After more than 20 years of operations on the corner of Ninth and G streets, Lincoln Literacy has moved to a new and bigger location, allowing it to serve more than four times the number of on-site students it had in the past.
The new location, a 10,628 square-foot, two-story building at 1023 Lincoln Mall, will have four classrooms — three more than the previous building — and a 4,000-square-foot space for the nonprofit to accommodate more than 40 students.
Lincoln Literacy bought the building and is leasing the space it's not using to two law firms.
"Our previous space at Ninth and G served us well for decades. But thanks to growing services and opportunities in our community, Lincoln Literacy was bursting at the seams," Lincoln Literacy Executive Director Bryan Seck said in a news release.
During a news conference Thursday afternoon, Lincoln Literacy also unveiled a $1.9 million capital campaign to fund the move, which began earlier this year. So far, the nonprofit has raised $1.5 million, including $700,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act.
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Open house guest walk the halls of the second floor of the new location of Lincoln Literacy, 1023 Lincoln Mall, Thursday, June 29, 2023, in Lincoln.
Though at this time, Lincoln Literacy doesn't plan on offering new classes at its new location, Seck said that if the need arises, classes will be added.
"The cool thing about Lincoln Literacy is we can adapt to the changing needs of our clients," Seck told the Journal Star. "If we see a need for teaching people how to use AI, ChatGPT, or something like that, we’ll have a class for that."
With more than 150 tutors, the volunteer-driven organization — along with its many community partners, including schools, churches and more — will continue offering and teaching its wide array of classes such as English, citizenship, driving, computer literacy, workforce development and others.
Last year, the organization served a record-breaking 1,405 students — 1,109 adults and 296 children. This year, it expects to exceed 1,500.
"In order to better meet the needs of Lincoln’s refugees and immigrants while addressing our city’s workforce crisis, the community must come together," said Janet Eskridge, chair of the capital campaign committee.
And at times, some of those very refugees and immigrants, who begin their journeys as students, occasionally advance to become tutors themselves.
"In the last year we’ve received hundreds of Ukrainians and Afghans, and now we have Ukrainian and Afghan staff members who are able to teach classes, communicate with people, get them to where they need to go," Seck said. "Lincoln Literacy does not exist without our volunteer tutors."
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How US K-12 spending compares to other countries
How US K-12 spending compares to other countries
In elementary and secondary education, the U.S. spends about $15,000 per student annually, ranking above the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development's median by 30%.
However, just because the U.S. ranks highly internationally doesn't mean funding is equitably distributed among every child. Public school funding varies from state to state. Generally, almost half of the resources (48%) come from the state's operating budget, fueled largely by sales, income, and payroll taxes.
Property taxes paid by homeowners in the school district contribute 44% of K-12 education funding, which explains why affluent neighborhoods usually have better-equipped and fully staffed schools. The federal government subsidizes special programs and grants—frequently geared toward underprivileged youth—completing the remaining 8% of expenditures.
The way each state balances the distribution of these three sources of funding determines how the needs of each school district are met. Thirty-five states have a progressive approach with formulas that compensate schools with a majority of low-income students, usually through state and federal endowments.
At a local level, the tendency is regressive since it reflects the demographics of each specific district. Residents with a greater amount of property wealth will pay higher property taxes that partially finance the schools in the area.
HeyTutor used data from the OECD to explore how education spending in the U.S. compares to other countries at different school levels.
Education spending
The amount spent annually per student in the U.S. is comparable to Germany's yearly investment in secondary studies. However, the national budget for K-12 public education represents only 3.2% of the GDP in the U.S., a spending output that places it closer to Canada and Portugal. Seven member countries of the OECD spend 4% or more of their GDP on elementary and secondary funding. Israel spent the highest percentage at 4.8%.
The United Kingdom—where university tuition is one of the priciest in the world—spends about 30% less on elementary and secondary public education than the U.S. On the other hand, Norway, where a college education is free to students, invests about 20% more than the U.S. in K-12 subsidies.
In Norway's case, 36% of the population seeks a post-secondary education. Meanwhile, in the U.S., 1.7 million people ages 16 to 24 enrolled in higher education institutions in 2021 for the first time, which is 61.8% of high school graduates. Nonetheless, Norway has a higher yearly percentage of college graduates.
The amount of money spent on a pupil's basic education doesn't mirror the quality of the instruction received. Their performance on international tests can more accurately reflect the efficiency of a national school system. The OECD runs the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which evaluates how 15-year-old students perform in math, reading, and science every three years.
In 2018, the latest data available, "Estonia, Canada, Finland, and Ireland were the highest-performing OECD countries in reading." The organization concludes that since the year 2000, the importance of reading has not diminished, though the variety of written material has expanded to electronic formats.
About 16.5% of urban Chinese students tested and 14% of those in Singapore, "scored at Level 6 in mathematics, the highest level of proficiency" in PISA. Only 2.4% of OECD students were able to reach that score.
Trends in academic performance in a 20-year period are widely diverse among OECD nations, and even among students in each specific country. The main concern is a "widening of performance disparities," with low-performing students consistently scoring low grades in periodical assessments, affecting the national average.
The OECD recommends governments gear their education funding and policies towards opportunely spotting students who need extra help "to ensure that learning gaps observed today don't widen into larger social and economic inequalities in the future."
Data reporting by Emma Rubin. Story editing by Robert Wickwire. Copy editing by Tim Bruns. Photo selection by Elizabeth Ciano.
This story originally appeared on HeyTutor and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7326 or dmartirosov@journalstar.com.
On Twitter @dmrtrsv
Dmitry Martirosov
News Intern
