From WWJ TV (CBS Detroit) online:
According to a new report, 47 percent of Detroiters are ”functionally illiterate.” The alarming new statistics were released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund on Wednesday.
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Some of the Detroit suburbs also have high numbers of functionally illiterate: 34 percent in Pontiac and 24 percent in Southfield.“For other major urban areas, we are a little bit on the high side… We compare, slightly higher, to Washington D.C.’s urban population, in certain ZIP codes in Washington D.C. and in Cleveland,” she said.
HT CNS News
Detroit has been run by Liberals for at least the past 60 years and its population has gone from roughly 2 million in its heyday 1950s to barely over 700,000 today.
Detroit Public Schools, obviously run by Liberals on the board, also have to deal with the anti-free-choice Teachers’ Union who have fought every attempt to fix Detroit’s education problem. Not to mention that Detroit Public Schools are massively deficit-spending and are failures at the graduation rate thing.
This is why the Teachers’ Unions need to be bypassed en toto and tout de suite. This is also why the Liberals need defeated and competition for the opportunity to educate our children be put into place. The Liberal Agenda does not educate our children. The Teachers’ Union agenda does not educate our children. Time to put them out to pasture.
UPDATE: Jazz Shaw reports half Detroit’s illiterates have a high school-level education.
The report goes on to specify that roughly half of the illiterate population has either a high school degree or a GED, and yet they can’t read. Virtually all of them are recorded as having passed elementary school where one generally learns the basics of reading and writing.
Doug Mataconis notes that this is another case of a public school system simply melting down.
Per pupil spending in Detroit as of 2008 was $13,000, which is higher than some people pay for private schooling in other parts of the country. Clearly, the system has failed and the taxpayers aren’t getting their moneys worth. Unfortunately, at least half of them aren’t able to read the report (PDF) to figure that out.
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