To Read or Not To Read
In 1990, America's governors reached a historic consensus on a set of national educational goals as targets for the year 2000. Among these national goals was that " ... every adult American shall be literate." While this goal was widely applauded by those in the literacy community, much more national attention (and nearly 15 times the budgetary resources) has been devoted to the other goals that focus almost exclusively on improving the formal K-12 school system. Now, with the new Adult Education Act, welfare-reform legislation pending in Congress, and renewed debate over the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the troubling (and enduring) question of low-literate Americans is back in the news.
The relative lack of attention to adult-literacy needs is even more shocking when we consider that the estimated population of adults in need of retraining, up-skilling, or developing even the most basic literacy skills is estimated to be about the same as that of the entire national school-age population, about 40 million to 50 million people. This striking contrast between resources allocated and population needs is one of the best-kept secrets in American education today.
In the 1960s, the United States was widely considered to be one of the most literate countries in the world, with a United Nations-listed "literacy rate" of nearly 99 percent--this in contrast to many developing countries with rates of 50 percent or lower. Yet in 1993, the first report from the federally funded National Adult Literacy Survey, the most comprehensive study of its kind, painted a different picture. The so-called good news was that nearly 95 percent of adult Americans could read at a 4th-grade level or better, showing that illiteracy in its most basic form was relatively low. The bad news was that nearly half of all adult Americans scored in the lowest two levels of literacy, levels that the National Education Goals Panel has stated are well below what American workers need to be competitive...
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