FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leslie A. Dunbar

(212)558-5438

ldunbar@nul.org

Washington, D.C., Dec. 1, 2000–The National Urban League and Scholastic, Inc. today announced a partnership designed to help promote and encourage early literacy. National Urban League President Hugh B. Price and Karen Proctor, Director of Community Affairs and Government Relations for Scholastic Inc. made the announcement during the National Urban League/Howard University Black Leadership Education Summit in Washington, DC.

Under the terms of the partnership, Scholastic Inc. is donating 50,000 books to 38 Urban League affiliates that run education programs serving children aged 12 and younger. Scholastic began distributing books to the 38 Urban League affiliates in November and will continue through February 2001. The affiliates can use the books for lending libraries for parents and young people, in after school and day programs, as give-aways to students and parents, and in other programmatic efforts.

The programs are part of the National Urban League’s Campaign for African American Achievement, a community mobilization and advocacy initiative. Price conceived the "Achievement Campaign" to counter the anti-achievement messages young people receive and to ensure that educators and policymakers provide quality education, youth development opportunities and adequate support to our young people.

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The first phase of the Achievement Campaign focused on enlisting African American leaders and organizations; launching local achievement campaigns coordinated by Urban League affiliates around the country; and spreading the gospel that "achievement matters." Moving forward, Urban League affiliates and their local campaign partners will work with parents and caregivers and local schools to impart an understanding of the importance of early literacy and help equip them for the critical role they must play.

"We as black people should make certain that every black child can read, write and compute at grade level or better by the time they graduate from elementary school," said Price.

"Deficiencies in early literacy are readily apparent on national exams," he continued. "Three times as many white pupils as black meet the fourth grade proficiency standard in reading on the National Assessment for Educational Progress. As if that gap isn’t alarming enough, the proportion of black students who meet it is appallingly low."

"This is why the National Urban League has embraced early literacy as a main focus of our Campaign for African American Achievement. And we are extremely excited that Scholastic–a corporation with almost 80 years of experience in and dedication to teaching children how to read–is joining us in our efforts to bridge this achievement gap."

Proctor added, "Throughout its history, Scholastic has recognized the importance of working with public, private, and non-profit organizations such as the Urban League, that share its mission to improve the well-being of children. Scholastic is proud to support the League\'s work not only with this donation of books for young readers, but just as importantly, by working together helping parents enhance their children\\\'s early literacy skills, which will set them on the road to achievement."

A second activity under the National Urban League/Scholastic partnership is the development of a Parent\\\'s Guide to Early Literacy. Geared to parents with children up to age 9, the guides will highlight the growth and development behaviors of young children at various stages and offer suggestions for activities parents can do to promote early literacy.

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Accompanying the Guide will be a book with activities that parents and children can do together to reinforce the information learned. The National Urban League and Scholastic Inc. expect to make the Guide available by March 2001.

Scholastic is the world\\\'s largest publisher and distributor of children\\\'s books. A global children\\\'s publishing and media company serving the needs of parents, teachers, and children, Scholastic provides proprietary book and software distribution through school book clubs, school book fairs and to classrooms, as well as through the retail trade. Since 1920, Scholastic has created quality educational materials for schools and has expanded its reach to include the distribution of books, software, toys, online learning services and television programming directly to the home. Scholastic recently acquired Grolier, the leading print and online publisher of children\\\'s reference materials and the leader in children\\\'s direct to home book clubs. Internationally, Scholastic operates wholly owned companies in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United Kingdom. The U.S. Scholastic web site serves 1.5 million parents, teachers and children each month at //www.scholastic.com.

Founded in 1910, the Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. The National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the movement. A nonprofit, nonpartisan, community-based organization with affiliates in more than 100 cities in 34 states and the District of Columbia, the League carries out its mission at the local, state and national levels through direct services, advocacy, research, policy analysis, community mobilization, collaboration and communications.