FT. WAYNE, Indiana (October 28, 2009) - As Mitch's Kids - Governor Mitch Daniels' statewide initiative to reduce the achievement gap - enters its fifth year, reading and math skills of participating children continue to show drastic improvement.
Seventy-one Boys & Girls Clubs will participate in the after-school tutoring program this year, more than any previous year since Daniels initiated the program during the 2005-06 school year.
"The enormous progress these kids are making in reading and math largely has gone unnoticed but I couldn't be more proud. The concrete results being measured in these clubs prove that our low-income kids are fully capable of academic success," said Daniels, who visited the Boys & Girls Club of Ft. Wayne today.
The goal of the program is to increase reading and math skills of the participants, who are in grades 1 through 8. To obtain a baseline measure, the Indiana Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs completes pre- and post-testing of many of the participants. Nearly 12,000 children who have enrolled in the program since January 2006 have completed pre-tests to assess their reading and math skills, and 5,000 children have taken tests following the Mitch's Kids reading and math homework sessions to determine progress.
Through August, reading fluency scores for those tested have increased an average of 65 percent and math fluency scores have increased by 64.5 percent (the test administered is the Woodcock-Johnston Tests of Achievement).
Before participating in the program, 33 percent of tested participants were reading above grade level and 31 percent were above grade level in math fluency. After the program, 62 percent were reading at above grade level and 63 percent were above grade level in math fluency.
The governor has committed $1 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds each year since the start of the program. Mitch's Kids works in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Club after-school POWER Hour program at 71 clubs throughout the state. Participants receive homework and tutoring sessions for a specified number of weeks and are tested to determine reading and math progress.
The governor established Mitch's Kids to help close the achievement gap. Ninety-three percent of participants receive free or reduced price lunch. The Family and Social Services Administration works with Boys & Girls Clubs to identify and enroll children from low-income households.
Overall goals are to help children increase the quality and quantity of homework they complete and help improve student behavior and attitudes about school and learning. The program's goal for reading and math tests is to increase scores by at least 10 percent for first and second graders and by at least 15 percent for third through eighth graders.
In addition to children enrolled in Mitch's Kids, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America POWER Hour program has served an additional 35,622 children across Indiana. The POWER Hour focuses on building skills to be successful in school, such as completing homework, and preparing for class with staff and volunteer encouragement and assistance.
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