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  • From: Michael Winslow Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] FW: Can you help a worthy cause?
  • Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 15:42:20 -0400


On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 03:16 PM, Joey Carr wrote:

There's a huge difference between being able to read "The cat played with
the ball of yarn" and being able to understand literature that uses a
larger working vocabulary. Access to most basic needs depends on the
first, but advancement beyond that depends on the second.

[...]

And then people bitch
about the welfare state because it only supports the dross of
society--people who got to be the dross because they were systematically
denied access to things like literacy training.

There are aspects of education that access alone won't solve, hence the current controversy in Chapel Hill schools, where despite having access what has been described as the best school system in the state minority student achievement is far below average:

http://www.chccs.k12.nc.us/minoritystudentachivement.htm

"Nonetheless, within our schools over a period of time, we have continued to see African American students and Latino students lag far behind. The one common denominator is that these students, regardless of socioeconomic status, tend to be students of color."

The troubling aspect is this difference is seen "regardless of socioeconomic status", which means that the problem isn't just one of family income. I hope that Chapel Hill's Minority Student Achievement Team can make a difference.

On a totally different topic of how students improve their reading skills, I can't help wondering that while schools obviously have an affect, perhaps a larger factor is the amount of time the person actually spends reading. If don't see how any amount of instruction is going to make a difference if a student doesn't have a desire to read for pleasure.

________________________________________________________________________ _________
Some things just are, so stop before you spill allegory all over your shirt. -- Pratchett
-- michael at czeiszperger dot org, Chapel Hill, NC





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