The president of the National Educational Association, Dennis Van Roekel, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama on the eve of the president’s sixth State of the Union address. The NEA – the nation’s largest teachers association – has grown concerned with the state of education in the nation today and felt it necessary for the president to address the issue in his speech.
“We all know you took office in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Van Roekel told the president. “The road back from that has been difficult, and while progress has been made much more remains to be done. One in five children live in poverty. More than 2.3 million children live with a long-term unemployed parent – triple the number just five years ago. The average American household made less in 2012 than it did in 1989. For our nation’s educators, these ‘statistics’ are all too often the students they strive to help each day.”
A real world example was seen recently in a new report issued by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which reported that the reading proficiency gap between lower and higher- income students has spiked by 20 percent over the last decade. The foundation’s Kids Count data snapshot has found that 80 percent of fourth-graders from low-income families and 66 percent of all fourth-graders are not reading at their proper grade level.
This is despite an increase in literacy awareness programs over the last decade.
“[The] end of the third grade marks the point when children transition from learning to read to using reading to learn other subjects,” read the snapshot. “Children who read proficiently by the end of third grade are more likely to graduate from high school and to be economically successful in adulthood.”
The snapshot found that white fourth graders were only 55 percent below grade level in reading, while black fourth graders were 83 percent below level, Hispanic students 81 percent below level and American Indian students 78 percent below level.
“What research suggests is that upper middle class parents are able to pass along the social, cultural and human capital that is predictive of reading at or above grade level,” said Charles Gallagher, chair of the sociology department at La Salle University, to MintPress. “What we are talking about here is basically a division between poor, middle and upper class populations. If parents did not finish high school or go to college or if children are raised in environments where educational resources are unavailable, lacking or woefully deficient then these poor children are set up to fail.”
According to the snapshot, the reading gap is most pronounced in highly-urban and high density areas. The reading gap closely parallels the wage gap; low-income students attending economically-disadvantaged schools tend to have the lowest reading levels.
“If our goal is to increase school readiness and improve fourth grade reading levels – a key barometer for future success – then we must invest in quality early education,” Jason Williams, executive director of Stand for Children Massachusetts told MintPress. “Research overwhelmingly shows that children who have access to early education demonstrate stronger literacy and math skills, are more likely to graduate from high school, and are twice as likely to attend college.
“Too often though, children – particularly those from minority and low-income families – do not have access to early education programs.”