Step Forward

Far too many children in Northwest Louisiana are not on a path to success. In the Northwest Louisiana metropolitan statistical area (MSA), more than 13,000 children under the age of six live in poverty, and about 60 percent of kindergarten students enter school lacking basic readiness skills. By the third grade, over 2,000 students are not proficient readers, making them four times more likely to dropout of school than their literate peers. Once a child starts behind, they likely to stay behind. Step Forward seeks to eliminate such disparities and improve outcomes for all students in Northwest Louisiana, with teams focused on the critical developmental points of early childhood, early literacy, middle grade STEM, youth citizenship (middle and high school), and workforce development.

Our very youngest children are a particular concern with so many of whom living in poverty - 34 percent of those under the age of six. Although children of all income levels have the same range of cognitive ability at birth, by 18 months an achievement gap begins to appear for those in impoverished households, likely due to what is known as the "30 million word gap" - a reference to the finding that children in poverty may hear 30 million fewer words by the age of four than their more affluent peers.1 Given that the early foundation for all later learning is built by language, considered the essential nutrition of the developing brain; the absence of a language-rich environment can initiate the achievement gap which often persists throughout a lifetime. However, in Northwest Louisiana, where the number of remedial kindergarteners far exceeds the number in poverty, this problem clearly crosses all socioeconomic boundaries. If the size of a young child's vocabulary predicts the size of her bank account, then our efforts should begin at the earliest point - workforce development must begin at birth.Step Forward is an example of such a "cradle to career" approach.

Step Forward is based on a proven model of success - Strive Together, which successfully utilized collective impact in Cincinnati, Ohio to move child welfare indicators in a positive direction. In contrast, decades of isolated "silo" programming in communities, although often effective in individual classrooms or schools, has been ineffective in achieving long-term, systemic change. The Strive model utilizes data-driven decision making to develop collaborative projects that are evaluated utilizing a continuous quality improvement approach. Participating organizations are not asked to spend more money or create new programs, but rather to align existing resources to in order to expand impact. To date, Step Forward has achieved a partnership of more than 400 organizations representing all sectors of Northwest Louisiana-business, education, nonprofit, healthcare, government, civic and faith-based organizations, as well as 1,700 individuals working together through 39 collaborative action projects.