ABSTRACT
Large urban school districts face mounting literacy problems. High truancy, spiraling dropout rates, and increasing teenage crime all seem to have a common denominator-illiteracy. In the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), an inner-city school district of about 165,000 students, recent data revealed that nearly half of all students read significantly below grade level at the end of third grade, and by the end of ninth grade some 70% read below grade level (~40% read below the 25th percentile on standardized measures-3 or more years below grade-level expectancy). Data like these have an amazing correlation with the dropout rate; nearly 50% in Dallas when comparing average enrollment figures in ninth grade compared with yearly graduation figures. Unfortunately, this scenario has become commonplace in many urban school districts around the nation.
