Forever Free: A True Story of Hope in the Fight for Child Literacy. This item is unavailable.Forever Free: A True Story of Hope in the Fight for Child Literacy

You wouldn't guess it by listening to elected officials, but education is the civil rights issue of our day. At the root of every important problem Americans face, from mass incarceration to income inequality, is an education system influenced by the nation's fraught history. With the gap between white academic achievement and that of students of colour widening, now is the time to turn attention to the basics, and few would argue with the fact that the single most essential aspect of a good education is literacy. Beyond reading and writing, literacy encompasses a whole host of skills that allow us to develop our potential and succeed in society, including critical thinking, self-discipline, curiosity, leadership, and motivation. Helping all young people, especially those who live in low-income communities, improve their literacy skills should be a top priority. Numerous programs are operating around the US to address the issue of underperformance in light of the shortcomings of our public school system. Through one such program, Freedom Readers, Tracy Swinton Bailey has honed an approach to strengthening communities and the prospects of all children that invites those with the benefit of a good education into low-income areas for the purpose of growing literacy skills together. In Forever Free, she outlines clearly and persuasively how it has worked in the rural South, and how it can work across the US. This book will inspire and empower readers, and should be placed in the hands of educators and organisers at every level.

Tracy Swinton Bailey earned a Ph.D. in Education with a specialization in Language and Literacy at the University of South Carolina in 2013. She began her career as a high school English instructor, and went on to found Freedom Readers, an after-school and summer literacy program that was designed and implemented to support families in low-income areas and assist children in achieving their academic goals in reading. She is married to award-winning writer, Issac J. Bailey, and is the mother of two children.