Tarrant County Commissioner Manny Ramirez sees reading as the key to preventing crime.
Right now, the county faces a literacy crisis in which half of children cannot read on grade level. That has ripple effects on the community, he said.
“If by educating one child we can create a safer and more prosperous society, then all of our efforts will have been worth it,” said Ramirez, a former president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association.
The Tarrant County government Feb. 19 committed to helping school districts boost literacy rates. Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution underlining the county government’s support and issuing a call of action for all 20 school districts to introduce plans ensuring students can read at grade level.
Tarrant County commissioners followed in the footsteps of Fort Worth ISD trustees who declared literacy their No. 1 priority .
During a news conference, county leaders underscored the important link between literacy and crime. The county government is responsible for managing a jail and courts.
Every day, District Attorney Phil Sorrells sees firsthand in courtrooms the impact illiteracy has on people. Not being able to read means a person can’t obtain a job and to survive, Sorrells said, they turn to their last resort: crime.
“When children struggle to read, they struggle in school. When they struggle in school, they drop out. And when they drop out, they’re more likely to wind up down the street in the jail,” Sorrells said.
Dropouts are two to three times more likely to be arrested, according to a 2015 National Institutes of Health study.
In Texas prisons, an estimated 80% of inmates are functionally illiterate, according to a University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston study.
“We’re starting to realize through the data that literacy and crime and poverty, they’re starting to stretch far beyond correlation and into causation. If we can do something about it in Tarrant County then we ought to,” Ramirez said.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare wants his home to be a leader in reading. He urged school districts to accept the challenge the commissioners issued.
“Let us know what the Tarrant County government can do for you,” O’Hare said.
Too many families don’t read to their children every day, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD Superintendent Jerry Hollingsworth said.
As his three boys grew up, Hollingsworth and his wife followed a night routine. Bath. Book time. Prayers. Bedtime.
“We have a large, and increasingly large, number of young people for whom that is not their reality on a nightly basis,” the superintendent said. “That’s where we have to partner together to be examples of what it means to read to children and to educate our young parents, many of whom did not experience that in their childhood.”
Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
