This infographic was published by the Rossier School of Education in March 2012 and designed by Lemonwood Design.
One of the most striking facts mentioned above is that the state of California has used fourth grade reading statistics as a measure for the planning of future jail cells. A similar formula has also been used elsewhere in the United States where 60% of country’s prison inmates are illiterate. You can read more about this in an article from Forbes magazine entitled ‘A $5 Children’s Book vs a $47,000 Jail Cell – Choose One’.
Reblogged this on Part Time Nerd.
One of the most striking facts mentioned above is that the state of California has used fourth grade reading statistics as a measure for the planning of future jail cells.
From the actual Forbes article:
“Texas uses fourth grade reading scores to project the number of prison cells they’re going to need 10 years later.” [emphasis added]
So, which is it? Texas or California? Floor wax or dessert topping?
If you wish to be credible, please get your facts straight.
Unbelievable! The above poster mentions such mod-pop rubbish as Meyer’s “Twilight Series” yet neglects to list such a timeless and beloved classic as A. A. Milne’s, “Winnie-the-Pooh”. Who comes up with this over-hyped garbage and which publisher’s payroll are they on?
Here’s a simple experiment. Go to a used book store and look for second-hand copies of “Twilight”. Now, just try to locate any of the 142 various printings (over almost three decades), of the “Pooh” books by E.P. Dutton & Co. The ratio is hundreds, if not thousands or more, to one. Clearly, people seem to have a difficult time abandoning Milne’s works at any price.
Here’s another not-so-simple experiment, try reading aloud one of the longer “Pooh” stories to a group of attentive children. Unless one reads in a flat monotone, any reasonably literate person will quickly discover that it is a tremendous narrative challenge to trade off so many voice characterizations with such frequency.
Does anyone seriously think that the “Twilight” series will go into 142 printings? Again, this sort of balderdash really defies all credibility.
Author
Hi Zenster. Thanks for your interest in this post. Firstly, we should reiterate that we aren’t the creators of this infographic. If you’d like more information about the statistics cited perhaps the Rossier School of Education could help.
With regards to the Forbes article, we included this link as it is where we sourced the statistic that 60% of America’s prison inmates are illiterate. This article provides more information about the connections between literacy rates and prison populations which we thought some readers would be interested in.
BTW – the video link you have included in geo-blocked and not viewable to those of us based outside of the United States.
Aerogramme Writers’ Studio: Firstly, we should reiterate that we aren’t the creators of this infographic.
Thank you for the prompt response and also for your clarification about the poster. If you wish to see that funny video from the link that did not work, just run a search on “Floor wax or dessert topping”.
With regards to the Forbes article, we included this link as it is where we sourced the statistic that 60% of America’s prison inmates are illiterate.
Again, not a problem, as author Steve Cohen’s overall premise, “A $5 Children’s Book vs. a $47,000 Jail Cell — Choose One”, remains the central point. The average American prison inmate has reading skills below that of a typical fifth-grader. In other words, if you are not reading proficiently by the age of ten, you will probably spend some part of your adult life being incarcerated, if not a whole lot sooner.
At day’s end, your own concern about child (and adult) literacy is to be commended. In the course of my morning’s research I came across this prophetically damning quote from “A Nation at Risk”, (the 1983 report of American President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education), that is attributed to James J. Harvey:
“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
The above quote, when taken in combination with the following two, paints a particularly bleak picture.
“Consider that a 12th-grade student who scored well enough on the verbal portion of the SAT to get into a selective college has a vocabulary somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 words. Do the math: acquiring such a sizable vocabulary by rote would mean learning 10-20 new words every day until freshman orientation, assuming you came home from the delivery room having learned your first few dozen words.”
— Robert Pondiscio —
“The most secure way to predict whether an educational policy is likely to help restore the middle class and help the poor is to focus on the question: ‘Is this policy likely to translate into a large increase in the vocabularies of 12th-graders?’ When questions of fairness and inequality come up in discussions, parents would do well to ask whether it’s fair of schools to send young people into a world where they suffer from vocabulary inequality.”
— E.D. Hirsch Jr. —
Quite clearly, we are at war with an academic medoicracy whose insistence upon social conformism (e.g., Political Correctness), has amounted to a war against America itself.
Wooow. American Arrogance. You didn’t even apologize.