Posted on 01/11/2009 8:12:31 AM PST by presidio9
About 14 percent of U.S. adults won't be reading this article. Well, okay, most people won't read it, given all the words that are published these days to help us understand and navigate the increasingly complex world.
But about 1 in 7 can't read it. They're illiterate.
Statistics released by the U.S. Education Department this week show that some 32 million U.S. adults lack basic prose literacy skill. That means they can't read a newspaper or the instruction on a bottle of pills.
The figures are for 2003, the latest year available. State and county results are available here.
"The crisis of adult literacy is getting worse, and investment in education and support programs is critical," said David C. Harvey, president and CEO of ProLiteracy, in response to the finding.
This is about jobs and the economy, Harvey said.
"More than 1 million people lost their jobs in 2008 and the new unemployment figures are the highest in 16 years," Harvey said. "A large number of the unemployed are low-skilled individuals who struggle with everyday reading, writing and math tasks. The administration wants to create new jobs
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
And I bet virtually all of them are democrats.
Californians are the least literate according to this survey. 23% are illiterate. NY was just one percentage point lower.
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/018433.html
Hi, wintertime, hope you are doing well.
We apparently agree that the current model of schooling is successful with children from functional families. In fact, this model has been successful for many years with children from functional families, which is why it has persisted for so long.
We also seem to agree that our current system of schooling is much less successful for children from dysfunctional families, who are making up an ever-larger proportion of the students in our public school system, particularly in inner cities. This is a major problem.
We agree that models such as KIPP schools have been very successful with some of these children, when the parents are willing to take the responsibilities required for enrollment in such schools.
The big question is, what do we do about the other children from dysfunctional families?
I don't know the answer to that question, and apparently neither do you.
Possibly boarding schools.
What is needed is a free market so that the best solutions can emerge. We aren't going to see innovation coming from our sclerotic government schools.
We don't agree on this. I contend that academically successful children are successful due to the parent and child's “afterschooling”. They are successful **in spite** of being incarcerated in prison-like settings ( mis-named government schools).
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