this is pretty stunning...half of Detroit is illiterate!? what about the rest of the country? and can Detroit's illiteracy be blamed on the dereliction of the city?
do you see this where you live? i always thought illiteracy was a limited problem--- limited to pockets of abject poverty and backwardness. what is the real cause?


Daily Mail

Nearly half the population of Detroit are unable to read, research has revealed.

The study, released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund, found that 47 per cent of adults in the Motor City are ‘functionally illiterate’.

That means they struggle to complete daily tasks such as reading a bus timetable, filling out a job application form or reading a label on a medicine bottle.

Shockingly, virtually the entire illiterate population had completed elementary school – the level at which reading is theoretically taught.

The report noted that half of the illiterate population had either a high school diploma or a GED.
Karen Tyler-Ruiz, director of the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund, said: ‘Increasing adult educational attainment is critical to connecting the one in two city residents who are currently unemployed and underemployed to good jobs in our new economy.

‘This is a critical opportunity for Detroit, where we know that access to services to improve basic skills like reading and math are extremely limited in and around the city.’

The problem is not limited to the city. The report found that suburbs, such as Pontiac (34 per cent), Inkster (34 per cent) and Southfield (24 per cent), also suffered high rates of illiteracy.

The city, which was once at the center of America’s industrial muscle, has been devastated by the global recession.

The population of Detroit has dropped by 25 per cent in the past ten years and is now at its lowest since 1910
Almost a third of the city's 140 square miles is vacant or derelict.

Detroit is fast becoming a war zone.

Look at who has been running the Detroit plantation for decades and you've got your answer.

hahaha

Everybody thinks they know more about education than the professionals. When you let the inmates run the asylum, bad shit happens. Illiterate adults raise illiterate kids, then blame the schools. Over 80% of educational achievement is related to home, not schools or colleges. If you don't reach a basic level by the end of elementary school, you are pretty much screwed.

Keep passing kids on and see this spread to every community in America.

Fail the little fuckers, even if mom has a shit fit. Leave a few behind. Then the kids who give a shit can make shit out of their lives.

Detroit has worse illiteracy rates than countries in Africa where children have never seen a book. That HAS to be the new standard for lazy POS.

Cut all benefits to homes with failing kids. We are paying you to raise your kids. If you can't do that, no money for you.

(05-05-2011, 11:20 PM)Cracker Wrote: Illiterate adults raise illiterate kids, then blame the schools.

Yep, that. From my experience watching the kids that have grown up with my kids, the ones that fail have zero parental support. They don't turn in their "homework" in kindergarten and it just progresses from there. I feel bad for them. They're fucked from the get-go and they don't even know it.

lmao, check this out for ironic

Library feeling heat over buying $1K chairs
Christine MacDonald / / The Detroit News

Detroit — A Livonia furniture dealer is defending the Detroit Public Library's purchase of lounge chairs that cost $1,092 and have become a symbol of extravagance for a system considering closing 18 branches.

...

The system faces an $11 million shortfall and could close 18 of 23 neighborhood branches and lay off as many as 191 of 333 workers. The south wing overhaul grew from a $300,000 update.

Jo Anne Mondowney, the library executive director who has been on the job for 19 months, said her staff tried unsuccessfully to return the chairs after learning how much they cost. Construction was approved by the library board the same month she started the job, but commission minutes show a $624,000 contract for furniture and shelving was OK'd under her watch in May.

Gerald Dajnowicz, 68, who has had a Detroit library card since he was a child, called the chairs the "squandering of scarce funds."

"What has happened through the years is it's become almost a castle down there," Dajnowicz said of the main library. "There aren't $2,000 chairs in the branch libraries, believe me."

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110426/METR...ver-buying-$1K-chairs#ixzz1LYChWNSk


Library pays $6,500 for business cards for all
Christine MacDonald / / The Detroit News
The paper

A purchase order from March 2010 showing the cash-strapped Detroit Public Library spent more than $6,500 to buy business cards for all its employees — including clerks and janitors who questioned why they need them.

...

Unions and even some commissioners contend the library wasted money on a $2.3 million renovation of the Main Library's South Wing that includes 20 European-designed chairs that cost $1,100 apiece, eight stainless steel trash cans that cost $1,110 each and two fireplaces that ran $5,000 a pop.

The expense follows a fundraising plan two years ago that didn't go as planned. The taxpayer-supported system spent $200,000 in hopes of raising $20 million.

Instead, less than $100 was raised, The News reported in February.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110505/METR...brary-pays-$6-500-for-business-cards-for-all#ixzz1LYDskOXo


Nepotism rampant at Detroit Public Library
1 in 6 staffers have relatives who work in strapped department
Christine MacDonald / / The Detroit News

Detroit— Administrators say they take pride in the "family atmosphere" at the Detroit Public Library, but questions of nepotism, cronyism and mismanagement are dogging the cash-strapped system.

Three top library executives have had family members on the payroll, including until recently the human resources director's two children. The system gave a library commissioner's nonprofit agency $15,000 to sponsor neighborhood events. And another commissioner's daughter was given a $150,000 event planning contract in 2009.

...

Hiring relatives is so common at the library that about one in six staffers have relatives among the 376 employees, according to an internal review obtained by The Detroit News.

"This nepotism and cronyism has led to the downfall of the city," said Reginald Amos, a retired Detroit Fire Department deputy chief and resident who said the family hires remind him of ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's administration. "It's the friends-and-family plan. It's not about serving the people. It's self-serving."

...

Erin Thomas started with the library in 2007 as an entry-level clerk earning about $9 an hour. But after unions complained that Thomas was working outside of her classification, Deputy Director Juliet Machie offered Thomas a contract position in March 2009 earning up to $150,000 over two years to plan events.

...

http://detnews.com/article/20110506/METRO01/105060383


etc, etc, etc

Detroit City Council Meeting. The big mouth woman is Monica Conyers, wife of congressman John Conyers, one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqOSNI7l0bQ

In my whole life I've only encountered one person who didn't know how to read & write. A guy in his late 50's came here looking for work & I saw him struggling with the paperwork and asked if he needed some help. I've occasionally thought about him and wondered if the shock of learning that was written all over my face. He had a lot of experience with the horses & he got the job, his lack of education didn't impair his work ethic in any way.

I don't look at the stupid people I encounter online in the same way, I think those stupid people are just lazy bastards.

If America dumbs down anymore than it already is you guys are in serious trouble.

(05-05-2011, 08:19 PM)Lady Cop Wrote:

The study, released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund, found that 47 per cent of adults in the Motor City are ‘functionally illiterate’.

The population of Detroit has dropped by 25 per cent in the past ten years and is now at its lowest since 1910

The literate ones left!

The Detroit "city-fathers" will claim the exodus skewed the findings and they is really purdy smart.

Or use it as a justification for a rapid infusion of gubment monies.

(05-06-2011, 06:20 AM)Duchess Wrote:

In my whole life I've only encountered one person who didn't know how to read & write. A guy in his late 50's came here looking for work & I saw him struggling with the paperwork and asked if he needed some help. I've occasionally thought about him and wondered if the shock of learning that was written all over my face. He had a lot of experience with the horses & he got the job, his lack of education didn't impair his work ethic in any way.

I don't look at the stupid people I encounter online in the same way, I think those stupid people are just lazy bastards.

Death of the hired man by Robert Frost

..."Warren," she said, "he has come home to die:
You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."

"Home," he mocked gently.

"Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he's nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in."

"I should have called it
Something you somehow haven't to deserve." ...