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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Family Finances Often Influence Whether "Johnny Can Read"

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Tuesday, January 28, 2014   

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Educators consider reading the cornerstone of a good education and future success, but in Tennessee and across the country, more young children than not struggle to read.

A new report finds that despite progress made over the last decade, only about one-in-three students in the state is proficient at reading when he or she reaches the fourth grade.

Improving that figure will require greater effort around early intervention, says Linda O'Neal, executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth.

"We really have to have adequate home visiting programs, to help parents know how to prepare their children for school,” she says. “To have prekindergarten programs, quality early childhood education. To have good teaching and high standards in our schools, so we are successful for the future."

According to the study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 66 percent of Tennessee fourth graders don't read at grade-level, which is also the national average.

Of even greater concern in the report, says O'Neal, is the growing gap between students from higher and lower-income families – and nowhere is the chasm larger than in Tennessee.

"Tennessee had the highest gap in the country in terms of the percentage of higher-income students, at 48 percent who are below proficiency, compared to 82 percent of lower-income students," O’Neal explains.

Nationally, about half the students from higher-income families are reading proficiently by the time they reach fourth grade, compared to just one in five of children from low-income households.

If the trend continues, the report predicts by the end of the decade, the U.S. will not have enough skilled workers.




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