Third Grade Reading Skills, Poverty & High School Graduation‏

There is a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation by Donald J. Hernandez, Professor, Department of Sociology Hunter College titled, Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation. One of the key findings of the report is that one in six children, when tested in third grade, who are not reading at a third grade level do not graduate from high school on time. This is a rate four times greater than those third graders who achieve proficiency. The study was done of nearly 4,000 students who were born between 1979 and 1989. The children’s parents were surveyed every two years to track economic and social living conditions. Nearly one out of three students, who lived in poverty for half of their childhood, did not graduate on time. By contrast only 6% of students, who never lived in poverty, did not graduate on time. This means that 94% of affluent students graduated on time.

In 2000, recognizing the importance of early reading skills, President George Bush established the No Child Left Behind Act. This act required states to test reading skills annually for all students beginning in third grade, and to report the results for children by poverty status and race-ethnicity. The goal was 100% proficiency for all children ensuring that every child can read by the end of third-grade. More recently, in March 2010, the Obama Administration released its revision to the act, known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, calling for “Putting Reading First” by significantly increasing the federal investment in scientifically based early reading instruction.

The cure to poverty is having a good job. Having a good education, being able to read and speak intelligently significantly increases the likelihood of obtaining a good job. Our society is going through a very difficult transition. We can no longer afford to offer high wages and long term employment for low level education types of jobs. So those who are in systemic and structural poverty will have to find the means to survive, albeit at a lesser scale; however education must be the emancipator. The focus should be quality education and successful instruction for all students, poor or affluent. Society will improve and advance if the focus is on education, innovation and job creation; then poverty can be eliminated.

Source:

http://www.aecf.org/Newsroom/NewsReleases/HTML/2011Reseases/~/media/Pubs/Topics/Education/Other/DoubleJeopardyHowThirdGradeReadingSkillsandPovery/DoubleJeopardyReport040511FINAL.pdf

The Internet Age: the end of retail stores?

The Internet age officially began in 2000. Every year, online sales have grown and companies doing business online only without a retail store has increased. In 2004, Blockbuster Video was a multi-billion dollar company with almost 10,000 stores. Netflix, the internet only video rental competitor to Blockbuster was a small struggling multi-million dollar company. In 2010, Blockbuster fell in bankruptcy and in 2011, was sold in bankruptcy auction for only 320 million dollars. Netflix today is worth more than 12 billion dollars and has more than 20 Million subscribers. In 2004, Borders Bookstores and Barnes & Noble Bookstores were thriving. In 2010, Borders filed for bankruptcy and has been unable to find a buyer and has closed 30% of its stores. Barnes & Noble is only doing slightly better, but not because of its bookstores because of its online reader – the Nook. In 2012, eBook sales will pass paperback sales. In 2000, Amazon.com was a struggling online only equivalent of a mail order store. In 2011, Amazon.com is worth more than 80 Billion dollars and rapidly growing each year. Even the world’s largest company Wal-Mart, recently reported that it’s in store sales have been stagnant the last two three years and they have been unable to significantly grow. Meanwhile www.walmart.com sales is growing faster than in store sales.

Is this good for our society? The impact so far has meant substantial loss of retail jobs. It has also increased cheap foreign imports. Face book has 500 million users. Society has begun to have much less physical interaction and only meet virtually. As a matter of fact, you cannot find this blog in a retail store, only online.

Source:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-08/blockbuster-lehman-vitro-accredited-home-bankruptcy.html

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/13/why-barnes-noble-should-go-from-bookstore-to-nookstore/