News bulletin: the schools are broken. According to the April 2001 “The Nation’s Report Card: Fourth-Grade Reading 2000” (http://nces.ed.gov), American fourth-graders scored about 217 out of a possible 500 in reading on National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. That’s about the same as fourth-graders in 1992. But the top students scored significantly better than their counterparts did eight years ago, while the worst readers scored lower. Only 32 percent of fourth-graders can read at or above the “proficient” level, identified by the National Assessment Governing Board as the level all students should reach.
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“The trend of downtown living is still more of a trickle than a rush,” according to a May census analysis from the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Brookings Institution. Chicago’s downtown population grew from 27,760 (0.3 percent of the metro area) in 1990 to 42,039 (0.5 percent) last year. Downtown’s residential density increased substantially, and it became a little less monochromatic. Downtown Chicago residents were 75 percent white in 1990, 66 percent in 2000.
Such circumstances might be almost impossible to assert when both parents are united in opposing a grandparent’s visitation.”
