I have never heard the jail issue raised but I have heard for years that 3rd grade reading levels can be used to predict high school dropout rates. Whether or not that is true, I do know that between 3rd and 4th grade is where a number of students "hit the wall" educationally speaking. I saw it happen with my children and have seen it with others. The change in the types of skills required between the two grades seems to have a disconnect and that seems to be where students start falling between the cracks. I think that parents often begin to lose interest in their children's education at that age and that is part of the issue also. This is another example of educational mythology that has some basis in fact if not in statistics.

AAA Bad Style???????

I attended the first 2010 Budget Forum in which BCPSS CEO AAA "quote" was made.

Is the premise of Andres Alonso quote evidence based or is his premises faulty, therefore his expressed conclusion/interpretation is faulty/error.

His quote raised my eyebrow because I had only heard the prediction used with estimates for high school drop/retention rates.

Misrepresenting facts is BAD STYLE. If you are trying to make yourself look as though you know some thing that someone may not know in the room to appear to be smarter then they are!!

As someone in the education research field, I've heard this quote many times. I won't go so far as to say it's not true, but I'd really like to get to the bottom of where it originated. Is there a snopes.com for education?

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sarah

http://www.clpostingguide.info

I agree with vetern teacher on this one. In my experience a student has to be pretty severely disabled when in Kindergarten or first grade in order to qualify for special instruction, largely because there's still such a huge range of what's considered "typical" at that age. We find ourselves better able to document the learning problems in late second grade and in third grade, which is where the academic requirements tend to move beyond the basics and into the more abstract concepts. So it makes sense to me that the kids are going to "hit the wall" at that age.

But My Opinion is also correct in that it's bad form to quote something without questioning its source. As Robert Heinlein wrote, "If 'everybody knows' such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one."

Also: FYI the "Sarah" comment is spam.

What a coincidence. Last night I was looking through my college alumni magazine, and this precise factoid was mentioned in a puff piece about a U. of C. grad: http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0904/features/glimpses.shtml (look under the header “How to Get Hizzoner’s Attention”). How strange that its a myth.

I'm not sure if the factoid is a myth just yet. The EWA checked education organizations- but educators aren't building jails, correctional systems are. I think research needs to be done through corrections organizations to understand how they predict volume.

If you expand your view of public institutions and structural inequality you will see very direct link between school and prison.

https://www.schooltoprison.org/

http://www.nyclu.org/schooltoprison

http://www.aclu.org/crimjustice/juv/35550res20080606.html

Expanding on Prison's comment: I just saw a press release that the ACLU will hold a conference in New York next week on the "school to prison pipeline."