Resource Statistics
Children:
- As early as age three, children in families receiving cash
assistance have a vocabulary half the size of children in families with high-end incomes
- Children in professional families hear more than 30 million word by
their third birthday, while children in poor families hear only 10 million words
- Children born to mothers with low levels of education, for example , are less
likely to have early literacy skills and are less prepared for school
- Children born to mothers without a high school diploma are less likely to have children's books in their homes
- According to an analysis of Ohio Department of Health birth records, between 1998 and 2002,
one in five births in Cuyahoga County was to a mother without a high school diploma
Young Adults:
- According to an analysis of the US Census Bureau, 10 percent of
Cuyahoga County young adults ages 16-19 were not attending school and not working
- Over 60 percent of idle youth in Cuyahoga County did not graduate from high school
Adults:
- Nearly half the population in Cuyahoga County (47 percent) over
the age of 16 have literacy levels below the required minimum of Level 3
- In the City of Cleveland, 69 percent of adult residents of Cleveland have literacy levels
below the required minimum of Level 3
- Since people with Level 1 or 2 literacy skills are likely to be excluded from all
but minimum wage work, more than half a million Greater Clevelanders lack the skills
to obtain jobs that provide a decent standard of living
Other Statistics:
- 119 out of 175 public schools in Cuyahoga County did not meet
the state minimum requirement of a 75 percent passage rate for the fourth grade
reading test
- 72 of the 119 public schools are located in the Cleveland Metropolitan School
District (CMSD), with the remaining 47 schools in suburban districts