Literacy: Spanning the U.S.
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Project
Oklahoma: Dropout Rate Rises
KOKH
Fox 25: 1.16.2019 by Phil Cross
For
the last decade Oklahoma’s
dropout rate seemed to be going down, but now it's back on the rise.
Project Oklahoma found out there’s a good reason why the dropout rate rose
dramatically, it is because the state’s previous reporting for students who
quit school was not accurate.
In
1997 the state’s dropout rate was reported as 5.5% and for a decade the rate
fell until it was 1.9% in the 2015-2016 school year. However, in the last
reporting year the Oklahoma Department of Oklahoma reported a sharp uptick in
the number of dropouts, raising the rate to 3% which represented 5,668
students.
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Keeping
tabs on struggling students or those who leave the education system has not
always been as much of a priority as it is now.
“There's
just not a whole lot of options jobs that pay well when you don't have a high
school diploma,” said Riz White of the Community Literacy Centers. White
runs the organization that teaches Oklahomans to read. Some people dropped out
of school and some had technically graduated, but failed to ever learn to read
in a traditional classroom.
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“There's
a huge problem with illiteracy,” White said, “And it is intergenerational and
we are hoping to move the needle a little bit.”
According
to the Oklahoma
Literacy Resource Office, 16% of adults under the age of 24 do not have a
high school diploma. For adults over the age of 24 the percentage of people who
have no high school degree is 9% and both of those percentages are often much
higher in rural communities. WATCH
03:13
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Literacy Breakthroughs: Carlsbad Library Learning Center Literacy Pairs
Learning
Connections: January/February 2019 by Carrie Scott
Even
with the most effective tutoring pairs, plateaus can happen. Sometimes, you may
find you’re in a rut, struggling with a new learning theory or needing a
different approach.
Here
are three Carlsbad
Library Learning Center literacy pairs who shared their recent
breakthroughs and leaps forward! We hope that their stories will inspire you to
try new techniques, tools and ideas.
Andrea
G. and Anastasio S — Writer to Writer
Anastasio
had never typed a letter before. He'd written some paragraphs, but never a
complete letter, and certainly not to an author! Last year, he entered
the Writer
to Writer Challenge, a contest for adult learners to read a book and write
a letter to the author about how the book impacted their life. Anastasio chose
the book "Road Trip" by Gary Paulson. He said he liked the book,
because he enjoyed how the characters became friends on the trip.
Stephanie
S. and Adriana M. — Phono-Graphix
Tutor
Stephanie had been working with her learner on Phono-Graphix for about six
weeks. Because her learner had been in the program before, she flew through the
initial lessons and even the advanced code sound lessons, because the words
were familiar to her.
Rylee
C. and Souad B. — Read Live
This
pair had been meeting for about 6 months, and even though they were making
progress, the learner was eager to learn faster. That's when we introduced them
to Read Live, a computer program where the learner reads along with a story,
while learning new vocabulary. READ
MORE >>
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Donors
Keep Literacy Bitterroot Funded Until Tax Monies Kick In
Ravalli
Republic: 1.20.2019 by Perry Backus
In
November, Ravalli County residents passed a 1.5 mill levy to support adult
literacy with 54 percent of the vote.
It
was great news for Literacy Bitterroot
director Dixie Stark, whose 30-year-old program was facing a financial
challenge after losing about half its annual budget following changes made by
the Montana Office of Public Instruction that made it impossible for the
program to apply for a federal grant.
“We
were so grateful to see the message was clear,” Stark said. “Our community
understood that our program was both necessary and that its services needed to
be provided locally.”
The
levy is expected to bring in about $120,000 a year for the adult literacy
program based in Hamilton. But that funding won’t be available for Literacy
Bitterroot until the end of the year.
“The
levy passed in November,” Stark said. “Tax bills go out in October, which means
the levy won’t appear on tax bills until Oct. 2019. I assume we’ll get some
funding sometime after that.”
Until
then, Stark said the program will run off money that it has in the bank and
generous donations from people interested in ensuring the adult literacy
program continues to help the wide range of people who come through its doors. READ
MORE >>
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