This quarterly newsletter covers educational issues affecting schools in WestEd's 4-state region (Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah) and nationwide. This Summer 1999 edition contains a lead article entitled "Reading for Understanding: A Modern Urban Success Story," which describes a course in "academic literacy," developed by educators Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Christine Cziko in 1996. The article states that a group of San Francisco ninth graders improved their reading comprehension substantially on the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) standardized test after taking the course; in 20 other Bay Area middle and high schools, students gained almost two years reading comprehension from October to May. Other articles in the newsletter are: "Institute Trains Overlooked Population: Tutors and Paraeducators"; "Teaching Children to Read Is Everyone's Responsibility"; and "Network Trains Teachers To Help All Children Become Literate." (NKA)