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I recently read in an article in USA WEEKEND, by Colin and Alma Powell, titled "One in Three Kids Drops Out of School"..These figures are even more devastating for Black inner-city students..Black students graduate three years behind White kids..Black students have a drop-out rate of 53%...If we combine this drop-out rate with the highly conservative estimate that 16% of these students will fail to pass state required exit exams, we arrive at a figure, indicating that only 37% of Black students will receive high school diplomas...Functional illiteracy is one indicator of the demise of a community..The Black community presently has an adult illiteracy rate of over 44% and climbing..A great deal of young Black adults and juvenile offenders are incarcerated within our correctional institutions...A large percentage of these offenders are functionally illiterate..."If you don't read, you don't know and will never find out"..(Green)...Illiteracy is that villian which is causing so many the Black communty's problems and problems confronting other minorities..Our latest book "Between the Rhetoric and Reality" Lauriat Press;Simpkins&Simpkins ,2009...written by two concerned African American brothers, can be previewed on either on "Amazon.Com, or Borders"