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"People can come up with statistics
to prove anything. 14% of people know that."
- Homer Simpson
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Welcome
Welcome to the December issue of Come Together.
This month's issue is all about numbers. We look at the City
of London's new Strategic Master Plan for parks and recreation,
the results of a new child poverty report card and an interesting
look at reading levels in urban and rural schools.
We are constantly looking for exciting new
stories and ideas that will be of interest to you, the reader.
If you would like to write an article for the E-mailer or
suggest a topic for an article, please e-mail it to info@investinginchildren.on.ca.
And finally, from everyone at Investing in
Children, we would like to wish you and yours a happy and
healthy holiday season. Please join us on Friday, December
13 between 1:30 and 4:00 for a seasonal open house at our
new office at 795 Wonderland Rd. S., Suite 103.
Press Play
The future of recreation in London
 What
will the future hold for recreation in London? Are there enough
facilities to meet the needs of London's residents now and
over the next fifteen years? If not what will need to be built?
To chart a course of action with a long-term vision, the City
of London commissioned a new Parks and Recreation Master Plan
to "establish a parks, recreation and leisure policy framework
through which the quality of life of all London residents
will be enhanced as we go forward into the future." (Page
1)
The draft Master Plan, submitted
in October 2002 to the Community Services Department by a
team led by Monteith Planning Consultants, takes inventory
of the city's current recreation facilities, charts the anticipated
demographic changes over the next fifteen years and establishes
service standards to ensure there are an appropriate number
of community centres, ice pads, skate parks and other venues
to meet the needs of a growing city.
What does the new Master Plan
call for? Click here.
Countering Child Poverty
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This chart, from the 2002 Report
Card on Child Poverty, shows the changes in child
poverty since 1989.
Source: Date for 1989-1991 prepared
by the Canadian Council on Social Development
using Survey of Consumer Finances, Statistics
Canada, microdata files; data for 1992-2000 prepared
by the CCSD using Income Trends in Canada 1980-2000,
Statistics Canada 13F0022XCB
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A recent study claims that while Canada's
child poverty rates have been on the decline in recent years,
there are still more than one million children living in low-income
families. The Report Card on Child and Family Poverty, November
2002, produced by Campaign 2000, charts the changes in child
poverty since 1989, highlighted by the startling statistic
that 16.5% of children are living below the poverty line,
an increase over the 14.4% figure from 1989.
Why is 1989 important? In that year, the House
of Commons unanimously passed a resolution calling for the
elimination of child poverty by the year 2000. Despite that
pledge, the next seven years saw an additional 500,000 children
fall below the poverty line. Campaign 2000 formed in 1991
out of a concern about the lack of government progress in
addressing child poverty. Since 1996, when the statistics
showed 21.1% of children were living below the poverty line,
there has been a steady decline to a 2000 rate of 16.5%.
What recommendations does the Report Card
offer? Click here.
Read all about
it
 Students
in urban schools fared significantly better in a recent study
of reading literacy published by Statistics Canada than their
rural counterparts. The data from this study was taken from
the 2000 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
an international effort between member countries of the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
15 year-old students were asked
questions of varying difficulty based on different texts such
as short stories, a letter on the Internet and diagrams. They
were assessed on their capacity to retrieve specified information,
to interpret, reflect on and evaluate, drawing on their own
existing knowledge.
Canadian students averaged a
score of 534, with an international average of 500. Other
OECD countries ranged from a high of 546 in Finland to a low
of 422 in Mexico.
How did the different provinces
do? Click here.
Seasons greetings
from the students
and volunteers at Arts Adventure!
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