This web log discussion is built around these 100 words.

The Truth Without the gift of Early Reading Skills all children are behind before they even start kindergarten.

The Gift Only an individual gift delivers early reading skills at age 3, 4 and 5. This is the key to opportunity. It is society’s best (effective and lowest cost) approach to preparing the bottom half of the bottom half (poorest of the poor) to want the opportunities, choices and engagement.

The Focus When 100% of the children start kindergarten ready to read English the urban school has the resources to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress Requirement of No Child Left Behind.


These first 100 words have been left loose in the middle so you can fill in the blanks. But, the start and end are not loose, in the sketch or in the web log. Our society has never prepared 100% of the children in urban areas to start kindergarten ready to read. This is a new requirement, and it is being addressed as if it is an old one. We can rise to the challenge the fastest by positively facilitating exactly these starting requirements within the community. Also, the urban elementary school principal's network to the community is the urban capacity to sustain any improvements over 10-20 years. This network is also the link to the social return and payback for the gifts of early reading skills. It must be defined to be an end in mind.

This web log is only one way to say and resource the start and the finish. Obviously there are others. Please stay positive with me, It is critical that each community, principal and school district has started with the end in mind and is looking to the available resources already in place. This material will show one non-exclusive way to an undisputed end in mind for the urban public elementary school (see focus above).

In a turnaround, started when leadership has no choice but to change, several strategies (paths) are not better than one. Public or private turnarounds are made with added equity resources in some form. The initial resources to make the turn come from those already deployed and considered as equity. Pure new cash equity is generally not forthcoming, until the organization can articulate in a few words (say 100) why success, in the end, should now be expected. It is usual for turnarounds to fail because they do not resource first things first, they also resource third and fourth level strategies, or leadership does not look far enough into the future for the real requirements and ended up climbing the wrong mountain.


Tom Wolfgram