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Starting Gate, Initiatives in Educational Transformation, 2002). Family SES and early language development are strongly correlated with later language development, academic achievement and school success (Zorn & Noga, 2004). A recent Rand Corporation study for the Carnegie Corporation of New York: Achieving State and National Literacy Goals: A Long Uphill Road (McCombs et al, 2004), reported average differences of 22 -24 percentage points between economically advantaged and economically disadvantaged students on both state and NAEP assessments of literacy. (Note: There are significant differences between literacy as assessed by the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] and state achievement tests: "In the 8th grade level, 21 percent of students in South Carolina and 39 percent of students in Wyoming passed the state assessment, compared with 86 -88 percent of 8th- graders in North Carolina and Texas. However, when one looks at the 8th grade NAEP scores, 24 percent of students in South Carolina and 34 percent of the students in Wyoming scored at the proficient level, compared with 26 percent of students in Texas and 29 percent of students in North Carolina" [p. xiv].) Richard Rothstein (2004), asserting the strong relationship between social class and literacy, reports this international comparison in his book, Class and Schools (Economic Policy Institute, Washington, DC): An international reading survey of 15 year olds, conducted in 2000, found a strong relationship in almost every nation between parental occupations and student literacy. The gap between the literacy of children of the highest status workers (like doctors, professors, lawyers) and the lowest status workers (like waiters and waitresses, taxi drivers, mechanics) was even greater in Germany and the United Kingdom than it was in the United States. In France the gap was about the same as in the United States, while in the Scandinavian countries and Korea it was smaller. The gap between the literacy of children of middle class workers (like teachers, accountants, and engineers) and of children of lower- status workers was about the same in the United States and the United Kingdom, greater in Germany than in the United States, and slightly smaller in France that in the United States (pp. 20 -21). As shown in Table 30 below, CHCCS had substantially higher percentages of students at Level IV (above grade level) across all three elementary grade levels for both reading and mathematics EOG scores in 2003 -2004. Table 30. Percent of Students' Scores on EOGs by Grade Level by District, 2003 - 2004` Sources CHCCS and OCS District Offices, March 2005 CHCCS /OCS Final Report 45 3rd Grade Levels 4th Grade Levels 5th Grade Levels I II III IV I II III IV I II III IV CHCCS - Reading 1.2 4.8 22.2 71.8 0.9 4.3 26.7 68.1 1.0 3.6 26.4 68.9 OCS - Reading 1.8 10.6 33.3 54.4 2.9 10.2 38.3 48.7 0.6 6.4 42.6 50.4 CHCCS - Math 0.4 3.6 26.0 70.1 0.3 1.6 16.8 81.4 0.1 2.4 15.7 81.8 005 - Math 0.7 8.3 39.0 52.0 0.2 3.3 30.2 66.6 .4 3.2 26.2 70.3 Sources CHCCS and OCS District Offices, March 2005 CHCCS /OCS Final Report 45