Through our statewide service, we intend to help them do that while we raise the quality standards of the information now available to them. To make school information more broadly available, School Wise Press is working with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate to license its on-line services to California newspaper Web sites. When they're looking to buy a home or considering a community to live in, evaluating which schools are best for their children is a major factor. Only then can we make it clear to parents, educators and our communities that child illiteracy is a crisis of massive proportions. Research indicates that children who do not learn to read are much more likely to drop out of school, use drugs, go on welfare, be incarcerated and remain under-employed.
Some states base future prison capacity needs on the children's literacy rate.
The site has more than 44,000 content pages and features over 25,000 stories daily, making it one of the most comprehensive Web news sites. It has been helping parents get smart about California schools since 1995. The site currently ranks schools in over a dozen categories within each of California's 58 counties. Parents who received their children's Stanford-9 test scores in the mail will be able to find dozens of their questions answered by the Web site's library of resources. With many schools closing for the summer just as districts mail home individual test scores, parents are sure to consider this advice well timed.