Last week, the Chattanooga City Council voted unanimously to expand a $500,000 youth reading program by $150,000 with the United Way paying $122,000 of that amount.
We're glad the City Council has opted to stay the course and even expand it.
Mayor Andy Berke has said the program is helping half of the 5,501 students using the program read at or above grade level. A Times Free Press analysis of the city's Lexia reading program indicated the program would appear not to be quite that successful.
If the Lexia reading program, introduced in some schools and in recreation centers and churches around the city isn't working up to par because of supervision problems, as some have suggested, then we should tweak the program until we get it right. Our youngsters are too important to give up on -- especially if their support at home is not what it should be because someone years ago gave up on their parents.
Research has shown us that a child's brain achieves 80 percent of its growth by age 3, and 90 percent of its development by age 5.
That makes these youngest children mean and lean little learning machines if -- and this is a big if -- we grownups take the time to turn on the switch. And turning on that switch is as simple as talking to them and reading to them.
Tragically, when children don't get that simple and ordinary early attention -- talking and reading -- they begin pre-K and school with far too few words in their vocabularies and far too few learning muscles. Early education experts have found that children who are read to from birth start school with 7,000 words in their vocabularies, while children who are not read to start school with about 500 words. Clearly the children with fewer words in their heads begin at a disadvantage, and as their school days continue, they fall more and more behind.
We see these results every day right here in Hamilton County:
* 20 percent of children here are at risk of not starting school with the skills they need to succeed.
* Nearly 60 percent of third-graders in our public schools read below grade level, and in some schools, 90 percent cannot read on grade level.
* In low-income homes, 80 percent of children in fourth grade read below grade level.
* Once behind, learning gets harder. In Tennessee, 66 percent of children in the fourth and eighth grades read below proficiency.
* Children who can't read at grade level are at high risk of dropping out of school, and in 2012, 490 Hamilton County students dropped out of school before graduation. Multiply that year after year.
So when the mayor, at his State of the City address a few weeks ago, said: "More than 4,000 kids are actively participating in our Youth & Family Development Department's readings initiative all around the city. And 50 percent of these young people are reading at or above grade level," he was feeling pretty good. Remember, 80 percent of below-grade-level reading youngsters come from low-income homes and most of those low-income homes are from inner-city neighborhoods.
The Times Free Press analysis of Lexia data from its base year -- using only the Lexia categories labeled "On Target," "Some Risk," and "High Risk," is frightfully depressing, no matter how one interprets the figures. Of 5,501 program participants in recreation centers, church programs or schools from pre-k through fifth grade, more than half -- 2,971 -- began with an assessment that found them at high risk and ended with an assessment that still found them at high risk.
The silver lining is that the real measure of the program isn't just in the fraction of children reading on grade level: The magic number is in how many participants improved in any way. The target and risk data alone show there was improvement in almost 10 percent of the participants.
But think of that 10 percent as real children -- 545 children, to be exact.
Another 3.6 percent, or 199 kids, held steady. And 82 percent -- 4,513 boys and girls -- did exactly what experts say usually happens when a child from a poor background starts from behind: They stayed behind or fell further and further behind.
The improvement percentage among the 1,088 kids using the program in rec centers, churches and homes was slightly ahead of that among youngsters using Lexia in schools: 11.58 percent improved vs. the schools' 9.49 percent.
Lest there be anyone out there with a calculator, we'll make it easy: The city spent about $672 apiece for computers and lessons that helped the 744 youngsters -- 13.5 percent -- whose reading improved or at least didn't fall further behind, according to the Lexia categories.
If you think that's too much, try to calculate what you'll be spending to grapple with doing nothing:
* Nationally, one fifth of high school graduates cannot read their own diploma.
* Nationally, 85 percent of juvenile offenders are functionally illiterate.
* Nationally, 75 percent of crime is committed by those without a high school education.
We face many problems in our city, state and world that we as individuals can do little or nothing about. This is not one of them. We can and must help all children learn to read.