Dolly Parton passed away on August 25th, leaving behind a legacy of music and, perhaps more importantly, a legacy of philanthropy dedicated to a variety of causes, including children’s literacy.
Imagination Library is perhaps the best example of Parton’s generosity. The idea is simple: mail one book each month to children until they start kindergarten, giving all children the chance to have more books, more words, and more opportunities in the long run. Studies have shown that the more words kids are exposed to, the better their education outcomes will be. Dolly Parton identified this need through her love of reading and from a father who never learned to read himself. Consequently, she built a program that has mailed more than 330 million books across five countries since 1995.
No government agency commissioned it. No legislature authorized it. No bureaucrat implemented it. A country singer noticed that children in Sevier County, Tennessee, were arriving at school without books at home, so she started mailing them books. This is a lesson in how problems are best solved: by people who are passionate for a better community.
The process for Imagination Library is simple. The Dollywood Foundation negotiates wholesale pricing, runs the book-order database, and coordinates every mailing. Local partners raise additional money for books and postage in their own counties: United Ways, school districts, hospitals, Rotary clubs, and people writing personal checks. A parent can enroll their child in about two minutes. There is no income test, no eligibility review, no government caseworker. The program treats parents as capable adults who want books for their kids, and it turns out that assumption holds.
Set that against the federal record. Reading First spent roughly a billion dollars a year for six years, and the Education Department’s own 2008 evaluation found no statistically significant effect on reading comprehension. The money was spent, but the children’s reading outcomes did not improve.
Since proving its success, Imagination Library has received grants from some state governments, but that doesn’t make the program any less successful. It proves that a community-focused solution is more effective and efficient, and some governments have recognized and supported these efforts.
In every case, those governments arrived as a late customer to a program already built, already running, and already proven. Legislators did not design the model, negotiate the book prices, or enroll the families.
Dolly Parton is gone. Her music will live on forever. And perhaps more importantly, her work helping improve childhood literacy will live on as well.
