NAACP hosts education forum, raises reading level concerns
[gtxvideo vid=”ZqpDTDEv” playlist=”” pid=”OTSe9U1y” thumb=”http://player.gtxcel.com/thumbs/ZqpDTDEv.jpg” vtitle=”NAACP Education Forum”]
JACKSON, Tenn. — The NAACP hosted another education forum Sunday to help discuss the latest issues in the school system, including students’ reading abilities. “People see the need to improve. They might just not know how to improve,” NAACP Education Commission Chair Janis Carroll said. The idea of the meeting is to gather the community, organizations and parents together to help raise concern as well as offer solutions to help students in the long run. “We wanted to focus on the data that schools probably have a lot of challenges the community doesn’t realize,” Carroll said. Carroll said recent data analyzed by a professor in East Tennessee showed only 30 percent of students in the Jackson-Madison County School System are at a proficient or advanced reading level. “It’s imperative if they cannot read, they cannot go any further,” Evelyn Harris said. “We have children coming out of first, second and third grade who can’t read and are just passed on. It’s not a good situation.” This is a situation community leaders said can only be fixed by stepping up and spreading the word.
