One in four Americans would like government to get out of the business of educating the country's children, according to a recent poll. The National Center for Research in Vocational Education brought together educators from some of the nation's largest cities in 1992 in an effort to improve academic preparation and technological training for disadvantaged high school students. The five-year collaboration eventually became known as the Urban Schools Network and involved high schools, community colleges, and other institutions in 27 cities. As the 21st century approaches, nearly a billion people will be unable to read a book or sign their names, much less fill out a form or operate a computer, an international study warns. An estimated 855 million people will be functionally illiterate at the end of this century.
Education is the single most important intervention in ending child labor, the report says.
But in the developing world, an average of one out of four students drops out of school before 5th grade and 84 million children of primary school age never get a chance to attend school at all. Those numbers come from a report published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or unesco. It also offers examples of the efforts some countries are making to make their schools accessible to all children and to keep students from dropping out of school once they begin. 1999 Editorial Projects in Education Vol.