[Peace-discuss] Fw: [gangboxnews] U.S. Literacy & Illiteracy Numbers

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From: wilsoncharless 
To: gangboxnews at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 7:31 PM
Subject: [gangboxnews] U.S. Literacy & Illiteracy Numbers


  

U.S. Literacy & Illiteracy Numbers
1/3 of Americans are illiterate.
42 million cannot read
50 million read only at a 4th & 5th grade level
Many more are functionally literate but do not read. 
Source: Chris Hedges at Miami Book Festival 11-15-09
Video at:  http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/289996-1
Chris Hedgers speaks about literacy at 195.40 into the presentation. 

"In one century we went from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to offering remedial English in college." 
Joseph Sobran

Literacy study: 1 in 7 U.S. Adults Are Unable to Read This Story
1-8-09 USA Today by Greg Toppo
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm
A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the USA - about one in seven - are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children's picture book or to understand a medication's side effects listed on a pill bottle. Article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm

ON THE WEB: Read the findings 
View state or county estimates
Compare two states or two counties
@ http://nces.ed.gov/naal/estimates/index.aspx
Seattle, Minneapolis most literate big cities 
More at: http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-12/2005-12-29-voa17.cfm

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The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8191.htm More at: http://nces.ed.gov/naal/ & http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.c988ba0e5dd572bada20bc47c3921509/?vgnextoid=229eaf5e44df4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=6773e3b5f64f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD & http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/all/ib_overall.asp

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The National Adult Literacy Survey represents 190 million U.S. adults over age sixteen with an average school attendance of 12.4 years. The survey is conducted by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey. It ranks adult Americans into five levels. Here is its 1993 analysis: 
  1.. Forty-two million Americans over the age of sixteen can't read. Some of this group can write their names on Social Security cards and fill in height, weight, and birth spaces on application forms.

  2.. Fifty million can recognize printed words on a fourth- and fifth-grade level. They cannot write simple messages or letters.

  3.. Fifty-five to sixty million are limited to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade reading. A majority of this group could not figure out the price per ounce of peanut butter in a 20-ounce jar costing $1.99 when told they could round the answer off to a whole number.

  4.. Thirty million have ninth- and tenth-grade reading proficiency. This group (and all preceding) cannot understand a simplified written explanation of the procedures used by attorneys and judges in selecting juries.

  5.. About 3.5 percent of the 26,000-member sample demonstrated literacy skills adequate to do traditional college study, a level 30 percent of all U.S. high school students reached in 1940, and which 30 percent of secondary students in other developed countries can reach today. This last fact alone should warn you how misleading comparisons drawn from international student competitions really are, since the samples each country sends are small elite ones, unrepresentative of the entire student population. But behind the bogus superiority a real one is concealed.

  6.. Ninety-six and a half percent of the American population is mediocre to illiterate where deciphering print is concerned. This is no commentary on their intelligence, but without ability to take in primary information from print and to interpret it they are at the mercy of commentators who tell them what things mean. A working definition of immaturity might include an excessive need for other people to interpret information for us.  http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3j.htm

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