States use 3rd grade literacy tests to track future prison populations.

[arcadian]

Were you aware of this? I wasn't. A couple of teachers told me this last night. I thought they were pulling my leg, so I looked it up this morning and found this from a New York Times article. Anybody else have a problem with this? How about handing out a pair of handcuffs to those kids so teachers know not to try as hard with those kids who can't read, they are just going to end up in jail anyway. The prison industrial complex weeds it's way into our schools, I'd really like to know who came up with these tests and at who's behest, something tells me a prison industry lobbyist.


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http://www.haskins.yale.edu/newsrelease/ReadingCzar.html

Hire That Reading Czar
By MARJORIE GILLIS
The New York Times
Published September 24, 2006

snip

The discouraging outlook for low-performing students is reflected in the high incidence of reading difficulties among the prison population. Some states even estimate future prison populations based on third-grade reading scores. Thus not only do reading problems affect students, but they also have a host of negative effects on the economy: the average cost to educate a child in Connecticut is close to $11,000 annually while the average cost to house an inmate here is about $28,000.

[Marksbrother]

1. Long-range planning is an important part of

effective financial planning. So if you're in the prison/security industrial complex, it's prudent to make long-range plans.
For example, if you are in the business of building prisons, you want to be able to buy land at the lowest price, so knowing
about where prisons are going to be needed, you can make smarter decisions about where to buy land NOW, before land prices rise
due to common knowledge in a community about where a prison will be built.

[arcadian]

3. You are a smart one.

Yeah, because we certainly don't have enough prisons in this country already. :eyes:

[Javaman]

6. Technically speaking, we don't. They are all overcrowded.

However, if the legalization of pot happened, I would suspect there would be a sudden drop in population.

for a nation that claims to be so free, why do we hold the title of having more people in prison per capita than any other nation in the world?

[sammythecat]

7. You've probably heard about this,

"The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty." And we can't build 'em fast enough.

http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_prisons_for_lack_of_criminals

[Javaman]

12. I hadn't heard that.

The Dutch have been on to it for a long time.

I can only hope the thick heads in this nation eventually vanish.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Hey! Maybe we can outsource to the Netherlands! Help their flagging

prison industry, and relieve the burden on our prisons at the same time!

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. You mean, if you are in the prison/security industrial complex it is

prudent to back NCLB and similar programs designed to undercut public education, thus ensuring a steady flow of clients in the future.

[backscatter712]

9. Yeah, it's a great plan...

if you're a CEO in the prison-industrial complex.

You've got to think ahead to make sure you can drum up business...

[montanto]

17. Ppfffft.

Point is there is a strong correlation between success in reading by third grade and prison later on. If we spend money early on education we don't need prisons later. All of the testing confirms it, and continuous testing guarantees negative outcome. If a kid is three levels behind at third grade we test again, and again, and again, and all of the testing, which replaces teaching, continues to confirm that the student is behind. Wonder why? I don't. Then when they hit 9th grade with 3rd grade reading skills, many drop out to devote full attention to gang/criminal pursuits. BTW there are strong ties between new prisons planning, textbook publishing, testing, and remediation schemes. Wonder why? I don't. Students are nearly a crop that the prison system harvests from the text/remediation scheme farm. Standardized tests are designed to be failed by immigrant/low skill students. The only solution is more education which is interrupted constantly by incessant tests and distracting, every-changing remediation programs. Don't ask me how I know this.

[Enrique]

2. what do you mean "track"?

from the article, it seems they are estimating one number based on another number. They're working with numbers, they're not doing anything to the kids.

[arcadian]

4. Well, they have determined that a certain amount of students are unteachable

and are heading for prison, all this from tests administered to 3rd graders.

[TheMadMonk]

15. Not necessarily, though given the track record of the US I do have worries...

...that this is how this correlation will be used.

Once upon a time, we would simply have shared this knowledge with the budding little hoodlums and their parent and scared a fair percentage of them straight.

Just as we once shared absolute rankings measuring literacy, numeracy, and other accademic achievement on a weekly basis with the students (tests/quizes) and every 10 weeks or so in an agregate form with their parents.

Satistfatory/Unsatisfactory just does not cut it.

(And ultimately, no matter what interventions there will become a time where an irreducible minimum percentage of functionally illiterate students will become criminals.)

Theoretically The System uses these numbers to identify points where interventions will be most effective in reducing that minimum.

Unfortunately, my observation is that these numbers are instead used as part of a strategy to create an almost unbridgable divide between high and low income earning neighbourhoods by "punnishing" underperforming schools and rewarding those which do well. And in a way Teacher's unions abet this by refusing to allow aggregate student performance (adjusted for mittigating external factors) to be used to identify those of their number who may be doing harm.

[enid602]

8. 3rd grade

I read that Free Republic is using this technique to project future membership demand.

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. LOL

[cali]

10. One of the major pushes in VT under Dean was early intervention

because we know this kind of thing.

[arcadian]

16. I can't imagine VT having that much crime.

It seems rather bucolic. I mean there is Burlington which makes me think of the U of VT, but is there really that much crime there?

[Echo In Light]

11. Great quote from Chomsky:

"If they have the capacity to think freely and understand these types of things, they're going to be kept out by a very complicated filtering system -- which actually starts in kindergarten, I think. In fact, the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions."