63% of prison inmates can’t read (spending growth on prisons has exceeded spending growth on higher education in America for over 10 years & recidivism remains stuck at 66%).
14% of U.S. adults can’t read (32 million adults can’t read a newspaper) – the volunteer 3rd grade reading program I participated in was 100% successful in teaching kids how to read—we know how to fix this.
1/3 of U.S. high school graduates can’t find Florida on a map
1/3 of California children don’t finish high school (U.S. has maintained the highest dropout and child poverty rates plus the highest incidence of STDs in the industrialized world for years)
½ of U.S. school expulsions involved a handgun (25% of America’s juveniles are tried in adult courts)
Lack of Funding Keeps 90% of Illiterate From Getting Help (many schools cannot afford books or computers)
U.S. teachers are among the lowest paid in the industrialized world & daycare workers are paid less than food service workers (the lowest pay scale in our nation). Is this what we think of children in America?
The foundation of democracy is an educated citizenry; not an incarcerated citizenry – the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population & 25% of the world’s prison population (Minneapolis MN arrested 44% of its adult black men in 2001, no duplicate arrests).
Politicians making political hay by berating teachers for failing schools instead of identifying and solving the problems should be forced into a course on what the student body looks like today and required to make sensible statements about programs and solutions that might work (instead of unhelpful destructive nonsense).
What we do to our children they will do to our society (Pliny 2500 years ago – explain this to your neighbors)
Tell us your stories and perspective (click on comments)
Support KARA’s effort to speak up for at risk children; sponsor a conversation in your community (invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/KidsAtRisk
