Question above is pretty blunt but was doing a study for a college course and came across that stat. How is that possible? My high school sucked but I was well equipped even with that sub standard level of education for college. Obviously income is a thing but to think 1 out of 5 American adults is categorized as illiterate is…astounding. Now poor media literacy I get, but not this. Edit: this was from a department of education report from 2022. Just incase people are curious where that comes from. It does also specify as literate in English so maybe not as grim as I thought.
If you don’t understand, start walking further away from the cities.
If you still don’t understand, you’re not done walking.
There’s a slight gradient in literacy when looking at grade level but it’s not really accurate with illiteracy. Seems cities can still have a considerable population that can’t read.
Home schoolers/child abusers are everywhere.
Note: Not talking about legitimate, regular curriculum, “online school” for kids that can’t attend normal school for whatever reason, (e.g. bullying, immunocompromised, etc). I’m referring to religious/cult garbage home schooling stuff that doesn’t teach kids much of anything. Parents that put girls through these programs often end them at the fifth or sixth grade (because that’s all they need to be “good wives”).
So I am a researcher by trade in this field, got a PhD, and develop these kinds of stats (at a more local level). I also have taught basic adult literacy for about 15 years. I think the poster was likely referring to an NCES stat.
We tend to think of adults with low English literacy as people who dropped out of school or never went. We also tend to think “illiterate” is binary, you can read or you can’t. But the definition is based around grade-level reading (what can you identify and synthesize from standardized text in English in a given time frame) and inclusive of a broader population. We’re talking about people who can’t pick up a copy of USA today and tell you the main idea of a front-page article. They can drive, they can work, etc. So they get along and this issue get ignored.
For example, some stats on illiteracy will count “non-participants” among those who can’t read/write, but this includes people in the study with cognitive disabilities or language barriers to the point that they can’t take the reading test. The share of U.S. adults who are functionally illiterate in English includes some non-native English speaking adults and also a couple generations of folks with reading diasbilities who passed through school, AND people who didn’t read for myriad other reasons.
I have tutored older adults learning to read/write for many years and have met a lot of people who ran businesses or raised families or worked full careers before learning to read. Adaptable and clever bunch. And even many U.S.-born native English speakers who got shuffled through high school despite serious disadvantage and/or disabilities.
My girlfriend is a math teacher, the number of middle schoolers that can’t do basic multiplication before is surprisingly high. Yet the schools keep passing the kids. I remember learning multiplication as a 4th grader, if I hadn’t, I would’ve never passed.
My niece from Florida came to live with me in December, just finished fifth grade and I was stunned that she doesn’t know her multiplication tables. My kids In Pennsylvania learned them in 3rd grade a few years ago.
It’s unfortunate, but the school systems seem to be fine with the problem these days. The teachers are underpaid and furious these days with the school boards.
Sadly if you don’t make noise in your area and get other parents rallied, the administrators are continuing to “cut costs,” and the kids who aren’t in private schools are effected.
Damn. We knew our 2–12 times tables by end of grade two. By the fourth, multiplication was standard and we started algebra concepts in the fifth. I can’t imagine being in highschool and not knowing primary things. It makes me wonder what they did all day for years.
Yeah, you’re likely younger and I’m dating myself lol. But I know they started teaching it earlier, a few years later.
Because the government, federal and state level (especially conservative) hate public education and fight to defund it as much as possible. Largely because an educated populace is a dangerous populace. Especially when your political platform relies on identity politics, culture wars, cheating, screwing over the poor, opposing minorities, religious fundamentalism, and any other regressive, oppressive bullshit you can think of. They want stupid voters that they can point at “the enemy” and pit against each other to distract them from facts, all so they can stay rich and powerful.
