The Santa Barbara Reading Coalition has received fiscal sponsorship from the Santa Barbara Foundation, a move coalition leaders say will strengthen their push for improved literacy in local public schools. The partnership will also support a new series of public literacy events, beginning this fall.
Coalition Chair Steve Epstein called the sponsorship an honor, saying the foundation is helping “endorse and support our coalition’s efforts to improve reading in Santa Barbara public schools.” Coalition Executive Director Andrew Salzman said the partnership will help the group “highlight those school districts that have successfully moved the needle on literacy and replicate those successes here.”
The coalition meets regularly with school boardmembers, educators, and community leaders and aims to raise reading proficiency rates above 90 percent. “Santa Barbara reading test scores have languished below 50 percent for years, and only a concerted and consistent effort backed by strong literacy leadership can change this,” Epstein said.
That effort is rooted in the science of reading — a broad, interdisciplinary body of research built over decades in fields such as cognitive psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. It examines how children learn to read and how to teach reading most effectively.
Drawing on this research, each coalition event will spotlight instruction based on the science of reading, featuring speakers who have implemented proven strategies in districts demographically similar to Santa Barbara.
The group’s inaugural public event under its new sponsorship will be held October 18 from 2-4 p.m. at the Central Library’s Faulkner Gallery. The program will feature Todd Collins, founder of the California Reading Coalition and a former Palo Alto school board trustee, along with Congressmember Salud Carbajal. “Todd will present data-driven best practices in SoR (Science of Reading), highlighting the importance of strong literacy leadership and faithful SoR implementation,” Salzman said.
Future events will be held quarterly, with updates available at sbreads.org.
