Double Jeopardy: How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

This study, published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, finds that students who are not proficient in reading by the third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than proficient readers. The longitudinal study of about 4,000 students breaks down the likelihood of graduation for students with different reading skill levels and different poverty backgrounds, and finds that 22 percent of children who have lived in poverty do not graduate from high school, compared to 6 percent of those who have never been poor.