Average reading level of America’s Senior High Students; 5th grade proficiency
Math questions for Georgia grade school children;
“Each tree had 56 oranges,” the first question starts. “If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”
The next question went a step further, referencing violence. “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?”
Hiding the truth about Georgia’s terrible test results (teaching teachers to lie)
Science in Tennessee public schools (soon Indiana, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, & Missouri) GOD Made It All
Not one third of Kansas City’s elementary students read at grade level.
No nation will maintain leading status in the world without a workable educational system. No educational system will succeed in meeting even essential goals if a great number of students do not have the basic skills to learn when they begin their schooling.
How bad has the situation in the United States become? Roughly 18% of children are not familiar with the basic rules of printing or writing. However, when looking at children with mothers who did not obtain their high school diplomas, this number increased drastically to 32%. In contrast, only 8% of children with mothers who have college degrees struggle with the basic rules of writing (Siegel & Welsh, 2006, p. 336).
Just like investing in the stock market or tax increment financing, putting money into early childhood programs brings solid financial and social returns back into a community.
As a negative example, just look at states and nations that have not (failing schools, filled prisons, high crime, poverty, preteen pregnancies, & unsafe communities).
The world’s most advanced technical and military power, greatest economic engine (California ranked fourth highest GDP among nations at one time) & rather than fund education & support the people doing the work, too many politicians are choosing to build prisons instead of children. We know how that works now & we need to stop.
25% of U.S. high school grads are functionally illiterate upon graduation, our drop out rates are the worst in the industrialized world. Our Crime rates are also the worst in the world (5% of the world’s population & 25% of the world’s prison population & growing).
Children that can’t read by the third grade have a huge chance of not graduating & simultaneously a much greater chance of living a dysfunctional life.
Denying children what they need to succeed serves no nation, no community, no families, & there is no religion that abandons the weakest & most vulnerable.
As a long time CASA guardian ad-Litem, I have seen far too many children fall through the cracks, drop out of school, & spend a lifetime with drug, alcohol, violence, and the institutionalization that accompanies it.
It is expensive, cruel, and counterproductive for any nation to continue short changing its children.
Vote for schools, early childhood programs, libraries, & child friendly programs. Anything less adds to prison populations and unsafe streets.
Compare the quality of life indices degradation America has experienced among the industrialized nations and see if you don’t agree.