I came across some interesting data on literacy here in the USA that I want to share.
According to a recent survey by the Department of Education of the literacy rates in the USA show some interesting facts. First off, there are 32 million people in the USA who are illiterate. That amounts to approximately 14% of the population. How many jobs are there that do not require you to be able to read? I don't think there are too many. It is a wonder that we have such a low unemployment percentage with so many people who can't read.
Now, look at adults. The data shows that 21% of adults read below the 5th grade level. That is almost unbelievable. I have a grand son who was able to teach himself to read all by himself before he started to kindergarten. I don't know how he did it, but it was not by his parents or any school. In prior blogs I pointed out how our future will be more technical and require us to be better educated in math and science. If many can't read, I don't see how we can expect to compete in the technical future.
I have also blogged on the decline of our public education system and this same data shows that 15% of our high school graduates are illiterate. If that is the case, what is going on in our public schools? If we expect to raise our literacy rate, it has to start in our schools and it appears that our schools have let us down. I have to ask, "If the needed improvement does not start in our schools, where does it come from?"
We know that news papers have declined in favor of getting our news from TV where a person does not have to be able to read. How about books and magazines? My wife reads about a book a week, but most people have not read a book since they graduated from high school. How about writing letters? It is almost a dead art. Many of our recent high school graduates can't even write with a pencil or have hand writing that is unreadable. Are you starting to see how bad the problem is? Remember that these kids will be running things once we are all gone!
According to a recent survey by the Department of Education of the literacy rates in the USA show some interesting facts. First off, there are 32 million people in the USA who are illiterate. That amounts to approximately 14% of the population. How many jobs are there that do not require you to be able to read? I don't think there are too many. It is a wonder that we have such a low unemployment percentage with so many people who can't read.
Now, look at adults. The data shows that 21% of adults read below the 5th grade level. That is almost unbelievable. I have a grand son who was able to teach himself to read all by himself before he started to kindergarten. I don't know how he did it, but it was not by his parents or any school. In prior blogs I pointed out how our future will be more technical and require us to be better educated in math and science. If many can't read, I don't see how we can expect to compete in the technical future.
I have also blogged on the decline of our public education system and this same data shows that 15% of our high school graduates are illiterate. If that is the case, what is going on in our public schools? If we expect to raise our literacy rate, it has to start in our schools and it appears that our schools have let us down. I have to ask, "If the needed improvement does not start in our schools, where does it come from?"
We know that news papers have declined in favor of getting our news from TV where a person does not have to be able to read. How about books and magazines? My wife reads about a book a week, but most people have not read a book since they graduated from high school. How about writing letters? It is almost a dead art. Many of our recent high school graduates can't even write with a pencil or have hand writing that is unreadable. Are you starting to see how bad the problem is? Remember that these kids will be running things once we are all gone!
