no set
dates were scheduled.

**Meeting Adjourned at 1:30 p.m.**

#### APPENDIX

## Presentation by:

**Joe Torgesen, Ph.D., Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR),
Florida State University**

# Reading First Progress Monitoring and Reporting Network

Dr. Torgesen, director of the Florida Center for Reading Research at
Florida State University, opened by putting himself and the building
where the meeting took place in context. He said he had been at the
university for 30 years and that the building that houses the Center for
Reading Research is a landmark, the result of Bobby Bowden coming to the
university 30 years ago. He noted that the center is the result of the
school's success in football.

Dr. Torgensen delivered his presentation through a PowerPoint program.
He showed the Board members a cartoon in which a coach awards a senior
an emblematic letter for the athlete's accomplishments, but the athlete
cannot read it. Despite the cartoon, Dr. Torgesen said the university
considers reading ability a serious matter. He called the Florida Center
for Reading Research a "unique investment" that state officials hope
will improve literacy levels in the state and nationally.

Dr. Torgesen gave the history and development of the center. He
identified Board member Richard Wagner and Chris Lonigan as associate
directors. In 2001, Governor Bush decided that he wanted a reading
initiative in the state, an idea that became Just Read Florida. In 2002,
the governor decided to establish a center for excellence in reading
research and suggested that it be based at Florida State University.
University leaders determined that the center would be administered by
the college of arts and sciences and by the Learning Systems Institute,
a 40-year-old independent research institute. The initial leadership for
the center would come from the psychology department.

Dr. Torgesen said that after founders convinced the governor to make the
center permanent, the first major project was to help Florida prepare
its Reading First grant, which brings money for literacy to the state.
He said the governor agreed that the center would be funded through the
state legislature and through project grants. Under the Reading First
initiative, the center handles all the assessment training and data
management. The center also is involved in the evaluation of outcomes.

The second major project for the center was to become part of the
National Reading First Technical Assessment Center. The center is
working with New York, New Jersey, Virginia and other Eastern states to
improve the quality of their Reading First work. In 2004, the center
received funding that allowed it to hire eight faculty members \-- four
in psychology and four in education.

The third major project grant was funding for the pre-doctoral
interdisciplinary research training grant that allows the center to
attract high-quality graduate students to come to Florida State to learn
to be educational researchers.

For the fourth project, the center collaborated with the universities of
Texas, Houston, Oregon, Stanford University and RMC Research Corp. to
become the National Comprehensive Center for Instruction. This is a
technical assistance center that develops material and training.

The fifth project was the establishment of a pre-kindergarten division.
Dr. Lonigan and Beth Phillips have been instrumental in helping Florida
set their standards and develop some training for pre-K teachers.

Dr. Torgesen said the center's mission is to become a preeminent center
for research and literacy and to use the knowledge to help Florida
address state policy and practice needs. Another major task is to
distribute research-based information about reading, which the center
has done through its website. He showed a diagram of the center's
organizational structure. The center has about 100 employees.

Dr. Torgesen shared some success stories. In 1998, Florida
fourth-graders were substantially below the national average on the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). By 2005, they were
slightly above it. On the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT),
the state's high-stakes measure of progress, more students met the
grade-level standard in 2005 than those who took the test in 2001.

## [Board Discussion with Dr. Joe Torgesen]{.underline}

Ms. Gambill asked about "core knowledge," which Dr. Torgesen described
as a similar approach to content knowledge. He said both concepts
determine a young reader's ability to handle complex text after fourth
grade.

Dr. Torgesen discussed another of his center's success stories: the
Florida Progress Monitoring and Reporting Network. He called the network
one of the largest and most comprehensive longitudinal databases for
early reading growth in the country. He said this web-based system is
designed to capture data from 590 Reading First schools. It tracks a
student's performance from kindergarten to middle school so that
teachers can see the pupil's progress. He said 1,750 schools
encompassing 750,000 students are in the system. Although parents do not
have access to the system, a teacher can print a report in 15 minutes, a
feature he and Ms. Gambill consider important.

Dr. Torgesen said the Florida Center for Reading Research has been
exploring ways to better monitor the progress among struggling readers
from fourth to eighth grade. He said the key to their competence on the
FCAT is not just reading fluency and accuracy but also their broad
knowledge and reasoning skills. He said the center is working to design
instruments that can be used several times a year to capture these
traits. In addition, he said, Chris Schatschneider, a methodologist, is
working on projects focused on early-literacy development and the
effects of intervention.

Other Board members followed up with questions. Ms. Gambill asked
whether the center had studied the value-added system that Tennessee
started. Dr. Torgesen said Alsia Roehrig is designing an experiment to
study whether coaching elementary-school teachers improves their
instruction. Dr. Hiller asked whether retaining students improved their
reading. Dr. Torgesen replied that third-graders who are retained twice
receive three hours of intensive reading. Indications are that these
students perform better on the FCAT than had they simply been promoted,
but he said his center has not studied the matter.

**Presentation by:**

**John Strucker, Ed.D., Lecturer, Harvard University, Graduate School of
Education**

# Results of NCSALL/ETS Study of Level 1 Adult Readers

Dr. Strucker paid tribute to the Florida Center for Reading Research,
calling it "one of the great centers for reading research in the world."
He said the experimental psychologists have tackled serious matters that
affect the classroom.

Dr. Strucker discussed a study of international and national adult
literacy conducted in 2005. He said researchers are still analyzing the
data. The project was initially called the Level 1 Study, referring to
the lowest literacy levels identified in the National Adult Literacy
Survey and the International Adult Literacy Survey in 1992. He said the
study was conducted by his organization, the National Center for the
Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) at Harvard University. The
Educational Testing Service and Westat also participated. The project
was part of a larger Dept. of Education study that tested 5,000 students
in English and Spanish around the country.

He said researchers conducted the study to demonstrate to U.S. and
Canadian governments that educators can glean vital information not only
regarding the number of readers at a given level but also how to make a
guess about their instructional needs. He said researchers at the
Educational Testing Service are working with UNESCO to build these tests
in languages used in developing countries.

Dr. Strucker said the national reporting system in the United States is
a "wonderful shelf, but there's no good data going into it because the
states use different tests and different amounts of rigor in terms of
administration." He said researchers are testing Mary Beth Curtis' Boys'
Town approach, which focuses on fluency and vocabulary on intermediate
readers from fourth to eight grade.

## [Board Discussion with Dr. John Strucker]{.underline}

Dr. Olivarez asked Dr. Strucker to advise Board members on what the
field could do to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Dr.
Strucker replied that vocabulary and language background are key. He
said he is interested in whether there are shortcuts so that beginning
readers "can become self-learning machines for acquiring more
vocabulary." He cited what Becky McGowan refers to as Tier 2 words.
These are words which transcend disciplines, such as "ambivalent," which
can be used anywhere, as opposed to "photosynthesis," which arises only
in a biology class and has only one meaning.

Dr. Strucker added that his colleagues are following Mary Beth Curtis'
intervention strategy that focuses more on prosody than on rate. An
instructor who has helped an adult reader improve in decoding should
next work on prosody. Reading rate will come naturally and, hopefully,
so will comprehension. He pointed out that ESL students comprise a large
chunk of the community college and adult education population. These
students speak well but lack exposure to academic English. Dr. Torgesen
contended that instruction is minimal in many adult education programs.

Board members and Dr. Strucker then launched into a lengthy discussion
of vocabulary. Dr. Wagner said one problem researchers have discovered
is that vocabulary gains among third and fourth graders do not
necessarily lead to better reading comprehension. Ms. Osborn pointed out
that the sheer volume of vocabulary words in the English language makes
learning a daunting task. She cited a Keith Stanovich paper that
contended that students who read extensively early on tend to develop
into more-skilled readers regardless of their socioeconomic background.
"One of the big issues," she said, "is how do we promote lots of
reading, and how do we make that a part of not only kids instruction but
of adults instruction as well?"

Ms. Gambill discounted the value of decoding skills for hearing-impaired
students. She said in her 12 years of teaching for the deaf, "decoding
is meaningless" because the students do not have oral language.
"Moreover," she said, "some ninth and 10^th^-grade handicapped students
have fair vocabulary but lack fluency." Dr. Strucker said many adult ESL
readers pick up English environmentally but that their vocabulary stops
at the cusp between spoken and written language, a point most linguists
believe is around grade 3 or 4. Then, he added, there are ESL students
who haven't read much in their native language because they have lacked
the opportunity to attend school.

Dr. Wagner added another complicating factor: word knowledge. He said a
child might be able to use the word "ingredients" in a sentence but be
unable to define it. To illustrate his point, Ms. Osborn shared an
anecdote involving her two granddaughters. One day while in the kitchen,
Ms. Osborn turned on a machine. The 5-year-old remarked, "You startled
me." Her 3-year-old sister asked her to define the word. Her older
sister couldn't, but she was able to demonstrate its meaning. "That's
one way of learning," Ms. Osborn said.

Speaking from his experience as a parent and an elementary school
teacher, Dr. Hiller warned against overemphasizing the benefits of
perfect spelling. He said many teachers intimidate their students with
spelling drills and mistakenly believe that vocabulary will evolve when
in actuality the students are merely memorizing the order of the letters
but lack the definition and ability to correctly use the word in a
sentence. Dr. Wagner considered the extent to which vocabulary might be
distributed knowledge. For example, if a student learns that a "mammal"
births its young, then, the student might learn something about every
other word that "mammal" is linked to.

Lynn Reddy asked Dr. Strucker to discuss research in K-12 reading
instruction that is helpful in adult education. He said almost all of
what researchers do in adult ED has been borrowed from the K-12 arena.
He stressed what the group had been examining: vocabulary research. In
his 25 years in the field, there are fewer students who cannot decode at
all, meaning they are profoundly dyslexic. "The difficulties have
shifted upward," he said.

Dr. Strucker asked for support. He said that his organization, NCSALL,
receives its funding from the Dept. of Education's Institute for
Education Sciences, but that funding stream is closing. He urged the
Institute to continue pressing for money for adult literacy research.

## Presentation by:

**Russ Whitehurst, Ph.D.**

**Director, Institute for Education Sciences, U.S. Dept. of Education**

Using a series of slides, Dr. Whitehurst, capital director of the
Institute for Education Sciences (IES) discussed literacy and the What
Works Clearinghouse.

But first, he explained the history and structure of IES. He said IES,
the U.S. Dept. of Education's research arm, was established in November
2002 as an umbrella organization that had evolved from three centers:
one for statistics, one for research and one for education evaluation.
Reauthorization of IDEA yielded a fourth body: the National Center for
Special Education Research.

IES has a15-person board nominated by the President and the Senate and
confirmed by the Senate. At the time of his presentation, the agency had
been planning its third meeting. Dr. Whitehurst said the annual budget
is about \$600 million, the lion's share of it devoted to research
development and dissemination. After public comment, he proposes
priorities to the board, which accepts them in full or negotiates
changes.

Dr. Whitehurst said his agency's goal is to "transform education into an
evidence-based field" with the premise that if research-based practices
are used, "over time students will be educated more effectively." His
agency can accomplish this goal by supporting rigorous research and
disseminating it so that the findings are accessible and objective. The
next step is to identify or develop programs, practices and policies
that work. He said IES has identified several programs and practices
that will be fully in use by 2015. "Part of identifying what works," he
said, "is to identify what doesn't, a philosophy in accordance with
Peter Rossie's First Law." Rossie is a distinguished researcher and
evaluator. Dr. Whitehurst said IES researchers try to design activities
that help them understand why a program or practice works under some
circumstance but not others, why it does not and where it is failing.

The agency's primary target group is at-risk students who have been
raised in poverty or are disadvantaged with regard to race, ethnicity,
English competency and family circumstances. Under the federal
government's Title I law, ED's chief role is to serve states and
localities that bear the burden of educating children. He said 93
percent of the funds in public education come from local government.

He identified outcomes included in the No Child Left Behind law that
researchers focus on:

## Target Group Outcome

Infants/pre-schoolers Pre-reading skills that prepare them for
kindergarten

> Special Ed infants/toddlers Ability to balance or grasp a ball
>
> K-12 Reading and writing
>
> Adults with low skills Basic skills
>
> Post-secondary College enrollment and completion
>
> Post-secondary special Ed Ability to interact socially and maintain a
> job

Dr. Whitehurst acknowledged that these variables outside of the school
system influence student outcome:

-   the family's economic circumstance

-   the nature of the communities in which the children live

-   parental attitudes toward education and the support they give their
    children

Researchers, however, must focus on conditions they can control:
curriculum, instruction and assessment. A high-quality education
workforce and policies that allow for parental choice are areas within
the control of policymakers.

He said IES is working to improve research methods. Researchers are
analyzing student achievement in classrooms, schools and school
districts through cluster randomized designs. In addition, Congress has
authorized a new competitive grant program for states in which a single
student's progress is followed from grade to grade and school to school.
Using this approach, researchers hope to expand to a national level the
pool of data that has been gathered in Florida, Texas, North Carolina
and Louisiana

Dr. Whitehurst said the What Works Clearinghouse and the ERIC database
must do more to make the latest research available to teachers and
parents. He showed Board members a slide that contained a matrix
outlining his agency's priorities for K-12 students. He said IES is
responsible for evaluating the administration's Reading First program.
He said many teachers have been trained to carry out the practices
identified by the National Reading Panel.

He discussed Even Start, the popular preschool program. He said Even
Start has three components: a program for young children, an adult
education program for parents, and a program that offers parenting
skills. But two national evaluations have found "there are no measurable
impacts either on kids' literacy skills or adult literacy skills" of
participants in the program, he said. While Even Start may produce some
effects, he added, the studies have shown that it "produces no effects
above and beyond what parents can obtain through their own resources, or
through mechanisms that are available in the community, like Head
Start."

## Board Discussion with Dr. Russ Whitehurst

Dr. Wagner and Ms. Osborn asked Dr. Whitehurst to discuss two evaluation
projects. Dr. Whitehurst said the evaluation of reading comprehension,
which intends to measure the effectiveness of reading intervention at
middle schools, is in the planning stages -- as is the evaluation of
professional development in reading. He said organizers must decide
whether professional development will occur in the summer or throughout
the year.

Dr. Whitehurst talked about other IES endeavors. He said his team is
evaluating 16 technology software products: eight covering math and
eight covering reading. The draft of the report is scheduled for release
in the six months. He said IES is developing a software product that
measures the coherence of textbooks. His agency also has a longstanding
program with NICHD that has a portfolio of grants on English language
literacy and Spanish-speaking students. IES is evaluating pre-school
curricula with a focus on pre-reading and pre-math skills.

A new priority is training teachers who provide instruction in reading
and writing in adult education and bridge programs that assist poorly
prepared high school students to qualify for community colleges and help
college students with remedial courses. In the National Center for
Education Statistics, IES has collected data that will provide insight
on the reading and writing skills of pupils in kindergarten to fifth
grade.

He discussed other assessments. In the international literacy arena, his
agency's tests reveal that American 15-year-olds perform below their
peers in other industrialized nations. The final report from data
collected during the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy is in
peer review. When the results are released, people will be able to
identify the proportion of the U.S. adult population that has low
functional levels of literacy. Those levels will be defined by what
functions these adults can and cannot perform.

IES has released results of the National Assessment of Educational
Progress, which show a slight gain in reading among fourth-graders
between 2003 and 2005. For Blacks and Hispanics, there was a two-point
gain. Performance among eighth-graders was down from 2003. "We have got
a lot of work to do in middle schools in terms of literacy," he said.

The newly created National Center for Special Education Research will
focus on language and vocabulary development research. He said most
children learn language through an incidental process: from talking with
their parents and peers and reading outside the classroom. For children
with learning disabilities, researchers are trying to find a measure for
intensive vocabulary development that can substitute for this process.

Dr. Whitehurst devoted the rest of his remarks to the What Works
Clearinghouse. He said the center was funded in 2002 to create a new way
of telling the public what the evidence says regarding what works and
what doesn't. He said the goal has been to generate a way of vetting
research that is formulaic. But this effort "has proven more difficult
than anticipated, he said, "and the product has been slower out the door
than people want, or that I want." He called the clearinghouse a
"factory under construction."

He showed a slide of an ambitious project on beginning reading. Rather
than reviewing all the data that exists, researchers are examining
programs and practices that are widely used. In addition, they have
selected only interventions that are available for users to adopt.
Researchers expect to release results of one intervention in February
2006, followed by an evaluation of more than 70 programs by February
2007.

He said the clearinghouse is setting the bar higher than some would like
and lower than others prefer. The ultimate goal is to force product
makers to evaluate the validity of their claims as to a product's
effectiveness.

Ms. Osborn asked him to respond to critics who argue that Reading First
is so focused on high-stakes testing that the program merely teaches
children to take tests. He said because interventions are so new, it is
too soon to draw any conclusions.

## Presentation by:

**Chris Schatschnieder, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology,
Florida State University**

# National Early Literacy Panel

Dr. Schatschnieder updated the Board on the developments of the National
Early Literacy Panel. He first described its structure and provided some
background information. The NELP is funded by the National Institute for
Literacy and is coordinated by the National Center for Family Literacy
in Louisville, KY. He said the Panel is in consultation with NICHD, the
U.S. Dept. of Education and the Head Start Bureau. Dr. Tim Shanahan is
chairman of the nine-member group comprised of experts in early
childhood development and early literacy.

Dr. Schatschnieder said the Panel was created to fill the need for
increased use of research in making educationally sound decisions. While
its predecessor, the National Reading Panel, covered kindergarten and
moved forward, researchers felt a need for comparable information
regarding pre-kindergarten and how those skills relate to later
performance in reading.

The Panel's goal is develop some research questions and then to
synthesize -- that is, examine and make some generalizations about --
the literature available in early literacy. The panelists came up with
four questions, stated as Research Question (or RQ, for short):

RQ1: What are young children's skills and abilities that predict later
reading, writing and spelling?

RQ2: What are the environments and settings that contribute to or
inhibit gains in children's skills and abilities that are linked to
later reading and writing outcomes?

RQ3: What are the child characteristics that also either contribute or
inhibit these skills and abilities that are later linked?

RQ4: What are the programs and interventions that contribute to or
inhibit gains in children's skills and abilities that are linked to
later outcomes in reading, writing and spelling?

Dr. Schatschnieder described Questions 2 and 3 as moderator queries. He
said Question 4 is the Panel's main goal. He then explained the process
for conducting the study. "First we want to identify these skills," he
said. "What are the skills and abilities that kids have early, birth
through age five, that later predict reading, writing and spelling. Then
we want to target what we find in Research Question 1 down to Research
Question 4: What are programs and interventions that might increase
those abilities that we've identified in Research Question 1?"

Board Discussion with Dr. Chris Schatschnieder

Using a series of slides that contained tables and graphs, Dr.
Schatschnieder engaged the Board and Institute leaders in a detailed
discussion of the Panel's work. Among the preliminary findings, alphabet
knowledge and spelling ability are strong predictors of later reading
skills among pre-K and kindergarteners.

Board members and Dr. Baxter asked Dr. Schatschnieder about the
timetable for releasing the findings. Dr. Baxter confirmed that the
Panel would have a report on the bulk of the findings for RQ1 and RQ4 by
the end of January 2006. Dr. Schatschnieder said he would be comfortable
with Board members' desire to release findings of RQ1 and RQ 4 together
and release RQ 2 and RQ 3 as an addendum. He said his fellow panelists
probably would not object to this plan. However, Drs. Schatschnieder and
Whitehurst said they did not think it would be possible to coordinate a
joint release of the NELP report and the PCER study because the latter
would not be available until June 2006, which would delay release of the
NELP findings.

**Presentation by:**

**Chris Lonigan, Ph.D., Associate Director, Florida Center for Reading
Research (FCRR)**

# Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research

Dr. Lonigan discussed two projects: a study on pre-K and early literacy
intervention, and the PCER analysis.

In the intervention study, funded by the National Science Foundation,
the field examines three primary domains of early literacy or emergent
literacy skills related to later conventional reading and writing,
including oral language, print knowledge and phonological processing.

Dr. Lonigan said the National Early Literacy Panel found that pupils who
can read at the end of pre-K could read in first grade, too. Alphabet
knowledge, writing and phonological awareness are key factors of what
predicts later success in decoding. Oral language is less of a factor.
He said despite the field's focus, vocabulary "is not one of the better
predictors of either decoding or comprehension," he said. Key variables
are more complex language skills, such as the ability to manipulate
large syntactic units or understand narrative or provide definitions.

He called the intervention study a large and complex project examining
curriculum and teacher professional development. Researchers ultimately
wanted to know the impact of an evidence-based literacy curriculum on
the literacy skills of children at-risk for reading difficulties. They
also were interested in the effect of different models of professional
development.

He said the preliminary findings are that there is an overall positive
effect of the classroom curriculum related to the typical Head Start
program. And early indications are that there is some advantage, though
not huge, for more intensive professional development, in terms of
children's skill development. Dr. Lonigan said the researchers collected
much information about families and that there will be three more years
of intervention after the initial two-year study.

Board members asked several questions during his presentation. Ms.
Osborn wondered when the researchers would "pump up the language portion
of the curriculum," considering that this area did not yield the results
they anticipated. "Changing language is hard," Dr. Lonigan replied.
"That is probably one of the largest challenges across early literacy
right now. Even the most powerful interventions for vocabulary or for
language don't produce effects that are going to knock anybody's socks
off. You get improvement, but I think the improvement is modest compared
to what you can do in some of other areas of early literacy."

He discussed the PCER evaluation in broad terms. He said about 3,000
children are the subjects of the study, but he did not know what the
Institute for Education Sciences is doing with the report. He said he
could not share details because a contractor collected the data, and he
first has to obtain license to see it.

In response to Dr. Wagner's question, Dr. Lonigan said releasing the
NELP report without the PCER study would not diminish the NELP report.
Dr. Lonigan said he did not know when the PCER report would be released.
He said the literacy field should see what the PCER report says before
determining whether to publish it as an addendum to the NELP report.

Dr. Lonigan was asked whether the Institute should publish results of
Research Questions 1 and 4 together or wait for the results of Questions
2 and 3 and release all four simultaneously. Dr. Lonigan said he
recalled a phone conference call that suggested that researchers would
focus on Questions 1 and 4.

**Panel Discussion**

**Family and Adult Literacy in Florida**

Ms. Reddy introduced the panelists, who handed out statistical
information and literature about their activities:

-   Roxanne Campbell, Director of the Family Literacy Initiative at the
    Volunteer Florida Foundation

-   Ann Bessell, Assistant Professor at the University of Miami

-   Nancy Cordell, Director of Career and Technical, Adult Education,
    and Apprenticeship Programs at the Florida Dept. of Education

Ms. Campbell said she directs Gov. Bush's Family Literacy Initiative in
Florida. The Initiative, a non-profit that is part of the Volunteer
Florida Foundation, has two of the governor's projects: the mentoring
initiative and the faith-based initiative. Through public-private
partnerships, the Family Literacy Initiative helps fund literacy and
educational programs throughout the state, she said.

Since its inception in 1999, the Family Literacy Initiative has funded
more than 126 family literacy programs and served almost 10,000
individuals, parents and their children. The Initiative collects data,
and, with the University of Florida's help, has been able to evaluate
its programs. More than 70 percent of the program's participants speak
Spanish or languages other than English in their home and are from
Mexico, Central America and South America. Many are migrant workers.
Most of the young participants attend Title I schools.

Ms. Campbell said her organization values four components of family
literacy:

-   Adult Education, the primary component

-   Parenting Education, which helps provide life skills

-   Early Childhood Education, serving primarily first through third
    grade

-   PACT (Parent and Child Together Time), the "sticky glue" that holds
    the program together. This is the time in which parents demonstrate
    what they've learned by helping in class to educate their child

Ms. Cordell discussed Florida's adult education system. She said 25
percent of the state's 16million residents have low literacy skills.
About 370,000 people enroll annually in the state's adult education
programs, which receive about \$334 million in funding. Ms. Borders
described that as "an amazing ratio of funds per student." The
objectives of the programs are to assist adults in becoming literate so
that they can be self-sufficient, to work with parents so they can help
their children, and help adults get a high school diploma or GED.

Ms. Cordell said the primary providers of adult education programs are
local school districts, community colleges and community-based
organizations. The school districts provide the bulk of the services. A
Practitioners Task Force comprised of administrators, program managers
and instructors keeps the providers updated on the latest curricula. The
providers use techniques established by ProLiteracy Worldwide and the
National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. They also
conduct research projects. She said the biggest challenge they face is
coordinating the various services available into one coherent system.