My wife - who in case you didn't know, is also a teacher - attended a professional development seminar on teaching reading this weekend. She learned a startling fact that we had never heard before; so startling, that I Googled it just to see if it checked out. Apparently, states estimate how many prisons they need to build by analyzing the results of first through third grade reading scores.
The ability to read is that strong of an indicator of future success. All one has to do is find out the incredible amount of illiteracy among our prison population, and it becomes clear that what the states are doing might seem cynical, but it also appears to be accurate.
Good Day to You, Sir
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
4 comments:
That's very interesting. I'll be able to use that as an excellent example of "correlation does not imply causation", I think. It seems that having poor reading skills is a good (and available) proxy for the sorts of factors that lead to high likelihood of incarceration.
I've heard this for years, but have never seen any proof.
This statistic was mentioned in a report from New America Foundation called "Building a 21st Century Economy", and cited by Sylvester Brown, Jr. in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Yes, I see it quoted all the time. I just wonder about the genesis.
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