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Great Britain: 26m can't read & write
The Sun (U.K.) ^ | December 15, 2004 | DAVID WOODING

Posted on 12/15/2004 3:09:22 AM PST by Stoat

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To: Stoat

That is how you start to enslave a people. If they can not read & or write then they can not pass along the GOD's given freedoms!


21 posted on 12/15/2004 5:12:26 AM PST by TMSuchman (American by birth,rebel by choice, MARINE BY GOD!)
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To: Stoat
26m can't read & write

And, the rest can't brush their tooth.

22 posted on 12/15/2004 5:12:38 AM PST by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it.)
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To: Stoat
"A STAGGERING 26million adults in England cannot read, write or add up properly, a report reveals today."

The headline is bad enough, but then they tell us:-

A fifth have a worse command of English than a typical PRIMARY school leaver.

If you are familiar with the level of literacy of the typical school leaver here - you know we're really in trouble.

The good news is that only mutants and mouth-breathers read the Sun.

23 posted on 12/15/2004 5:15:09 AM PST by Selous
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To: SauronOfMordor

nice of you to think that peoples ability to read and write is decided by the colour of their skin, but to continue, britain has about 58 million people, at most the proportion of ethnic minorities is about 9%, most of whom are 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants or have been here more that 20 years.

school for you.


24 posted on 12/15/2004 5:15:52 AM PST by rogermellie (isn't there a hobbit somewhere with his finger in your ring?)
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To: Aquinasfan

John Dewey also said that a literate population is more difficult to control.

Whole Language has served very well in this area. The juvenile detention centers and jails are full of illiterates. Larger and larger segments of the population are dependent on the government because they are illiterate.

Whole Language has also provided many, many extra jobs for teachers. The method creates the problem and then the system hires more people to "correct" it.

I have followed this in Canada for years. I assume the same is going on down there.


25 posted on 12/15/2004 5:16:59 AM PST by JudyinCanada (Five-fingered Canadian)
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To: Puppage

You can be sure the toothbrush was invented in West Virginia. If invented anyplace else, it'd be called a teethbrush.


26 posted on 12/15/2004 5:21:50 AM PST by savedbygrace ("No Monday morning quarterback has never led a team to victory" GW Bush)
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To: Stoat
Since when has the NEA been in charge of the schools in Great Britain!!??
27 posted on 12/15/2004 5:42:53 AM PST by Gritty ("the brains of our own students have simply not been adequately developed in our schools"-T Sowell)
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To: rogermellie

Ah, you got there just before me. Well said.

I have to say though, the lack of literacy in some people is quite frightening. I had a job in a shop before I went to University and I was once asked to find a task for the cashier to get on with during the quieter moments of the day. I told her to collect all the loose videos in the store cupboard and put them in a box, remembering to label the box when she was finished.

An hour later I found a box, packed and sealed, with the legend, "Vidio's" scrawled across it.

I fear for the future, sometimes, I really do.


28 posted on 12/15/2004 5:54:26 AM PST by Slipperduke (*fixes bayonet*)
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To: JudyinCanada

I have seen it way too much in the last 18 years. When my oldest started school, (public) none of the teachers, all hired in the previous 3 years, taught phonics. The principal and superintendant got a real shocket when the rate of 1st graders who could read went from 80%+ (itself damn poor compared to the 100% when I was in 1st grade) to 30%. Most of that 30% who could read were like my son, who was taught phonetically by my wife at home and could read in kindergarten.

These intrepid administrators fast-talked their way out of being fired by the school board by blaming it on the influx of 'trailer trash' and illegal aliens. No mention of the whole language crapola that was enthusiastically implemented during their tenure. Several of the teachers, very concerned by the results, hooked up with some older teachers at other schools and were introduced to phonics. These kids were shocked. This was not even mentioned briefly to them in their college training. One retired teacher put on an 'underground' seminar to re-train these teachers.

When the administrators found out that phonics had infiltrated their whole language bastion, you would have thought a pedophile was loose in the classrooms from the fuss raised. The teachers using phonics were threatened with dismissal. Very disgusting. We pulled our kids out of the public system and went into the Catholic parochial system. Never have regretted that decision since. We left the public didaster area in 1994


29 posted on 12/15/2004 5:59:13 AM PST by nuke rocketeer
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To: nuke rocketeer

I have heard this story so many times.

It was when my daughter entered public school at five that I first heard of whole language and child-centered learning. I was amazed that anyone was stupid enough to fall for this philosophy and pulled my daughter out immediately and home-schooled.

I then did quite a bit of research on this and wound up running a quality education group and doing some radio shows trying to get things changed.

The higher ups in the system were the ones who forced me to decide that this whole thing was intentional. They defended their failed methods even when they had proof right in front of their eyes. It was so frustrating. I believe you when you say they reacted like their was a pedophile on the loose. The ph word sent them into panic mode. I did see teachers who wanted to use phonics penalized. They were not allowed.

After ten years they have trickled some phonics into the system, but it has not been very effective. I still have lots of students, thanks to their ignorance on the teaching of reading and spelling.

My one rule for reading is NEVER GUESS. Never use the picture to guess the word and never just say what you think the word should be. Very bad habits for your child.
I have written a program that I use to teach reading and spelling properly. It works wonders.

It is shameful what this system has done to so many kids.


30 posted on 12/15/2004 6:13:43 AM PST by JudyinCanada (Five-fingered Canadian)
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To: Stoat
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

You're right up ther with Los Angles County!

Why Immigrants In Los Angeles Can’t Read National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein If you were told that more than half of the adult inhabitants of the 17th largest economy in the world couldn’t read, you would probably think it was a less developed country like Pakistan or Nigeria.

Well, think again. The place is in the good old US of A.: Los Angeles.

A new study by the United Way of Los Angeles finds that 53 percent of the city’s adult population—3.8 million people—are functionally illiterate.

The percentage soars to 84 percent in heavily Hispanic south L.A., dropping to 44 percent in the greater San Fernando Valley. When we last checked, only 41 percent of Los Angeles’ population was foreign-born. Thus the illiteracy problem in that city is not limited to immigrants. Many of their U.S.-born children must also be functionally illiterate.

But the ultimate cause of LA illiteracy is mass immigration. Directly, it constantly resupplies the illiterate pool. Indirectly, it overwhelms the assimilative mechanism. The quality of English instruction for native non-Hispanic Angelenos must also suffer when resources are diverted to classes full of immigrants (Not that anyone seems to care).

Here are figures for 2000:

Limited English Fluency: L.A. County: 31 percent; U.S.: 8 percent

Adults w/o HS diploma: L.A. County 30 percent; U.S.: 20 percent

High School Dropout Rate: L.A. County: 38 percent; U.S.: 32 percent

Recent immigrants: L.A. County: 13 percent; U.S. 5 percent.

There are numerous opportunities for adult non-English speakers to acquire the requisite skills—many funded by non-profits like United Way.But—confirming a point often made by VDARE.COM’s Joe Guzzardi, who teaches English as a Second Language—only about 15 percent of L.A. County’s low-literacy adult population is enrolled in literacy programs. Dropout rates for these remedial programs approach 50 percent after the first three weeks.Very few working-age adults in Los Angeles are completely illiterate—nearly all can write their name or read a simple paragraph. But most lack the skills required for job related tasks. They are classified as “low-literate,” meaning they are unable to read a bus schedule, write a note explaining a billing error, follow instructions on a medicine bottle, or complete a job application. The distortion of the L.A. economy is sobering. Employers complain that they can’t find workers for high-skilled jobs, but the low wage, low-skill economy is booming. The county employment forecast shows that 282,000 new jobs in the $16,000 to $26,000 pay range will be created by 2008. These jobs include cashiers, dishwashers, security guards, and other occupations requiring only brief on-the-job-training and limited language skills. Wages for all of these unskilled positions have declined in L.A. County for the past 15 years—exactly what you would expect in a workforce inundated by functionally illiterate immigrants.

Why Immigrants In Los Angeles (AND THEIR U.S.-BORN CHILDREN) Can’t Read

Table 1:

Low-Literacy Population Estimates for L.A. County, 2000 By Area:

Antelope Valley 46.7%

San Fernando Valley 44.0%

San Gabriel Valley 49.0%

Metro 64.8%

West 24.3%

South 84.0%

East 65.6%

Harbor 49.0%

Los Angeles County 53.3%

Source: United Way, Literacy@Work: The L.A. Workforce Literacy Project, September 2004.

31 posted on 12/15/2004 6:18:22 AM PST by dzzrtrock (When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat (Ronald Reagan))
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To: Stoat
For most of recorded history, less than 10% of the population has been truly, fully literate.

That this continues to be the case is unsurprising - I know many graduates of top universities that simply would prefer to watch sports on television than read a serious book.

32 posted on 12/15/2004 6:57:05 AM PST by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: Stoat

I wonder how many of that 26 million are immigrants?


34 posted on 12/15/2004 7:00:15 AM PST by Ashamed Canadian
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To: Stoat

These raport is obvouslee inkorect.


35 posted on 12/15/2004 7:02:05 AM PST by The_Englishman
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To: Ashamed Canadian

post 24 would tell you.

are you having problems?


36 posted on 12/15/2004 7:17:52 AM PST by rogermellie
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To: Stoat

itz a lod ov awd baullox dis iz.


37 posted on 12/15/2004 7:39:18 AM PST by Le Bouledogue Britannique
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To: JudyinCanada
I have followed this in Canada for years. I assume the same is going on down there.

Yes. The system works as designed. People can't imagine anything different. It's diabolically ingenious.

38 posted on 12/15/2004 7:39:26 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: bahblahbah; Stoat; asgardshill; james beam

<< That has got to be BS. Thats almost half the country. >>

It's not BS, it is the half of the population that is of below-average intelligence whose numbers are bolstered and woes compounded as the consequence of the debilitating influence of a century of decaying social values and squalid socialism. Most of the other half have in any case already escaped -- and are now called Australians and Americans.

Along with all of the rest of the denizens of the euro-peons'squalidly fasciSSocialistic Neo-Soviet, once great britain is doomed, is spiralling into dead and decadent third-world irrelevency -- and is already reduced to being but an offshore satellite state of of that awful USSR reincarnation created by Brussels' dali-lama wannabes.


39 posted on 12/15/2004 7:47:19 AM PST by Brian Allen (89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89-89)
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To: Brian Allen

Are you actually being serious or are you just trying to wind us up?


40 posted on 12/15/2004 7:56:36 AM PST by Slipperduke (*fixes bayonet*)
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