inkbluesky

Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading

In seeking to detail the consequences of a decline in reading, the study showed that reading appeared to correlate with other academic achievement. In examining the average 2005 math scores of 12th graders who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books, an analysis of federal Education Department statistics found that those students scored much lower than those who lived in homes with more than 100 books. Although some of those results could be attributed to income gaps, Mr. Iyengar noted that students who lived in homes with more than 100 books but whose parents only completed high school scored higher on math tests than those students whose parents held college degrees (and were therefore likely to earn higher incomes) but who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books.

This time around National Endowment for the Arts did include reading material that wasn’t considered literary like novels and poetry so for the second time this study points to some discouraging trends even when they widen the scope of what is considered constructive reading. That upper income well edcucated households might have 10 books or less is a little bizarre. Even if that were the case why were the kids think they could skate on reading and writing skills, not to mention a huge gap in their general knowledge of the world and the insights of our greatest writers. Then I remembered this study, Ability to Climb the Economic Ladder Depends on Parents’ Income

The report also shows that Americans’ ability to move up or down the economic ladder is tied closely to their parents’ economic position. Forty-two percent of children born to parents at the bottom of the income distribution remain at the bottom, while 39 percent born to parents at the top, stay at the top.

I wonder if a large segment of upper income kids don’t have a since of entitlement. Or don’t feel a since of urgency about learning. Mom and dad will see that they get into some college and even with mediocre grades they’ll get a job that is equal in income and purchasing power of their parents.

union station

As KonservaWorld turns the cookie crumbles, Former press aide blames Bush in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says in an upcoming book that he was misled by President George W. Bush and other high officials into misinforming the press about a CIA leak case that fueled debate about the Iraq war.

McClellan says he publicly exonerated former top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby because Bush had called on him to help restore his credibility after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff, and the president himself,” McClellan said in an excerpt released on Tuesday.

Valerie Plame (Wilson) was a CIA NOC agent at the time of the leak and a specialist on WMD in the Middle-East. Treason used to be defined as actively helping the enemies of the U.S. by doing things like betraying your intelligence assets.