Daily Inspiration: Meet Diana Greene

Today we’d like to introduce you to Diana Greene.

Hi Diana, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
We began as the hope of a single librarian in Philadelphia, and September 2023 will mark the Children’s Literacy Initiative’s 35th anniversary. What started as an annual celebration of literacy and quality literature is now a nationwide educational non-profit that impacts the lives and professions of over 70,000 students and more than 3,500 teachers annually. As a librarian, Linda Katz often encountered children who could not read at the appropriate grade level and were uninterested in the books available to them. She did her best to share her knowledge and expertise with parents, hoping to help in any way. These initial interactions were the start of a lifetime dedicated to early literacy. Linda, along with co-founders Pat Federman and Marcia Moon, would establish Rainbow Readers, the Children’s Expo Book Fair, and Mrs. Bush Story Time, a successful story hour radio show featuring First Lady Barbara Bush. While beneficial, each endeavor shed light on a much larger issue– teachers also needed these tools. Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI) was born.

Children’s Literacy Initiative seeks to dismantle structural racism by providing Black and Latinx children with the anti-racist early literacy instruction, support, and advocacy needed to create equity in education. We are working towards creating a more equitable education system, one that promotes early literacy, cultural competency, and equitable outcomes for all students, particularly Black and Latinx students who have long been disproportionately isolated from the resources to obtain the education they deserve. CLI believes literacy creates lasting social change and fosters a just and equitable society. Through the years, we have continued to grow and improve our methodologies and grow geographically to reach more at-risk students. We have served pre-kindergarten through third-grade students from Denver, Chicago, Broward County, Florida, Houston, Elizabeth, Passaic, and Philadelphia. At our core, we still work under those founding principles that when teachers receive the right combination and intensity of training and coaching, they will become exemplary instructors who can transform the lives of children. Our work is nationally recognized for its impact on student achievement. An American Institutes for Research (AIR) report on results from a three-year, randomized control study concluded, “the CLI program produces substantial effects on teachers’ classroom environment and literacy practices, which in turn, lead to measurable effects on average reading achievement in early elementary grades.” Our approach and results are now part of the prestigious What Works Clearinghouse.

In addition, in 2017, the Library of Congress awarded CLI its top honor, the David M. Rubenstein Prize, for its outstanding and measurable contribution to increasing literacy levels; and in early 2018, Charity Navigator once again awarded CLI a coveted 4-out-of-4-star rating for its accountability and transparency. For 35 years, we have worked to transform and strengthen classrooms across the U.S. For 30 years, we have improved student outcomes by giving teachers high-impact instructional strategies. For the next 30 years, we will continue to enable children to read at grade level and ensure that teachers have the support they need to create influential readers, writers, and thinkers. Working with pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers, CLI is transforming literacy instruction and early childhood education so that children learn to read as a powerful act of identity, agency, and cultural joy.

We accomplish this by providing (virtually or in-person):

• One-on-one embedded teacher coaching
• Training in the best practices in early literacy instruction
• Leadership development to support sustainable change
• High-quality classroom books and materials

CLI builds lasting capacity in teachers and principals that endures over time by helping educators learn high-impact instructional strategies and nurturing dynamic professional learning communities.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As you can imagine, our organization, like many others, especially in education, was deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as schools had to pivot to focus a lot of attention and funding on making sure students were safe- leaving little capacity for coaching outside of the schools themselves. During that time, our organization pivoted to supporting teachers with virtual teaching, and that was an initially unexpected expansion of our services. During that time, as our organization and our partners got used to our new normal, we spent a lot of time looking inward and making decisions to make the advocacy and anti-racist aspect of our work more explicit and centered throughout all of our work. This has been a transformative process for us, and one challenge has been carrying partners along with this change. We assure them that literacy development has always been our focus, but we know that literacy is liberation, the lens through which we do all our work. This work has led to developing our antiracist Framework for Teaching and Learning, which aligns with the Science of Reading and what we know teachers need to make their literacy best practices equitable, diverse, and joyful.

As you know, we’re big fans of your work. What can you tell our readers who might not be as familiar with it?
About Dr. Greene: Dr. Greene is a renowned leader in public education, an early adopter, and a passionate advocate of the Science of Reading. Before joining CLI, Dr. Greene served over 37 years in public education as a classroom teacher, school principal, Director of Staff Development, Deputy Superintendent of Instructional Services, and most recently as the Superintendent of Duval County Public Schools (DCPS), the 20th-largest school district in the nation. In 2021, Dr. Greene led DCPS to be an early and successful adopter of the Science of Reading, leading to her district becoming a benchmark for other schools. Through her leadership at DCPS, Dr. Greene transformed her schools and exponentially increased student success. Her experience successfully coaching school-based and district leaders through a transformative, reflective approach led to lasting organizational changes and system-wide improvements. Her coaching support was largely driven by an intense focus on the belief that students and teachers have exceptional talents and that leaders must address the complex ecosystem that learning exists within. Dr. Greene’s exceptional leadership expertise at the school district level, her unwavering dedication to childhood literacy, acumen in resource development, and profound commitment to equity in education propels CLI forward in fulfilling its mission at a vital time in education.

CLI Specifics: Literacy is the foundation of lifelong learning and a powerful tool for understanding and questioning the world. If we don’t educate our children, we risk our democracy and our ability to live up to our country’s potential. Literacy provides children with mirrors into themselves and windows into worlds of possibility. CLI is dedicated to providing literacy instruction that liberates children, inspires them to dream bigger, and empowers them to be their most authentic selves. We’re firmly committed to creating a world where all children have access to equitable education and are empowered to become transformative thinkers and world-changers. CLI is normalizing anti-racist pedagogy at the source. Building on the successful scaling of teacher professional development initiatives, CLI helps networks of school communities and teacher training agencies create and implement durable, culturally sustaining, early literacy practice in the classroom.

Our Philosophy around books: Books, media, and materials in a classroom have an immediate and lasting impact on children. The moment children walk into their classroom, they receive messages from their educational landscape about their visibility, worth, and acceptance into and ownership of the space they are to occupy for the next one hundred and eighty days.

The books that we choose to use and make available in our classrooms shape the ways in which children make sense of their own and others’ racial, cultural, and linguistic identities, communicate messages around representation, and impact how children develop the ability to think critically and deeply about what and how they learn. High-quality books are important because they offer children windows and mirrors. Windows gives children a glimpse into the lives and experiences of people different from themselves. Mirrors reflect children’s own lived experiences. Both help children make sense of the world around them. Likewise, books that offer windows and mirrors invite families to see themselves as part of the literacy journey of their children. We seek to center the joy of our children in these books. Accurate, affirming, and inclusive books help children feel a sense of belonging, build criticality and intellect, experience joy, increase engagement, and help build an appreciation for reading. It all circles back to impact. Black and Latinx children matter.

Are any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?

• The Bible App Motivational speaker Les Brown
• Articles about women leaders

Contact Info:

• Website: CLI.org
• Instagram: @cliupdates
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChildrensLiteracyInitiative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/children’s-literacy-initiative/
• Twitter: @CLIUPDATES

Image Credits
Children’s Literacy Initiative and CDI Filmworks