SOE News
Warren Buford Highlights Benefits of Literacy Education
Oct. 28, 2005
“It was like pulling back the shades and letting the sunshine in!” Quoting these words from a Tennessee man describing his experience of learning to read as an adult, Warren Buford, deputy director of the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools, illustrated the importance of literacy education in America and globally.
Buford presented the keynote address of the annual Read. Write. Act. National Conference hosted by SCALE ─ the Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education ─ on Oct. 28 on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. The Freedom Schools program is a national summer and after-school literacy enrichment program within a child advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Introducing Buford, SCALE Executive Director Kathy Sikes reminded the audience of more than 100 literacy volunteers and staff from around the country that “literacy is not just reading and writing, not just speaking English, but also taking action.” Warren Buford is a person of action, she noted, not only in his role with the Children’s Defense Fund, but also when he formerly spent 18 months as a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellow in Cape Town, South Africa.
Based on his global perspective that too few children grow up in a literacy-rich environment, Buford described literacy as a vehicle for social justice. “All children and adults have the potential for greatness,” he said. “Literacy can transform children and adults from a state of helplessness to hope, from despair to pride, from complacency to empowerment. It is at the heart of a transformative education.”
Buford offered his view that making literacy education available is often a matter of access, not attitude. “An unlevel playing field from birth contributes to too many poor and minority children getting pulled into a cradle-to-prison-to-death pipeline that we must dismantle if the clock of racial and social progress is not to turn backward.”
He cited recent federal policy choices such as tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as perpetuating these inequities, emphasizing his belief that “America needs a culture that makes it politically and socially and economically acceptable to give to the less fortunate before giving to the most fortunate.”
Although many people have been working to reduce illiteracy, Buford pointed out that the statistics remain gloomy and it never seems that enough is done. In the year 2000, there were 900 million illiterate adults worldwide.
In the United States, although we are a leader in literacy, we are still in the midst of a literacy crisis, he noted. In 1999, only about 25 percent of the U.S. labor force was able to read at the top two of five levels. Last year’s end-of-grade test scores showed that we still have classrooms full of struggling readers: Only 31 percent of fourth graders and 31 percent of eighth graders performed at or above grade level in reading.
The challenge is compounded by the persistence of poverty in the United States. Buford reported that more than 13 million, or just under 20 percent of all persons younger than 18, were living in poverty in 2003, according to U.S. census figures. Furthermore, the number of American children living in poverty has continued to increase over the last four years.
In the face of these challenges, the mission of literacy education remains of paramount importance in order to offer hope to those living in disadvantaged circumstances in today’s information-rich, multilingual, multicultural world.
Buford described the logo of the Children’s Defense Fund as an illustration of the hope that literacy offers. Drawn by a 7-year-old girl, it depicts a bright sun shining on a small boat on a wide sea.
He emphasized the importance of working together, stating that “people in the advocacy world need to organize and be organized. Acting in concert with a common purpose produces togetherness and synergy.”
In recognition of the vast scope of the work of literacy education, Buford told the audience, “Perhaps you can’t do everything, but you can do something. And by doing something, you will catalyze others into action.”
Buford exhorted the audience members to continue their work, act together and transform their beliefs into action in literacy education. “All of us must do what we can,” Buford emphasized. “We are one lighthouse shining onto a wide sea.”
SCALE was founded in the fall of 1989 when two Carolina undergraduate tutors joined together to mobilize and support college students who wanted to address the literacy needs of this country. Housed in the School of Education, SCALE has grown into a national organization that supports a robust network of campus-based literacy programs across the country.