Posted on 03/03/2022 5:11:24 AM PST by EBH
A new study by Gallup on behalf of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy finds that low levels of adult literacy could be costing the U.S. as much $2.2 trillion a year.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old - about 130 million people - lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. That’s a shocking number for several reasons, and its dollars and cents implications are enormous because literacy is correlated with several important outcomes such as personal income, employment levels, health, and overall economic growth.
Commenting on the significance of the study, British A. Robinson, president and CEO of the Barbara Bush Foundation, said, “America’s low literacy crisis is largely ignored, historically underfunded and woefully under-researched, despite being one of the great solvable problems of our time. We’re proud to enrich the collective knowledge base with this first-of-its-kind study, documenting literacy’s key role in equity and economic mobility in families, communities and our nation as a whole.”
Adults who scored below Level 3 for literacy on the PIAAC were defined as at least partially illiterate. Adults below or at Level 1 may struggle to understand texts beyond filling out basic forms, and they find it difficult to make inferences from written material. Adults at Level 2 can read well enough to evaluate product reviews and perform other tasks requiring comparisons and simple inferences, but they’re unlikely to correctly evaluate the reliability of texts or draw sophisticated inferences. Adults at Level 3 and above were considered fully literate. They’re able to evaluate sources, as well as infer sophisticated meaning and complex ideas from written sources.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf
Why are the teachers not completely embarrassed by this? How much of this is due to people not knowing English. Not caring about using it. Americans not caring
It doesn’t help our literacy level when some schools willfully don’t correct poor spelling or reading comprehension because they have been told “that’s racist!”.
The illiteracy problem is the result of the Child Cenetered, Whole Language drivel that is followed like a religion by the teaching profession. I spent a long time trying to tell these people that it is actually fairly easy to teach a child to read and spell, if one uses the correct methods. They didn’t want to hear a word of it.
I suspected it was intentional 30 years ago, but in light of today’s world, I have no doubt it was intentional. Dumb down society and control. It’s very clear.
Because teachers can’t crack the heads open and pour information in. Students have to put forth some effort. I have been inside primary school classrooms and have seen first hand great teachers trying to teach kids to read. Unfortunately we have a vast population of people who do not value education and see schools only as their free babysitting service.
If you want to drive a millennial to mental/emotional self-destruct tell him he’ll have to live on canned food for a month. Then give him instructions on how to use a can opener - written in cursive.
Why do we keep pouring more and more money in to the system that produces dumber and dumber students?
despite being one of the great solvable problems of our time.LOL.
Raise the minimum wage and spend more to support poverty. So-called "war on poverty" is actually a support system for poverty.
I know, the OP is on literacy, not wages. But literacy is not a pre-requisite to "make it" in the USA. The education level in general has been trending downward for many years. Throwing more money at it has made things WORSE. People have to yearn to learn. Defund public education and save that 2.2 trillion. The results would not be any worse than they are now.
Aside from people engaged in knowledge work, a large fraction of the population will not need to know how to read and write. Instead they will depend on video, audio, and icon knowledge, with text to speech and speech recognition as required.
Up until recently I didn't believe it was that large an issue, mistakenly thinking that it was a matter of "catching up" but now I know it's worse than anyone has addressed and suspect it's not solvable.
The internet, while it has made learning more accessible, has also lead to an expansion of language and usage that many folks are unwilling to embrace.
I don't know why I'm surprised anymore when someone reads a simple email and misses the message completely.
Hmm. Teachers have put forth quite a lot of demands over the past two years. We’ve heard a lot from parents regarding CRT and nonsense teachers are putting in to the children heads. Homeschooling is up tremendously over what parents have seen and now this report
Teachers can get back to basics. Then they’d be in a position to whine. But not now.
Well flooding the country with people who are illiterate in their native language isn’t going to raise those scores.
I think there is a flaw in the logic of this study. I do not dispute that those who are more literate make more money. But it is the behaviors associated with acquiring literacy that make the difference. Having intact parents who read to their children, making sure they succeed in school, and having the self discipline to use their schooling to improve themselves.
Having worked in education for over 30 years it would appear to me that what you are seeing is that it is the behaviors associated with people who are education resistant that lead to low literacy and low incomes and not the other way around. The schools are full of educationally resistant kids, and in the inner cities the numbers of JERKS (Just Educationally Resistant Kids) increases all the time.
The pattern to me seems to be fatherless children, with extremely young uneducated mothers who prefer taking their government checks to get their nails done, and iphones rather than making sure their kids learn and read. No discipline is instilled in their children and they cannot function in a setting that expects personal responsibility and self control. Gang membership, theft, constant fighting and disruptive behavior in classes is the norm. These are the reasons they are not literate, and they don’t care that they can’t read and don’t know anything. Literacy and learning are not culturally supported and not supported in their families.
Teaching them to be more literate, which they will resist, is not going to take away the other causes of lower income. For most that I have seen, they are “poor” because they continually make very poor choices and do not take responsibility for themselves. They have had 12 years of education on the taxpayer’s dime and they chose to continually not use that time to improve themselves.
This is what the left wanted. Dumb down the masses so they rely on government.
Who needs to read well to twerk like a stripper on a pole, write Retarded African Poetry, or have a welfare technician fill out the paperwork?
Deep State likes the citizenry ignorant and impaired.
The citizenry is much easier to rule.
Says the person who didn't use the appropriate comma.
From the report one might find FAQ table interesting.
The illiteracy also covers being able to do math. If people only depend of text to speech and speech recognition formats, they lose their critical thinking skills.
While the report does not actually say that one can make the inference. This also explains the heavy handed use by the democrat party being able to censor what they call disinformation. Why? Because the people who are falling under the 6th grade bench mark in reading and math, essentially are not able to think critically. Follow the experts, follow the science all those catch phrases will make people easy to manipulate.
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/state-county-estimates.asp#4
You will own nothing and you’ll be happy!
I agree. But for people missing the message I do blame the media for that too. Taking snippets of information out of context, out of the flow of a paragraph changes the meaning. For 54% of the population a full paragraph is to hard to understand in context.
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