James P. Scanlan, Attorney at Law

Literacy Illustration

(Aug. 26, 2020, sketch)

This is a placeholder for a page that will be one of many pages using published data to illustrate the pattern whereby the rarer an outcome the greater tends to be the relative difference in rates of experiencing the outcome and the smaller tends to be the relative differences in avoiding the outcome.  It will used data from a Department of Education study showing black and white rates of falling into various proficiency levels to show how the lower level the greater tends be the relative difference in rates of failing to reach it and the smaller tends to be the relative difference between rates of reaching it.   Table 1 below is a draft of a table that will used to illustrate the point.  The BA and WA (A being for adverse outcome) are rates of falling below a level and the BF and WF rates (F being for favorable outcome) are rates of reach the level.  The final columns show the ratio of the black rate of failing to reach the level to the white rate of failing to reach the level and the ratio the white rate of reaching the level to the black rate of reaching the level.

Table 1. Black and white rates of failing to reach and reaching various literacy proficiency levels, with measures of difference.

A comprehensive discussion of the pages of this nature may be found on the Obesity Illustration subpage of the Scanlan’s Rule page of this site.  This page will be expanded along the lines of that page.