House Education Committee Chairman Highland and Committee Members: Thank you for your time today. I’d like to speak to the importance of literacy to our Kansas children, high school drop-out rates, poverty programs, economy and incarceration rates. I would like to call your attention to the attachments. The first is the number of American adults who can’t read, the source is U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Literacy. Illiteracy Statistics 14% of US adults can’t read; 21% of US adults read below 5th grade level, 19% of H.S. grads who can’t read. April 28, 2013 data says 63% of inmates can’t read and now 70% as of April 15, 2015. Second is the Staggering Illiteracy Statistics. Shouldn’t literacy be priority number one in education? This must change. We literally can’t afford to ignore this issue anymore. Third, is a chart with the percentage of persons 14 years and older who were illiterate by race and nativity from 1870 to 1979 prepared in 1992 by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Looking at the chart we see that in 1870 20% of the total population was illiterate; 11.5% white population and 80% for blacks, many former slaves as stated in the explanation. However, the gap in illiteracy between blacks and white adults narrowed till by 1979 the rates were nearly the same, only around 1% illiterate. Why is there a resurgence of illiteracy? The main literacy program that was in place up until1979 was intensive phonics – which produced readers of all learning types and basically left no one behind. So what happened? I find it interesting that 1979 is also the year that President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education - and literacy has gone downhill from there. Children and people in general don’t all learn the same way. Some are visual learners, some auditory, some kinetically with hands on…. One size doesn’t fit all. However, it seems that the whole word method, sometimes with a little phonics, is the predominant one being taught in government schools and efforts to alter that are constantly rebuffed. I’ve heard that about a third of students will figure out how to read no matter how you teach reading, a second third will read but not proficiently and a third will be lost, not because they can’t learn but it’s taught in a way that misses their learning style. Dr. Ben Carson is a great example of the difference it makes to be able to read. His life story I used around 2000 in a jobs program as an incentive for the classes. In 5th grade he thought he was the class dummy so didn’t try. His mother was concerned that he and his brother were failing, so she required that they read two books a week and give her book reports. When he applied himself, read his lessons, he surprised himself and excelled. However, in college he quickly learned that he was not an auditory learner. So he skipped the professor’s lectures and studied the text books in detail. That served him well through college and medical school. He is a brilliant neurosurgeon. How many students are like him but are falling through the cracks because they don’t have the stepping stone he had – being able to read well. How many of those in prison who can’t read are Ben Carson’s who are stuck without the first stepping stone? It’s time for school choice in Kansas. I’ve been aware of many private schools like Marva Collins who saw what was happening and took all high risks students who were failing in government schools and they excelled and learned to read in her school when they didn’t in public school. Same kids, different approach. Here is another school in Alabama doing the same thing. Dr. Carson visited the school and I saw the article, Ben Carson Highlights School Success in Alabama. The students in this inner-city school are ahead of grade level in reading. “Within just a few years, the school…was gaining notice for its students’ academic achievements. By now, those achievements are not just remarkable, but bordering on stunning.” Look again at the Staggering Literacy Statistics. Promoting literacy for all students will lower the rate of high school dropouts, crime level, prison beds, poverty programs and human misery and increase per capita income, entrepreneurship and human thriving. Kansas needs school choice to allow school dollars to follow the child. Let the parents and students get schooling that matches their learning style. Please see the article, Why Not Teach Intensive Phonics? Mary L. Burkhardt, director of the Department of Reading (K-12), City School District Rochester, New York, tells about the tremendous results achieved when she got rid of the look-say and eclectic (combination phonics and sight-reading) programs and replaced them with intensive phonics programs. She says that “Reality is that whether children are “advantaged” or “disadvantaged,” black or white, rich or poor, does not have anything to do with how successfully children learn to read. Based on my professional experiences, such statements are only excuses for not teaching children to read….” The Kansas legislature funds schools to comply with the state constitution that requires funding a ‘suitable’ education. Can any education be suitable if a large number of students don’t learn to read? If government schools are not using the funds in the most effective way to teach reading, then should funding be tied to reading skills? Not necessarily, because it would only produce what Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood development expert, witnessed at a low-income community in north Miami where most of the children were on free- and reduced lunch. You will find her comments in the article “How twisted Early Childhood Education Has Become”. She said, “The program’s funding depended on test scores, so — no surprise — teachers taught to the test. Kids who got low scores, I was told, got extra drills in reading and math and didn’t get to go to art. They used a computer program to teach 4- and 5-year-olds how to “bubble.”” I wonder how fast government schools if they had competition would drop the sight-reading that leaves about a third of students either not proficient or illiterate. What we really need is school choice. Please unshackle the students and parents to be able to find programs that excel like Marva Collins and Pritchard Prep by allowing the money to follow the child and to increase the scholarship program that passed last session. Phillis Setchell, Topeka Illiteracy Statistics Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Literacy Research Date: April 15th, 2015 U.S. Illiteracy Statistics Data Percent of U.S. adults who can’t read (below a basic level) 14 % Number of U.S. adults who can’t read 32,000,000 Percent of prison inmates who can’t read 70 % Percent of high school graduates who can’t read 19 % Reading Level of U.S. Adults Percent Proficient 13 % Intermediate 44 % Basic 29 % Below Basic 14 % Demographics of Adults Who Read Below a Basic Level Percent of Population Hispanic 41 % Black 24 % White 9 % Other 13 % http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/ Statistic Verification Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Literacy Research Date: 4.28.2013 U.S. Illiteracy Statistics Data Percent of U.S. adults who can’t read 14 % Number of U.S. adults who can’t read 32 Million Percent of U.S. adults who read below a 5th grade level 21 % Percent of prison inmates who can’t read 63 % Percent of high school graduates who can’t read 19 % Percent of the worlds illiterate who are female 66 % http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/ STAGGERING ILLITERACY STATISTICS There is a correlation between illiteracy and income at least in individual economic terms, in that literacy has payoffs and is a worthwhile investment. As the literacy rate doubles, so doubles the per capita income. The Nation In a study of literacy among 20 ‘high income’ countries; US ranked 12th Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children 50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level 45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level 44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year 6 out of 10 households do not buy a single book in a year The Economy 3 out of 4 people on welfare can’t read 20% of Americans read below the level needed to earn a living wage 50% of the unemployed between the ages of 16 and 21 cannot read well enough to be considered functionally literate Between 46 and 51% of American adults have an income well below the poverty level because of their inability to read Illiteracy costs American taxpayers an estimated $20 billion each year School dropouts cost our nation $240 billion in social service expenditures and lost tax revenues Impact on Society: 3 out of 5 people in American prisons can’t read To determine how many prison beds will be needed in future years, some states actually base part of their projection on how well current elementary students are performing on reading tests 85% of juvenile offenders have problems reading Approximately 50% of Americans read so poorly that they are unable to perform simple tasks such as reading prescription drug labels (Source: National Institute for Literacy, National Center for Adult Literacy, The Literacy Company, U.S.