Daddy Can't Reaad

. Daddy can't read is made possible in part by the Southwestern Bell Foundation and the Dallas morning news. Nearly two million adults in Texas are functionally illiterate. That's one fifth of all adults in this state. They can't read a medicine

bottle or use a phone book. They can't read a wad hat or fill out a job application. More than 400,000 of those adults live in North Texas. But it's not just adults. According to the U.S. Department of Education, it's estimated that 13% of all 17-year-olds are functionally illiterate. They are tomorrow's adult illiterates. The cost is high, welfare aid, unemployment and lost tax revenues affect everyone and the cost can't be measured in dollars alone. Three out of four prison inmates in the U.S. can't read. Those are the numbers but what about the people themselves? How does someone make it through life without being able to read? We spent a month with Johnny Rogers who grew up on a farm in Southeast Dallas County near Wilmer. He's 30 now and works as a plumber. Johnny can't read.

Not back then. Didn't put that much money coming out. School had just didn't work out I don't find. Johnny Rogers family doesn't farm this land anymore but every summer he returns with his brother Donnie to Hall Hay for a family friend. Hay Hall is always hard. What I learned to like it. I don't think I'm gonna

relax more out there and out anywhere else I can. I always figured if I'm gonna do something, I'll give it a hundred percent of what I've got. Or otherwise I ain't gonna do it. None of the 10 children in the Rogers family were able to get much schooling. They had to work on the farm. Johnny Rogers didn't go to school till he was 10 and then he went only three years. When was the last time you actually set foot on this property and looked in this police windows? When I went to school there I went by and slept with that. Never stopped. Why didn't you learn to read John? I don't know if I'd

just had something you know someone to really take away but I didn't do it. So I just finally got tired of that I guess I'm just quit. Are these the same kind of deaths you had when you came? They look like they changed Denny. They look about the same as it was. What could have happened here for you? Well I don't know. Nobody but a started and you know what I'm supposed to do that I'm not going to learn something. But like it wasn't. I think it was too late to start. Were you frustrated about it? Scared? Couldn't keep up? Couldn't keep up with it because I didn't know what was going on. No one showed me how to do anything. Any of it. So I didn't. Left my books in the locker and just walked out. Then went to work and worked everything. What was going on with the Rogers family at the time? Did your dad need help? Well we all worked you know. When we were going to school we'd work when we got out

of work or something. Now school or something. And most time everybody quit school and they only had to go to work. Johnny and his wife Debbie live in a $300 a month one bedroom apartment in Pleasant Grove. They've been married for 12 years and have three children. 12 year old Jimmy Ray, a straight A student in the fifth grade. Seven year old Amanda who is now learning to read and four month old Sarah. Johnny also supports his 15 year old niece Glenda. Glenda is an honor student who's been accepted by the Dallas public school's law magnet. The family lives on Johnny's $8 an hour plumbing job and odd jobs he picks up on the side. How does this compare to other jobs that you had though? This is easy. You didn't you haven't always been a plumber. No. No work fence company. About four or five years. What were you doing there? Girlfriend. Supervisor. Supervisor. I've had that for three years. Now you were a supervisor and you didn't know how to read.

Did they know that? No. How did you keep it from them? You just plagued it out. You get to be good at faking it I guess. How do you fake it, Johnny? I find something I don't know. I asked somebody what it is. Don't bother me that. You don't ask questions. I won't learn that. So asking questions is the way that you can get around it. Which job that you had had the most reading involved in it? I guess that fence company. What kind of things do you have to have? Well you have to make bills up because I was farming over the yard out there. And I have to give them tickets and stuff where they could load the cook. And how did you get by? Well the first year or so they made my bills farming. I just give them and I just don't give them what I wanted to. Now they don't look at them enough and I learn what everything was. Did they know you didn't know how to read? And then I start making my own bills. How did you do that? I just sang it so much and it never changes. It's always the same stuff.

So you actually memorize the way it looked when they did it over that year. Memorize the letters and what had to be written to where you could copy it. So I can know what to do. Johnny doesn't spend much time with his parents when he does it's usually over beer and dominoes. Like his son Wes Rogers never learned to read. Feeding and clothing a house full of children was the priority. He expected the children to pull their weight on the farm. That left little time for school. What's going on? When there was reading to do Johnny's mother did it. She had enough schooling to get by.

Would you say you guys really worked hard back then? We worked hard all the lives. How important was learning to read if you were working so hard? We didn't have a chance to go school. We had to work for a living. School wasn't the most important thing in your house was it? Was it? I was waiting to go but they had to stay on my after days. Did you one day say, Johnny, look, I need you to help me here with the work. How did it go? No, it was a lot of time working together all the time. Did you go to school? He went like three years of school, right? About what I can't. He didn't learn to read. Why? I think it was all a question. He went to school about three years. He didn't learn. So he dropped out. Mr. Rogers grew uncomfortable with our conversation and left.

Could you all have survived if your kids were going to school? I don't know it would tell. It would be a hard struggle. Did you know how important schooling was back then? No, not really. But now you know. No, no. And those grandkids know. How does it make you feel? You know, Glenda is going to a good school and that Jimmy Ray is making straight A's and how does that make you feel? Happy. Why? It just does. Why do what makes them go to school? Why do what makes them have that, you know, they've been able to be persuaded to go to school? How did that happen, you think? I told them that they need education now to get good jobs. You told your grandchildren that?

And your children must be telling their children that too. If you had to do it all over again, all your nine children, would you have done it any differently? Would you have made them go to school? Yeah, I would. I wouldn't make them go to school every day. Every morning, Debbie drops Johnny off at his job. Steven's company is a small plumbing repair shop in Pleasant Grove where he's worked for four years. Morning, John. Sleep good. His brother, Donnie, joined him two years ago. Their boss is Robert Stevens. It's a competition. One of them soldered you pulled out at least about two months ago and all of a sudden water started pouring out of the wall. And I forgot to solder a joint. But it happens all the time.

He is real good. He's a hard worker. He's conscientious. And he watches. And then he does. You can depend on him to do something again. Okay, where else? It's right star laundry. That's what I want to deliver that nipple. Oh, yeah, 3-Bah. 29. 29. 19. Okay. There's parts where you're going to go off. There's a lot of driving in the plumbing repair business because Johnny can't read. Stevens gives detailed directions to job locations. Yeah. So you go north there. You go a lot better on it. Got it? Okay. More complicated jobs like this one at St. Paul's hospital require more reading and sometimes precise measurements. While Stevens must be there to help, he does not consider it a burden. Johnny's a real good help. He's learning, learning fast.

And with a little time, he'll make a good plumber there. There isn't. He's dependable, real dependable. And nowadays it's just hard to find a dependable house. He's got one handicap though. Okay, reading right. But he's learning and he wants to learn. That's the main thing. It's like plumbing. He wants to learn so bad that I'm not worried about wanting to learn how to read right because he can do that too. You have to be able to take care of blueprints. You know how to lay out the work stuff. And it's just an necessity you could never make it without learning to read right. And he understands this too. You call this a drip. Sometimes when they're pouring and pouring down your face, then water just running everywhere. Then you really enjoy it. They keep it cool though. Did he actually come out and say I can't read or did he have to go to the library? No, I told him. You can't read right. You can't read. He said I've been tricking people for years now. It was kind of key. A lot of people didn't catch it.

But he couldn't read it. I didn't realize he couldn't read it. You're paying him $8 now? $8 now, yeah. I could pay you more if he was capable of going out and being able to write work orders and stuff like that. Any higher paid man, it's got to be able to just be turn loose. And then set a plan or tell him to go do something and forget about it when you're making that kind of money. And Johnny's just not that far along, you know. Okay, now this is Johnny. That's just the same way you hold him. What do you want for him? He's just a good kid that hadn't had a chance. And you just see somebody trying to make life without the capabilities of some other fellow that has that much age on him. And he works hard and he really, he's determined. Okay, I got it. Johnny and Donnie handle routine jobs on their own. Donnie, let me one cut his.

They work good together, make a good, but too many of them always work better together anymore. Well, getting married and the way he cuts, whatever it is, the table is going through it. You know, all fixed up. Donnie's pretty good about right now. It's what time they get to a job, what time they leave and their mileage and stuff like that. And that helps a lot too. Here again, Johnny can't read it all. And he depends on Donnie to do a little reading they can and they work it out by copying other words and stuff. Appreciate the job. Thank you. See you about six months. I'll just come back when you get something there. All right. As Johnny's mother did the reading for her husband, Debbie does Johnny's reading. Debbie Rogers has an 11th grade education. So you've gotten kind of used to filling out forms for him. Well, there's been times, too, like he's worked at Safeway after Steve's gone. And he's had to bring home the papers for me to fill out what they done and what they had to use on the job.

I think I've tried to teach him how to read. You know, more into the library and get no moves or composes. You won't let me. You know, I can help him a lot, but he don't like doing it in front of me. Because I mean, he's always had a conflict about my knowing how to read. Did you know he didn't have a read when you married him? No. Did it matter to you when you found out? No. Do you think it's important that he learns? I do now. Why? Well, like he's wanting to get his plumbing license and stuff and he has to know how to do that to get there. And he's always wanted to learn, but, you know, I'm already used to doing it all myself. How about when you had the baby? When you had four months ago. Did was Johnny there and did he have to fill out any paperwork?

Or what are you doing a case like that where he has to fill paperwork out? Well, like when I, when I needed to have her, they had to bring everything into the library for me to fill out and answer. Like, I had to sign a bunch of papers so if they had to give me a blood transfusion, stuff like that. And if he could have read the papers and everything, he could have filled them out. But he couldn't, so I had to. Johnny comes home from work at 4.30. Like clockwork, he plants himself in his favorite chair, has a cold beer, and watches TV with his family. As our homes reflect our lifestyles, Johnny's home reflects his. There are no newspapers, no books, not even a TV guide.

But Johnny doesn't watch TV on Wednesday nights anymore. Instead, he spends two hours at the skyline branch of the Dallas Public Library. He's learning to read. Johnny dropped out of a reading class two years ago. He says the class was too big for him. Have a seat. Johnny's daughter may have given him the push he needed to try again. My daughter, she told her teacher she didn't have to learn how to read. She said, my daddy don't know how to read and said, I don't have to learn how to read. He's the sound of ad, s-a-d is sad, what is m-a-d good, what is d-a-d good, and f-a-d is sad.

And here's that favorite each again. Head, okay. The man Mr. Taylor got together and he found this class here for me. We're going to do a little reviewing, so let's start with these words, okay? I like it. Just 101, I like my teacher. She's nice. She's one of the nice ones that I would let. If I learn how to read or something, you know, that's something that's missing. All right, we'll do this one together. He was a total non-reader when I first met him. He did not know how to read. He did recognize letters. He didn't always know the sounds of letters, but he didn't know how to put letters together to form words. The letter K. The letter K, right here, is the sound you hear at the end of check, leak, and black. What sound am I making at the end of those words?

Okay. He's like a blank piece of paper, a blotting paper, if you like. He soaks up everything I can give him and asks for more. Let's say those together. In alphabetical order, A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. Is he different than any students that you've had in the past? Probably different only in his motivation and his sincere desire to learn. I said, do you want to learn to read? And he said, oh yes. He says, I've made up my mind. I'm going to read. He says, I'm going to do it. And I said, well, I think you will. He says, I know I will. When I make up my mind to do something, I do it. And he's proving this every time I see him. Did not earn much at the market. How could he get a present from four?

Four is friend. It can't help but make a change in his life. We're opening up a whole new world to this young man, a world that he's perfectly capable of grasping with. Everything he's got and he wants it. He is. Bad north of town. There are boots to go. We feel we're educating families by reaching at least one person in the family. That's bound to have some effect on the entire family. If Daddy can read, Daddy's children will read. We know as teachers that the greatest influence on a child's progress in school is not the school or the teacher, but his family. A Saturday afternoon picnic at a Dallas City Park and Johnny is where he likes to be with his family in a place where reading isn't required. He has survived 30 years in a world of the printed world without knowing how to read.

He has brought three children into the world and supported them. Johnny Rogers is proof that you don't have to know how to read to survive, but surviving is not enough for him anymore. You think taking these reading lessons will help you? No, yeah, yeah. Something I always want to learn. I should have learned it about four years ago. My memory was good there. You think this is something that's been missing in his life for a long time? Yeah. He's sent the news all the way down here. Did you ever talk about it much? What do you want for these kids, you two? What do you want for these kids? Whatever they want. What do you think they want? What's the direction they're moving in?

Are they going the same direction you guys went? They're going the same direction I went. I was brought up to go to school. One thing we had to do, my kids, they're going to do it. Johnny's the one that makes sure today. They're going to, they're going to learn it. I didn't have a chance to do that. They're going to do it. Did you have his wild years? Yes. How are those years? Terrible. What was that like? Well, like, he would go to work on Friday mornings and wouldn't come home to Monday mornings. Well, Johnny, what happened? I mean, really, what happened to make you decide to stay one day? You know, I'm not going to blow my paycheck and stay out over the whole weekend. I'm going to go home every night and be with my family. Well, it's time to make change, you know, because I ain't getting a younger. But I'm starting now, I ain't going to be having that. And I won't have something to buy.

I die. I won't have something to leave my kids to spend. I'm going to leave him something. Money up. Like, my old man, they were supposed to die. All they had got to pocket half a shoe. That's all they had to do for my old man. That's all they had to give me. That's the essence of the dog. You want to leave them with something a little bit more. Yeah, the word. You know, if you had a big family out there, you know, kids had to work to help out. But they didn't, you know, sometimes we went hungry. We didn't have real food. Well, that's called the old man going to drink it up and stuff. We'd go out and we wouldn't make $100 in a day. How old are you? And it's been $100 a day. He wouldn't put back for a rainy day. And then during the winter, he wouldn't work anything. It wouldn't be no good. When you found yourself spending a new paycheck. The same thing I was doing, I said I wouldn't want to do it. I said I wouldn't do that when I left home. And I found myself doing the same thing that they were doing. It's time to stop.

I ain't going to be in the same thing, Steve. That's kind of what you want to do. That's kind of it. I want to leave more than what I had. I don't want them to be better off than I was. Johnny doesn't often think about how his life could have been if he'd learned to read. But visiting his old school, they don't think about it. I don't care how bad I get. My kids are going to go to school. And I ain't going to tell them what they could be. I mean, you know, doctors, lawyers, whatever they want to be. Where do we go to school and tell them what we could have done? Or could I, you know, like get another dig and ditch and stuff? Wouldn't that do all that? Do you ever think about what you could have been? At one time when I was younger, I always went a bit low. I never used to go to school and that and so on. I was always fascinated. But I always changed it. And I always like to know everything I can about it. You know, I just couldn't read the books to learn anything.

I just pick up what I hear here and there. And you want to make it a little different for your kids? Oh, yeah. I'm going to do what they want to do. The bank went to school. Look here. Look where they at now. They're in the dark. Do you think what he's thinking? Is he going to walk there? Let's see what he says. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am. I think you can eat them. You do not like them, so you say? Try them. Try them. And you may. Say, I like green eggs and ham. I do like them, Sam I am. I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam I am. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Betty can't read was made possible in part by the Southwestern Bell Foundation and the Dallas Morning News.