A FATHER-DAUGHTER DISCUSSION. By Jess Wilson Daughter Gail was the first woman to become a Deputy Warden of a men`s prison in Kentucky. Once in a letter she wrote: I have spent my adult life working in the prison system. The most common factor among convicted felons is reading problems that start in about the third grade. How many lives would we save if we spent as much money and energy on children as we do on sports and prisons. In my answer I added: If we financed our schools as an investment rather than as a charitable donation, we would look at each child and spend all the money and energy required to make a taxpayer out of him or her,. Imagine what the prison population would be in 20 years if we spent the energy and interest on each child to ensure that they learn to read as we do to teach them to throw a ball through a hoop. That we do it as an investment because we want the child to grow up to be a tax payer. Remember, it cost more to keep a person in prison than to send them to Harvard or Yale. From your doting father who told you that you were going to go to college before you learned to read.