Workforce Readiness: Why It is Oklahoma's Path to Economic Growth
CBMA Midwest, Presentation by Dr. Howard Fuller, Black Alliance for Educational Opotions (December 2, 2010)
1. The more you learn, the more you earn. Over the course of a lifetime, a college grad will earn more than $1 million more than a high school grad. Source: U.S. Census Current Population Reports, Series P-60, from Digest of Education Statistics, 2005. -1-
2. Wage trends are ominous for men without a college degree. A high school diploma used to be sufficient to have a fair shot at the American dream, but no longer. A college degree is required. Inflation-adjusted income Source: Inherited Opportunity for Higher Education, Association for Institutional Research, 5/16/06. -2-
3. New job trends are ominous for those without a college degree. Employment Change by Education (1998 – 2008) +10,221,000 Jobs 4-Year Degree or More +4,563,000 Jobs -3- Some College +121,000 Jobs High School Only -600,000 Jobs High School Dropout 0 10 -2 12 2 4 6 8 Million Jobs Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
4. Male high school dropouts were 47 times more likely than a college graduate to be incarcerated. Black males had the highest incarceration rate. Source: NY Times, 10/9/09. -4-
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6. Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level.
7. High school graduation, can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone's reading skill at the end of third grade. A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by that time is unlikely to graduate from high school.36% 52% 51% 22% Source: 2009 data, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde; Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters (Annie E. Casey Foundation).
8. Black and Latino 12th graders read and do math at the same level as white 8th graders. Source: NAEP 2005 data. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust. -6-
9. Few black and Latino students make it to college and even fewer graduate. Sources: U.S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, State-level Enrollment and Degree Attainment Data. U.S. Census Bureau, 2003 Current Population Survey, Educational Attainment in the United States, June 2004. Slide courtesy of Education Trust. -7- Latino Black