100% Proficiency of all RI fourth graders: What will it
take?
A Statewide Analysis
III. Compassionate, But Unflinching Assessments of our Students' Characteristics
» Other Ready-To-Learn Indicators:
» Single Parent Families
» Teen Birth Rate
» Breakfast
» Student Behavior
» Lead Poisoning
» Pre-School
» All-day Kindergarten
» After School Status
Other Ready-To-Learn Indicators:
The social and cultural changes of the last 30 or 40 years have not, on the whole, served children well. The following indicators might occur with higher rates among the populations struggling with poverty, but these are conditions of children found across the state at every socio-economic level. A child whose parents are getting a divorce does not have a condition appropriate to special education, but the child does have special needs and is at risk of sliding towards academic failure. Many children come to school with a variety of factors distracting their attention.
Single Parent Families
Children in Single Parent Families,
by Race/Ethnicity, Rhode Island, 1991-1998
- Between 1991 and 1998, the percentage of RI children living in a single parent household increased from 26.6% to 30.2%
Teen Birth Rate
- From the early 1980’s to the early 1990’s the birth rate for RI’s teenage girls increased from 22.3 births per 1,000 to 30.3 births per 1,000.
Data Source: SALT Survey Students charts 13, 16
Data source: 1999 Kids Count
- 11% of 4th grade students never eat breakfast.
- 28% of 4th grade students do not eat breakfast every day.
- 22% of all 9th grade students never eat breakfast; 67% do not eat breakfast every day; and these numbers go up as children proceed through high school
Percentage of Low-income Children
Attending Schools Offering School Breakfast 1995-1998
- The percentage of students attending schools offering School Breakfast has increased from 64% in the Fall of 1995 to 75% in the Fall of 1998. In 1998, 157 public schools offered School Breakfast, up from 116 schools in 1995
- 12,639 low-income public school students do not receive school breakfast because they attend the 158 RI public schools that do not participate in the Breakfast Program
Data Source: SALT Survey
- Teachers report that between 10% to 20% percent of children in grades 3 and under exhibit behavior which is a moderate to very serious problem. While the numbers are not terribly high, there is little extra support for these children. Like the failure to read, these sorts of behavior problems are tolerated more easily at the elementary level when the children are very young. However, as these same children grow to adolescence, behavior problems tend to grow into sizable behavior and discipline problems. The high school cumulative drop-out rate is 17.95% (or 18%) which most likely includes a high percentage of the children who were identified as having difficulties with behavior and self-control when young. Schools also need to consider to what extent anti-social behavior is a response to a child-unfriendly environment. The research on personalizing education shows that discipline problems drop dramatically when the environment is re-structured to encourage listening and responding to the child.
Lead Poisoning
- 15% of RI children have elevated lead levels in their blood
- In Providence the number climbs to 28% and is generally high in the core urbans.
- RI has one of the highest per capita lead poisoning rates in the country.
Data Source: 1999 Kids Count
- Only 33% of children entering kindergarten have had pre-school.
- There are 26,519 RI children under the age of 6 who need regulated childcare and only 18,648 available slots
- Through the RIte Care initiative, RI now offers paid health insurance to certified family child care home providers and center-based providers that care for children who receive state child care subsidies. RI is one of the only states to offer such a benefit to its childcare providers. Still, the demand exceeds the supply of childcare workers.
- Only 46% of the eligible 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in Head Start programs in RI’s five core urban areas.
All-day Kindergarten
Percentage of 1st Graders Who Repeated 1st
Grade,
Sorted by the Their Type of Kindergarten 1988-1996
- The Providence Demography Initiative discovered that fully 10% of Providence’s 1st graders do not matriculate to the second grade. An investigation into the characteristics of these children revealed that a significantly larger percentage that had been retained had participated in a half-day program instead of all-day kindergarten. This data strongly suggest that all-day kindergarten prepares economically disadvantaged students for first grade much more successfully than the half-day programs. Over the course of the 1990’s, the Providence School Department assertively expanded the availability of all-day kindergarten. Clearly children with access to enriched pre-school experience and extended kindergarten are more likely to succeed in school.
After School Status
Elementary Student Reports of After School Supervision
How many days and/or hours each week do you take care of yourself after school without an adult being there?Percent responding by grade level |
Percent responding by |
||
4th |
Free or reduced |
Full Paid |
|
None |
57 |
52 |
55 |
1-2 days for less than 3 hours |
18 |
18 |
23 |
1-2 days for more than 3 hours |
3 |
3 |
2 |
3 or more days for less than 3 hours |
14 |
16 |
14 |
3 or more days for more than 3 hours |
8 |
11 |
6 |
One in four 4th graders—or 25% -- report being left home alone for more than three hours at a stretch at least one or more days a week. Fully 8% report being home alone for more than three hours at least three days a week. Eight percent does not sound terribly alarming except that these are nine and ten year-olds. 19% of middle school students and 36% of high school students are home unsupervised for more than three hours at least three days a week. Common sense as well as research argue that children left home alone are naturally at risk for behaviors not conducive to school success.
If schools were open only one more hour during the day, it would considerably reduce the time spent home alone as well as the waste of time spent with TV and video games. Reducing unproductive time would affect everything from number of books read to daytime crime. After school would be an obvious time for schools to offer "ramp-up" programs for the students who have fallen below grade level in either reading or math. Any curriculum-linked activity held after school would support and enhance a child’s chance of meeting the proficiency standards.
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