PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach led a discussion Tuesday on how the county plans to continue fighting against the area’s low reading proficiency in children.
Streckenbach revealed that reading proficiency for third graders stayed at approximately 37% in Brown County this past school year, after creating a goal to increase the county’s proficiency of 36.7% in the 2022-2023 school year.
He says there has been a steady decline in reading proficiency over the last seven years, dropping 5% since 2017.
Streckenbach acknowledged that this is not an issue that can be fixed overnight, and will take time to slowly break the curve. But the importance of breaking the curve increases by the year.
It is very clear, that if a child can’t read, they are going to have challenges. And unfortunately, oftentimes for certain children, the lack of ability of reading oftentimes brings them into our incarceration or into our public justice system.
One of the ways the county aims to combat the declining literacy is a free monthly book delivery service for certain communities across the county, in an effort to help families who may not be able to afford resources to help literacy for their children.
The county made a call to action to have the community help create a community-wide plan to help reading proficiency for youth across the area.
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