Children who grow up in poverty with non-reading parents are at even higher risk for academic failure. Nearly half of all babies and toddlers in Hartford lived in poverty in 1990, giving our capitol the unheralded title of possessing the second highest percentage of poor children in the nation. Hartford ranks second in the nation in urban poverty. Too many dreams are deferred, creating dreadfully poor outcomes for a large cohort of children. Family Structure Is Rapidly Changing Contemporary family life is overwhelmed with decreased family supports, single parenthood, divorce, expanded working hours and a patchwork of care for young children to bring in a decent family wage.
Parents have less time to get information, are more isolated and lack access to direct guidance.
One in three victims of physical abuse is an infant. Employers Needs a New Kind of Learner With the shift from manufacturing to a service and information economy, we need learners with complex math, language and abstraction skills. Yet, almost one third of Connecticut's fourth graders taking the mastery test in 1993 are not reading at the level required to understand textbooks used in their own classes. For sixth and eighth graders tested, one in five received scores that indicated they would require assistance to understand their school texts. Of all students taking the most recent mastery tests, nearly three out of ten students need remedial help in composition and writing.