How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation
Report
Graduation rates are dramatically impacted by:
Policy and program strategies must be enacted in three arenas: schools, families and legislation on the federal, state and local levels.
35% of children who were poor, lived in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty and not reading proficiently failed to graduate high shcool on time.
There is a clear correlation between reading proficiency and poverty when it comes to high school graduation rates.
About 16% of children who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade do not graduate from high school on time -- a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers.
Children whose families live in poverty are usually deprived of early education and are more likely to attend low-performing schools.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as "The Nation's Report Card" showed in 2011 that only 34% of fourth graders read at a "proficient" level, while the rest read at either a "basic" level (33%) or below basic (33%).
Children Not Graduating from High School by Age 19
a: Third-Grade Reading Test Scores, All Children
b: Children Not Graduating High School by Third-Grade Reading Test Scores, All Children
Children Not Graduating from High School by Age 19, by Poverty Experience and Reading Proficiency
Children Not Reading Proficiently by Neighborhood Type