(The following is adapted from remarks made last week at “Reading Leading,” an event held by the Bainbridge Schools Foundation to celebrate island authors and benefit school district reading programs. I omitted the part where I pointed out that a copy of “Skeletons from Our Closet” would make an excellent Father’s Day or graduation present. And to the very gracious staff at Wing Point where the event was held, I apologize again and want to reiterate that I have no idea how all that silverware got into my briefcase.)

In January 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law a bill called The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This bill, which was the cornerstone of Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” included funding for a program that was to become known as Title I Reading, a program that funnels money to local school districts to help provide early intervention reading instruction to kids who can use a little extra help in developing their reading skills. Title I was most recently reauthorized in January 2002 by President Bush as part of his “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,” a package of education initiatives that some have called the cornerstone of Bush’s “War on Teachers” program.

I don’t want to debate the merits of the No Child Left Behind Act. While there are critics of some aspects of the program and its emphasis on standardized testing in a non-standardized world, no one seems to disagree that the Title I reading program has been an unqualified success.

Noted educator and activist Jonathon Kozol has shown that reading scores of children between the ages of kindergarten and fourth grade show a widening disparity that is directly related to the child’s background. Children from lower-income households tend to have lower scores by the fourth grade than their wealthier counterparts. This tendency increases as the child grows older, which creates an educational system where the poor get poorer and learn less while the wealthy get wealthier and learn more. Rather than embracing the “American Dream” and offering an equal opportunity for all children, this disparity creates a barrier to social mobility and economic success. Is this disparity important? Is it something we should be concerned about?

Speaking at last year’s commencement exercise, Harvard’s most famous drop-out admitted that he left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world, what he described as the appalling disparities of health and wealth and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

In his speech to Harvard grads, Bill Gates said “Humanity’s greatest advances are not its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care or broad economic opportunity, reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.”

What kind of people would we be without the knowledge we’ve acquired through literacy skills? What we learn through reading and writing far exceeds the knowledge we acquire through other media, with the exceptions of social interaction, much of which itself consists of discussions about things we have learned through reading. As Kozol says, “Literacy is the very bedrock of our civilization and a civilization with such a glaring disparity between literate and illiterate cannot continue without consequence.”

I agree with Kozol. It’s almost impossible to underestimate the importance of reading in today’s world. We know that Title I reading programs work, and we know that, as a result of declining enrollment and the way Title I funds are allocated among school districts, Bainbridge schools are losing Title I funding at a time when the need for such programs remains the same or is increasing.

Feel like doing something good for our island schools? Something that helps kids who just need a little extra help with their reading? Then make a donation to the Bainbridge Schools Foundation to support our island reading programs. You’ll be glad you did. And so will our kids.

Islander Tom Tyner is an attorney for the Trust for Public Land. He is author of “Skeletons From Our Closet,” a collection of writings on the island’s latte scene.