Shocking Literacy in the United States
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To put the literacy rate problem into some perspective, imagine if every person in Canada could not read. That is the enormity of the reading problem in the United States. More than thirty two million adult Americans have less than minimal reading skills:
“A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the USA — about one in seven — are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children’s picture book or to understand a medication’s side effects listed on a pill bottle.”
link: Literacy study: 1 in 7 U.S. adults are unable to read this story
The educational system has let these people slip through or around and not acquire a basic skill. Millions of people have been left behind and finding it more difficult to survive in the technological age. As these numbers increase year to year, the need for social services escalate. And the daunting consideration is that the estimated number of thirty two million people may be low.
Catherine Forsythe
8 Comments
Martin Kruse
January 12th, 2009
at 7:53pm
Harvey cites undiagnosed learning disabilities, **immigration** and high school dropouts as reasons for the poor literacy numbers.
Home, Home on the Range | Chris Pirillo
January 13th, 2009
at 5:06am
[...] The state of Literacy in the US is shocking. [...]
Maria B.
January 13th, 2009
at 6:47am
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, America in the film “Idiocracy” is looking more and more like this nation’s future…
slacker
January 13th, 2009
at 6:48am
What’s more interesting is that illiteracy in the US ~150 years ago was almost ZERO. It started rising exactly when compulsory “education” was introduced. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Lisa Marie Mary
January 13th, 2009
at 7:56am
Heartbreaking. Completely and utterly heartbreaking. I cannot imagine my life without books - I’ve ‘escaped’ through books ever since I was a small child and it really is something I could not imagine living without.
And the comment by slacker is very interesting.
Alan Monroe
January 13th, 2009
at 8:30am
Slacker: [Citation Needed]
Frank Schnyder
January 13th, 2009
at 5:29pm
Those people probably make more money than me, too!
Roofrocket
January 13th, 2009
at 5:39pm
Thank you for spreading truth in your blog. But, even more shocking:
we rank 19th in standard or living among industrialized nations of the world.
There are currently 26 million americans without access to healthcare. 11 million of which are children. A foot note: there are no people without health insurance in all of Europe, China, Viet Nam, India, and the list goes on until you reach some African nations etc.
I could go on about statistics and how the US fares in the standings. But, suffice to say none of it is good.
I can feel the ire of very uninformed conservative viewers of the blog already before posting this. My response to you is the facts are the facts. And, you have been sold a bill of goods by the very well off for a very long time.
Hey, but one good note is that we still have the most well equipt armed forces in the world without question. That is until our Auto makers go under and then we will have to ask the Chinese to build our tanks and armoured personel carriers for us. Think they will when the chips are down?
Ah yes, but we must be on the right track. Right?