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 ...
Yes. But that sounds clunky. The double negative phrase "not uncoincidentally" is often used to add a bit of archness to the thought.
Me love grammar. ;)
There are many students who could attend KIPP similar schools, except that their parents will not commit to the requirements of the schools, such as ensuring that their children are present and on-time, and checking to see that homework is completed.
Instead, the children of those parents fail in the public schools.
And, hold them accountable.
I, and most of the public school teachers I know, agree that parents and students should be more accountable, and that teachers can't be solely responsible for ensuring that children are properly educated.
How do you suggest that schools hold parents and students accountable? If you give me your stock answer of privatizing K-12 education, I still need to know how you'll ensure that the children of these unconcerned and uninvolved parents will be adequately educated.
Boy, if that isn't an appalling sign of the times, I don't know what is...
Unfortunately it isn’t just adults, there are many high school graduates who are functionally illiterate and can barely read a newspaper. Isn’t free public education great. (sarcasm)
My theory:
this is the work of the devil as the Bible said the Word IS God. If you can’t read, you can’t know God.
I’m not so sure of that. I pulled my son out of school before he got kicked out. Surprise...he could read but couldn’t understand what he was reading. He was later tested at a highschool. He scored above 8th grade level...(that is as high as they tested). We home school moms may not do everything perfect but we make sure they can read how to play the video games anyway :’)
I haven’t read the responses yet so forgive me if I’m repeating what has already been said, but I suppose I can’t say it often enough.
Send them back to Mexico and let their own government educate them!
Like my son, I think many fall through the cracks. These kids may not be able to read but many are very smart and are good at hiding their disability. It’s much better to get labeled as a trouble maker than have people know that you don’t understand what you are reading.
I’m in Alabama and my son has a PhD in physics...what about your children?
Congrats on your son. Not surprising from a FREEPER. My oldest child is 10...lol. No PhD’s here.
LOL! That's exactly how I was taught to spell MISSISSIPPI too.
Too darn funny!
Since we can't help **all** of the disadvantaged students, then we should subject **all** of student to a model of schooling that seems to produce results only for functional families.
Do we **really** know if the government school model working optimally for academcially successful children?
The academically successful children very well may be succeeding **in spite** of being institutionalized, not because of it. If these children are learning 99% of what they know due to “afterschooling”, then perhaps these children are learning **in spite** of being institutionalized, not because of it.
At every turn the teachers unions fight innovation and privatization.
Oops. I left out a couple of crooked letters :’)
Thanks in advance.
Knowing how much of the 14% was due to legal immigration, illegals, and native born would have been very helpful. It would tell us a lot about the effectiveness of K-12 education system ( home, private, and **mostly** government).
I also am curious to know how many are men and how many are women. Personally, I think our current government model for educating boys, hurts boys.
All teachers:
Obviously, a certain portion of our population simply do not have the intelligence to learn how to read. A 100% literacy rate for Americans would be irrational.
What percentage of the population would you, Teachers, consider to be below the IQ level needed to master reading?
My 1st thoughts exactly - do they just mean English illiteracy?
My 2nd thought - what percent of journalists can write?
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