FLORA, Miss. - James and Sally Barksdale raised hopes and eyebrows two years ago when they committed $100 million to help the children of their native state learn to read.
Today, there is evidence that the Barksdale money is changing the way reading is taught in Mississippi.
But progress is slow. And the Barksdales, who made a fortune in the Internet boom, are finding that starting a public-school reading program can be more difficult than running a billion-dollar corporation.
"There are still a lot of educators in Mississippi who think learning to read is a matter of self-discovery," says Claiborne Barksdale, James' younger brother, who gave up his job as a corporate lawyer to run the Oxford-based Barksdale Reading Institute.
"I was surprised at the difficulty of implementation," Barksdale says. "I had thought rather naively that it would be easier than it has been. After all, what a great mutual goal we all have.
"But people get set in their ways. Jim, Sally and I have come to realize what complicated organisms schools are, and how difficult they are to change."
Where change has occurred, such as at East Flora Elementary School, it has been remarkable.
"Before, the idea was anything goes," says Martha D'Amico, principal of East Flora. "You could say that reading teachers were self-employed. In a typical week, you'd read stories for four days and test on the fifth. Along the way, you'd work on isolated skills. There was no connection to genuine reading or writing."
Now, D'Amico says, teachers begin by assessing each child, and they know at all times how each pupil is progressing.
Six-year-old Alex Ross is one of the Barksdales' first beneficiaries. He just finished first grade at East Flora, which is on the outskirts of this central Mississippi town where poverty is a fact of life and a nearby private academy has drained many white children from the mostly black public system.
When he started first grade in September, Alex's literacy skills were so poor that his teacher told D'Amico she didn't think he would ever learn to read.
But when East Flora let out for the summer last month, Alex's reading level was one of the highest in his class. "If I did not know the work that went into it," D'Amico says, "I'd call it a miracle. And Alex isn't the only one in that class who's come a long way."
Using $85,000 from the Barksdale Reading Institute, D'Amico surrounded Alex and his classmates with the accouterments of reading - everything from picture books to sidewalk chalk.
But the secret to the Barksdale approach, according to D'Amico and first-grade teacher Carrie Detwiler, is a strategy that most Mississippi teachers never employed: They diagnosed Alex's reading deficiencies and then carefully tailored his reading instruction, assessing his progress regularly with the precision of a hospital's surgical team.
"Of 320 kids, I know every one and the level all of them are reading on," D'Amico says proudly.
At Pecan Park Elementary in one of Jackson's poorest neighborhoods, teachers meet weekly for a "peer coaching" session required at all Barksdale schools. One of the 13 Barksdale regional coordinators also attends the sessions.
"It's like all of the physicians who are treating a certain illness getting together every week and discussing their cases in detail," says principal Wanda Quon.
Quon used her Barksdale funds to buy books; hire assistant teachers and a home-school liaison; and establish a center where parents can read, socialize and get tips on how to promote literacy in the home.
The school sponsors "family reading nights" for parents and children. The only rule for such occasions is that a child must be joined by at least one parent or guardian. The majority of kids at Pecan Park come from single-parent homes.
"I'm not one who likes to read," says Cassandra Davis, whose son, Darius, is 8. "But I've worked hard to read more and to be seen reading more - because of him."
Barksdale grants have been awarded to 73 of the state's lowest-performing schools. The program, which is being phased in, reached about 22,000 children this year from pre-kindergarten through third grade - roughly a third of Mississippi's poorest performers in reading. And in two communities, Barksdale is piloting a program that reaches children as young as 6 weeks old.
"We realized early on that we had to start with the rudiments of literacy as early as possible," says Claiborne Barksdale, 51. "So many of these kids need to be stimulated so when they get to kindergarten they've heard words pronounced correctly and know print concepts.
"We underestimated the depth of this problem, and one of my life's missions is to promote public funding of preschool education."
Perhaps the happiest man in Mississippi about the Barksdale Institute is state schools Superintendent Richard Thompson. About 700,000 Mississippians, a quarter of the state's population, read poorly or not at all, Thompson says. "A lot of that is due to the fact that we do a poor job of teaching reading," he says.
And that is why the Barksdale Institute pays the salaries of 11 education professors who are working to reform the training of reading teachers at Mississippi's eight state universities, Thompson says.
Shortly before the Barksdales came into his life, Thompson suffered the indignity of having the U.S. Department of Education reject a $32 million application for aid under the federal Reading Excellence Act.
"We were told that the state hadn't made a commitment to reading," Thompson says, "and I have to admit there was truth there. The Barksdale Institute has changed all of that. Reading is now our No. 1 priority."
Three years ago, Thompson read in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that Barksdale wanted to use some of his newfound wealth to help his native state. The former chief of AT&T; Wireless and Federal Express - Barksdale helped design the company's famed package delivery system - had just negotiated the sale of Netscape Communications, of which he was president and chief executive. Barksdale's take was $700 million.
"I hadn't met Jim," Thompson remembers, "but I managed to get his home number, and I called him up. I almost died when he and Sally agreed to make the investment. Jim made it clear that it was an investment - not a gift - and that we would start with the kids who need the most help. The Barksdales have told us that they're with us as long as we're successful. If we're not, they'll move the money elsewhere. I think that's perfectly reasonable."
The Barksdales allowed Thompson's department to create the model for the program, and they decided not to prescribe a reading method or a series of textbooks.
James, 59, and Sally Barksdale, 58, give the program high marks so far, and Claiborne Barksdale assigns it a grade of B-minus. All are frustrated, however, at the slow rate of progress.
Two schools were dropped, Thompson says, "because they didn't carry forth the program." Many teachers still balk at the prescriptive teaching required by the institute, and professors at teacher colleges have been particularly resistant, says Claiborne Barksdale, a professed "recovered lawyer" who is "having the time of my life."
Teachers at Barksdale schools get considerable help and, in the case of East Flora Elementary, grants to fill classroom bookshelves. Still, principals at both East Flora and Pecan Park say they had to spend much of the first year in the program persuading teachers, particularly veterans, of its value.
"A lot of us were very skeptical at first," says Terrye Jones, the Barksdale coordinator at Pecan Park. "Teachers' plates are always full, and some of us saw this as another add-on. But by now, most of us are believers. We've even made a verb of it. Kids ask, 'When are we going to Barksdale?'"
The Barksdales say they can't make definitive judgments on their initiative until they receive third-year scores from Mississippi's statewide testing program. That won't happen until late next year, says James Barksdale, "and meanwhile, it's frustrating not to have more analytical data."
Other wealthy people, Bill and Melinda Gates of Microsoft and former publisher and ambassador Walter Annenberg among them, have spent more than the Barksdales on educational philanthropy. But none has focused exclusively on literacy. None has focused on a single state. And none has insisted that the contribution be viewed as an investment.
Investments must work, James Barksdale says. Gifts can be easily squandered.