TECHNOS

September 10, 2010

TECHNOS QUARTERLY Winter 1993 Vol. 2 No. 4

What's the Problem?

Sidebar for Mississippi's LEAP Toward Literacy

According to the National Center for Education Statistics' report, Adult Literacy in America: A First Look at the Results of the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), almost half of U.S. adults—nearly 100 million people over the age of 16—demonstrate low levels of literacy skills. The NALS measures levels of literacy skills based on participants' performance on a wide variety of tasks, including “prose, document, and quantitative proficiency.” Demographic and educational information is surveyed, as well as reading practices and other areas related to literacy.

Those who are classified in the two lowest levels of literacy in the report don't perceive themselves to be at any risk from their lack of skills. But according to the results of the survey, which was administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the U.S. Department of Education to 26,000 adults, there is a direct correlation between literacy skills and economic status.

Individuals demonstrating higher levels of literacy were more likely to be employed, work more weeks in a year, and earn higher wages than those demonstrating lower proficiencies.
Adults in the lowest level on each of the literacy scales were far more likely than those in the two highest levels to report receiving food stamps.
Nearly half of all adults in the lowest level on each literacy scale were living in poverty, while fewer than 10 percent of those in the two highest proficiency levels lived in poverty.

“This report is a wake-up call to the sheer magnitude of illiteracy in this country and underscores literacy's strong connection to economic status,” said Education Secretary Richard W. Riley. “It paints a picture of a society in which the vast majority of Americans do not know that they do not have the skills they need to earn a living in our increasingly technological society and international marketplace.”

The report also points out the risk that U.S. society may become more divided racially and socioeconomically. Already black families are three times more likely to live in poverty than are white families. One in five children is born into poverty; one in two children, in minority populations. Education levels (and increased literacy and life skills) for the poorest U.S. citizens are lower; therefore, their employment potential suffers. And the cost to American society in terms of public assistance grows.

According to the National Center on Education and the Economy's 1990 report, America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!, males ages 24 to 34 years who are college educated have increased their earnings by 10 percent over the last 15 years, while those with only high school diplomas have seen theirs decrease by 9 percent. Furthermore, the earnings gaps between professionals and clericals and white-collar workers and skilled tradespeople are growing.

Clearly, education continues to be the crucial catalyst in determining success in U.S. society, when measured by employability and economic status. Mere subsistence literacy no longer will do, as technological advances continue to propel this country from an industrial to an information economy. In addition, the sense of citizenship in American society suffers, as the NALS report points out, because those in the lower levels of the literacy scales also are less likely to vote.

What's the problem? The Executive Summary of the NALS report concludes: “If large percentages of adults had to do little more than be able to sign their name on a form or locate a single fact in a newspaper or table, then the levels of literacy seen in this survey might not warrant concern. We live in a nation, however, where both the volume and variety of written information are growing and where increasing numbers of citizens are expected to be able to read, understand, and use these materials.”

For more information
Adult Literacy in America: A First Look at the Results of the National Adult Literacy Survey (September 1993)

www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/index.html

Further reading: Adult Literacy and New Technologies: Tools for a Lifetime (July 1993), Office of Technology Assessment Archives, www.access.gpo.gov/ota.

Return to Mississippi's LEAP Toward Literacy TECHNOS Quarterly article.