Around 90 million American workers will require some degree of new training to hold onto their jobs in the near future, according to Andy Van Kleunen, CEO of the National Skills Coalition said,
He told Axios: “Taking someone who’s reading at an 8th grade level and training them for an IT job is much more difficult.”
What if your eighth graders don’t read or do math on an eighth grade level? The majority of Escambia County’s eighth graders would have trouble being trained for an IT job.
The district has eight middle schools that aren’t charter or a magnet schools. Only three have a majority of their eighth graders reading on grade level or better. None have a majority performing math on grade level
Only one middle school has a better than at third of its eighth graders performing math on grade level or higher — Ransom with 37%.
How well will these 1,250 students that aren’t reading at an eighth grade level compete for jobs? Of those 1,250 eighth-graders, 570 are reading at a third or fourth grade level What jobs will they qualify for?
If the job requires an eighth grade level of math, 1,840 of Escambia County’s eighth graders wouldn’t qualify. Of those 1,840 students, 770 are at a third or fourth grade level.
Yikes!!!!
| School | Grade | ELA % Level | Math % Level |
| BELLVIEW | 08 | 33 | 13 |
| BEULAH | 08 | 42 | 30 |
| ERNEST WARD | 08 | 53 | 21 |
| FERRY PASS | 08 | 49 | 25 |
| WORKMAN | 08 | 42 | 4 |
| JIM C. BAILEY | 08 | 52 | 22 |
| RANSOM | 08 | 63 | 37 |
| WARRINGTON | 08 | 33 | 15 |