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

• 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

• 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

• 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