BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GreenLight Fund Boston, part of the national nonprofit that partners with communities to create opportunities for inclusive prosperity, has invested in The Literacy Lab’s Leading Men Fellowship to support the organization’s expansion into Boston. In bringing The Leading Men Fellowship to Boston, GreenLight Fund aims to dually support youth literacy in the city while creating professional development opportunities in education for young men of color.
Children in historically marginalized neighborhoods are more than four times less likely to enter Kindergarten with school-ready reading and language skills compared to their higher income peers. These systematic literacy gaps only compound as children move further along in their education, and those who cannot read on grade level by the end of third grade are four times less likely to graduate from high school on time. This issue is prevalent in Boston, where only 29 percent of third graders read on grade level, including only 21 percent of Black students and 19 percent of Latino students.
The Leading Men Fellowship places young men of color into a year-long, residency-style experience in which they provide evidence-based literacy support to pre-kindergarten students, typically in under-resourced communities. Classrooms with Leading Men Fellows see 65% of Pre-K students achieving benchmarks indicating kindergarten readiness. As part of the program, Fellows receive robust coaching and professional development opportunities to support literacy in young children and, critically, to diversify the teacher workforce.
Students of color make up more than half of the nation’s public school student population (and more than 80% of public school students in Boston), but less than a quarter of public school teachers are people of color. Closing this gap is essential given that having teachers of color in the classroom is linked to significant social-emotional benefits for all students, especially students of color. The Fellowship also creates career opportunities for young men of color, who have historically not pursued and not been sought out for careers in education, with 50% of Leading Men Fellows pursuing a career in education post-fellowship.
“Early childhood education, and particularly reading proficiency, is an area we’ve heard from the community to prioritize at GreenLight Boston given the profound long-term effects that high-quality early learning opportunities have on young children,” said Melissa Luna, Executive Director of GreenLight Boston. “The opportunity to bring The Leading Men Fellowship to Boston is incredibly compelling because of the organization’s proven methodology for addressing childhood literacy challenges while also diversifying the teacher workforce, something that’s long been a priority for local leaders.”
The Leading Men Fellowship comes to Boston after experiencing tremendous success in markets including Baltimore, Milwaukee and Washington D.C as well as Atlanta and Cincinnati, where it is also supported by GreenLight Fund sites. During the 2024-2025 school year, the program has placed 99 Fellows across the locations, serving more than 1,300 students.
“We’ve seen the benefits of The Leading Men Fellowship on both the children and the Fellows,” said Heather Jenkins, Ph.D., President & CEO at The Literacy Lab. “Partnering with the GreenLight Fund Boston provides us the opportunity to expand the reach of this transformative program to a new market, one where developing a mechanism for getting more young men of color into the classroom will be particularly impactful.”
In the coming months, the Fellowship will recruit a local leader to spearhead the organization’s work in Boston. Following recruitment, Fellows will begin training in August of 2025 and then serve in Boston classrooms in September. Over the next four years, more than 100 fellows will serve in the Greater Boston area’s pre-K classrooms, supporting 2,000 students to achieve kindergarten readiness.
More information about The Literacy Lab can be found here.
About GreenLight Fund
GreenLight Fund is a national nonprofit with a local focus that partners with communities to create opportunities for inclusive prosperity. The organization, in each of its sites, facilitates a community-driven process that matches local needs of individuals and families not met by existing programs to organizations with track records of success elsewhere. Working with communities, GreenLight identifies, invites in and launches proven organizations, providing collaborative support so they can quickly take root and deliver measurable social impact. Started in Boston in 2004, 60 portfolio organizations have been launched across GreenLight’s 13 sites — Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Greater Newark, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Twin Cities. For more information, visit: greenlightfund.org/Boston
About The Literacy Lab
The Literacy Lab is a national non-profit organization that provides students - in communities experiencing racial and/or economic inequities - with evidence-based, culturally responsive literacy instruction as preparation for academic, professional, and personal success. The Literacy Lab partners with school districts to help close the literacy gap largely by embedding full-time, rigorously trained tutors in early childhood centers and elementary schools.
Media Contact
Matt Miller
V2 Communications for GreenLight Fund
mmiller@v2comms.com
Lernard Freeman
The Literacy Lab
lfreeman@theliteracylab.org
