A plea for financial help for the failing youth in Utah:
A new report by the Utah Coalition for the Advancement of Minorities in Higher Education shows low-income students of all races have only an 11.5 percent chance of going to college. Minorities make up the vast majority of this group, according to the coalition. By contrast, students characterized as white and non-Hispanic make up fully 94.2 percent of graduates from Utah public colleges and universities.
But the disparity begins long before students reach an age when they begin to consider college. Last year less than 60 percent of elementary-school American Indian and Latino students in Utah passed year-end standardized tests in language arts, compared to 85 percent of white students. About a third of black students failed to pass. The gaps were similar in math test results.
Gov. Olene Walker has included $30 million in additional funds for kindergarten through third grade in her 2005 education budget recommendation to the Legislature. Her modest but worthy goal is that all children know how to read by the time they finish third grade...
Walker's proposal is at least a start, one that would directly address the challenges facing many minority children...If Utah is to solve its education crisis, it must spend the dollars necessary to ensure that the youngest students of all races receive the attention necessary to develop the reading and math skills necessary to advance up the education ladder.
Posted by kswygert at December 16, 2003 10:29 AM