How is it possible that roughly 50% of Americans can’t read above a 6th grade level and how are 21% just flat out illiterate?
How is it possible that roughly 50% of Americans can’t read above a 6th grade level and how are 21% just flat out illiterate?
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.
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.
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.
No single answer is comprehensive enough to explain the low literacy levels in the US. That’s because some of the contributing factors include:
- Parents with little schooling.
- Lack of books and reading encouragement at home.
- Dropping out of school.
- Difficult living conditions – including poverty.
- Learning disabilities.
Each of these topics has social and political implications and we, as a society, have made choices that privilege the rich and the least vulnerable. Our immediacy leads us to focus on inflation rates, employment, and reelection (don’t get me wrong, these are essential points). But we should also seek solutions to bring parents back to school, campaign for more books at home, and improve schooling to prevent dropout.
The discussion of U.S. illiteracy gets gloomier when we consider the differences between “literacy” (reading, writing, and math skills) and “functional literacy” (the practical use of these skills to manage daily life and improve socioeconomic well-being).
There’s a long and rocky road to reverse this picture, and some of the possible solutions to promote higher levels of literacy in society should take into account:
- low income resources
- stigma and shame
- lack of awareness
- limited access to education
- technological barriers
- limited funding for literacy programs.
So, how is it possible that roughly 50% of Americans can’t read above a 6th grade level and how are 21% just flat out illiterate?
All of the above, and probably more!
I’m not an expert, but I have to imagine it’s in relation to the fact that public education in the United States tends to be rather underfunded. Teachers often don’t have all the resources to do their jobs effectively, and many resort to paying for resources out of their own pocket.
Pair that with the fact that the average salary for a teacher in a public school is almost criminally low for a position that has a massive impact on our social outcomes, and you get students that are disengaged and overall not as prepared as they could be.
This is all just what I’ve gathered from reading news articles over time. I’m sure there are several other factors at play.
This disaster did not come about by accident. The whole country has allowed our public schools to decline, but the conservatives have been actively working to destroy them since the 80's. They have been leveraging racism, fundamentalism, and other prejudice-based fears to undermine the curriculum. Meanwhile, they have cut school funding, made teaching a terrible job, and downplayed the value of formal education. Educated people are much harder to manipulate. A minority trying to hold onto power needs a public that is poorly educated and without critical thinking skills.
Part of the reason so many can’t read above a 6th grade level is that they are always written to on that level. Anything written for any commercial purpose is always written at a low level so any idiot can understand the menu / read the packaging / consume the magazine ad / whatever. Commercial writers write for the lowest common denominator and to an extent, news media do as well.
So a 6th grade reading level is really all you need to get by. Unless you actually read books or opt for The Economist or something else that doesn’t assume you’re a moron, 6th grade level is all you’re gonna see.
There’s some utility in this. Simpler language is also lowest-common denominator for second-language-speakers, of which we have many. Another reason to use it.
One small part of the problem I only learned about recently is the Whole Language approach to teaching reading. Basically teaching kids to guess what words make sense instead of actually teaching them how to read. It was popularized in the 80s and 90s but continued to be used in some parts of the US into the 2010s. An entire chunk of the US population (and a few other countries as well) was literally not taught phonics/sounding it out because their teachers or schools followed this ineffective alternative method.
Of course that's far from the only factor, but it's one many aren't aware of.
If you want to know the truth, it's because America prioritizes almost everything above education in the money department. And while I enjoy making sure that Putin can't take over countries do to America's astronomically large defense budget, and help from other countries, we could probably use some of that money to help education, but you can't do that because what is cheaper/free college going to do for the military? That's right, cut in to the people who go to the military for free/cheap education. there's more to it but that's the gist, is that military eats up most of the federal spending, and then what trickles down to states, counties, and cities, is done as those people see fit. Some schools, cities and counties do well, but Michigan, and the south really aren't helping things, plus you have teachers paid poorly, who may of had a love for teaching, be stressed out all year around, and they may tell that kid who is an annoyance in class that he can have the easy book because they won't shut up and bring a nuisance, to let them read some small chapter book or something for a report than not. I've seen it happen plenty when I was in high school. But it boils down to money mostly.
Everyone is very focused on recent history. What about the huge amounts of aging immigrants in the USA that migrated here for a better life in the 50s-70s from poor countries and no education? They just worked their ass off and reading wasn't a priority. My father was a poor shepard, no education and illiterate but he hustled and retired early and put me through college to be an engineer. It seems improbable but it is possible for someone to be illiterate and wildly successful and contribute a lot to society and culture.
Schools cannot force students to learn. A lot of people are having kids because of social/societal expectations, lack of sex education, or lack of access to birth control rather than because they actually want to. As a result they are much less involved in their childrens' lives and expect schools to take care of raising their children for them. Stagnating wages and rising cost of living from inflation or corporate greed or whatever you want to call it means that even parents who do care are often too busy trying to make ends meet to be active parents. I suspect all of the above factors also correlate to parents who are not very well educated themselves.
If kids do badly, rather than encouraging or incentivizing them to do well or addressing their behavioral issues, these parents will instead blame the teachers. It is getting to the point where this is the case for the majority of students in many places. I have friends who teach in selective private schools, which would in theory correlate to more resources for students and more involved parents, but even there they are starting to see this.
Schools don't have the resources to address this crisis properly; schools are funded by tax dollars so teacher pay and overall school funding have stagnated along with wages. Schools cannot fail every student or hold them back a grade, and they are also incentivized to have high average grades, so they end up lowering their standards and graduating students who are not properly educated.
My personal, cynical take on this is that a subset of people in positions of political power realize that uneducated people are easier to manipulate for their own gain, and therefore deliberately support policies that have lead to the deterioration of educational standards. Additionally, business profits are maximized, at least in the short term, by maximizing the number of people living on the brink of bankruptcy. Every cent that the average person saves or invests or passes on to their children is a cent that is not being added to the billionaires' hoards. Less educated people are easier to manipulate into voting politicians who allow this to happen into power, which gives large corporations an incentive to help the aforementioned politicians get elected.
The Every Student Succeeds Act, which is the successor to the No Child Left Behind Act, puts the accountability for education in the hands of individual states rather than the federal government.
Journalist Libby Nelson wrote that the ESSA was a victory for conservatives who wished to see federal control of school accountability transferred to states, and that states "could scale back their efforts to improve schools for poor and minority children".
The overall effect is that education standards are lowered so that low-performing students can "succeed" (receive a passing grade) without being forced to actually learn.
And later the accountability requirements for states were removed:
In March 2017, Republican lawmakers with the support of the Trump administration used the Congressional Review Act to eliminate the Obama administration's accountability regulations.
So the real answer to your question is because Republicans are stupid and shortsighted and they want to keep the general population uneducated so they can be more easily manipulated.
Think about what kids read in 6th grade - Call of the wild, Holes, Black Beauty, etc. Then look at the grammar of people who post here. I was taught that basic newspapers are written at a 3rd-4th grade level.
The powers that be want to eliminate schools all together. They don't need a literate labourer. Soldier just need to recognize the alphabet. (I mean this in the most basic of terms. I'm not desparaging anyone.)
They don't want "free thinking" people in their society. If anyone remembers 'Divergent'. If not, look into it. It's not too far off.
Unironically relevant
Part of the reason so many can’t read above a 6th grade level is that they are always written to on that level. Anything written for any commercial purpose is always written at a low level so any idiot can understand the menu / read the packaging / consume the magazine ad / whatever. Commercial writers write for the lowest common denominator and to an extent, news media do as well.
So a 6th grade reading level is really all you need to get by. Unless you actually read books or opt for The Economist or something else that doesn’t assume you’re a moron, 6th grade level is all you’re gonna see.
There’s some utility in this. Simpler language is also lowest-common denominator for second-language-speakers, of which we have many. Another reason to use it.
Go look at content that is considered a specific reading level. It may shock you to find that a lot of it is not considered a high reading level.
There are a lot of old people in America. My grandparents didn't go to high school. It wasn't really considered necessary back then. We also have a lot of immigrants who may not necessarily be able to speak English well, let alone read it.
I would imagine that if you look at literacy rates of just young people, they would likely be a lot higher. Still, we do still have a lot of high school dropouts these days, but those numbers have been improving a lot. (According to this, the dropout rates have decreased about 10% over the past decade: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/coi/high-school-graduation-rates )
In my experience, there’s also a poverty component. Some families may have to move into a shelter in a different school district or even state. Within that you can stay at a shelter for a short and long time. Education is also not usually a focus of the family, or theres not enough time. So you have a situation where you are constantly moving places and schools, and your family doesn’t take any time to teach reading outside of school for whatever reason.
Shit public education system
It's not just that. It's not understanding words either. One example that Annoys me to no end is when I tell someone to flip a card over and they rotate it. This is in a upper middle class neighborhood. ( Just to be clear on the definition a card being rotated turns around the y-axis. Fliping a card rotates it around it's z-axis) while the issue is clearly there it's a bit more complicated than bad schools clearly.
There are a lot of factors. The biggest one is they want people stupid. Stupid people are much easier to control.
@toosoon You must be ill-informed, quite biased and in favour of Québec bashing. The government has English translations available for its minority in “La belle province”. Educate yourself. The information is out there.
http://www.education.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/site_web/documents/publications/DepStatAlpha_eng.pdf
My mom: "because you're always on that damn phone!"
I have coworkers that were in the last few years of high school when covid broke out. They spent all day playing video games or watching Netflix and when it came time to graduate, well.... there wasn't a ceremony or anything. They just got their diploma in the mail.
Not saying covid is the absolute reasoning for it, but it did play a huge part in our youth having a hard time reading and writing
It's not just that. It's not understanding words either. One example that Annoys me to no end is when I tell someone to flip a card over and they rotate it. This is in a upper middle class neighborhood. ( Just to be clear on the definition a card being rotated turns around the y-axis. Fliping a card rotates it around it's z-axis) while the issue is clearly there it's a bit more complicated than bad schools clearly.