21% of US adults are illiterate. Not good.

[CA_WhaleTail]

Was listening to Ray Dalio state that 60% of Americans have a 6th grade or less literacy rate. Per below 54% are below 6th grade so that may be correct.
From https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025literacy-statistics

> On average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in 2024.
> 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
> 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
> Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year.
> 34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US.
> Massachusetts was the state with the highest rate of child literacy.
> New Mexico was the state with the lowest child literacy rate.
> New Hampshire was the state with the highest percentage of adults considered literate.
> The state with the lowest adult literacy rate was California.

Where does the US rank in literacy? The US ranks 36th in literacy.

Looked up CA (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy-rates-by-state)
> 1. California's 23.1% of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills make California have the lowest literacy rate of 76.9%.

2. New York
New York has the second-highest percentage of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills of 22.1%, equaling a literacy rate of 77.9%. Despite this, New York has the ninth-highest percentage of adults with Bachelor's degrees or higher of 35.7%.

3. Florida
Florida has the third-highest percentage of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills of 19.7%, equaling a literacy rate of 80.3%. Florida has the lowest number of public libraries per 100,000 residents of 2.6.

4. Texas
Texas has the fourth-lowest literacy rate of 81.0%, with 19.0% of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills. Texas has the fourth-lowest number of libraries of 3.2 per 100,000 residents.

[fanaudical]

Tragic - And unfortunately it explains a lot...

[LWJ]

My Son's favorite factoid about Americans? 7% of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Mrs. LWJ (who is a 100% skeptic) fact checked this, there is in fact a study that supports this. Amazing.

[wildthing]

I believe reading begins at home. I have no studies to back this up.

[Bill Douglas]

In NZ we have our fair share of morons too.

Sadly if the kids just STFU and listened when they were at school their lives would be much different - a success. The schools are the same, teachers are the same. They just need to change their attitude.

[fintstone]

My parents only graduated from high school. I could read well at 5 when I started first grade. So could my brother. We had a few books at home. Most other kids could read pretty well by first grade (age 6) as well. My brother and I read at 12th grade level when we took the test in the 8th grade. I ended up with a grad degree. my brother a law degree, my younger brother an engineering degree. My wife did not quite get her BS... mainly for financial reasons. She retired from a job that is normally filled with someone with a grad degree.

My kids could read well at 5 when they started school (kindergarten). My daughter is now a doctor and her husband has a BS (although neither seem to have as well rounded an education that I received by the 12th grade. Her brother did not go to college or have kids. My grandkids seem bright, and the oldest will start school next year but cannot read much at all yet. Her younger brother does not seem to be on a path to do better. She has a virtual library of books and well-educated, professional parents. I really do not understand.

Many kids (my grandkids included) are able to watch some sort of "educational TV" much of their waking time and have Ipadish type games where they can play or watch videos off the internet versus going outside and playing with other kids or reading. I often wonder if "educational" TV helps or hurts youngsters as they do not need to read to have adventures as I did...and if they are largely babysitters for kids who need something else/more.

[wdfifteen]

I tried to read whatever was in the links. The pop-up ads were so relentless that I gave up. I tend not to give much credence to sites that rely so heavily on ads.

[pwd72s]

I read a lot when I was young....for enjoyment. Still do. No TV at home until 6th grade or so...and a disappointment then. Dad on the roof trying to aim the antennae in order to get a fuzzy & snow filled B&W image out of Portland, 90+ miles away.

[fintstone]

Same here...and pretty much the same for my kids. Not for my grandkids (or much of anyone these days).

[wdfifteen]

I loved reading. Reading gave me the urge to write. I haven’t written anything on spec or contract for 20 years but still collect quarterly royalties. Literacy is a good thing.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by fanaudical

Tragic - And unfortunately it explains a lot...

I agree.

[oldE]

Literacy is a major part of success, as it is a tool for communication. There are a number of individuals (and we all seem to know one or two) who have succeeded despite their lack of diplomas or degrees. By the same token, there are those who seem to breeze through academia and are useless for most purposes.
I am somewhat concerned by our current education system which seems to spend almost as much time monitoring what students have absorbed as teaching those students how to acquire more knowledge and understanding.
Sorry, no answers here.

Best
Les

[cabmandone]

I see libraries mentioned. I don't see how that's really all that relevant in the digital age where any home with a tablet, phone or computer and the internet has a library at their fingertips. Also, statistics show that around 88% of all public schools (I was surprised it wasn't 100%) have a library. I don't believe the problem is lack of access. I believe it's the result of an education system that is failing kids and has been for a long time.

[id10t]

I would be willing to bet that another significant percentage may be able to read the individual words or even sentences on the page but not be able to actually understand them. And I'm not talking about meanings of weird or complex terms or industry specific terms or abbreviations....

[onewhippedpuppy]

I think our education levels generally rank in the 30-ish range across the board, even though we spend more per pupil than most developed nations. I still have an 8th grader and senior in high school, from what I can see it’s a total joke. My 8th grader has a new Spanish teacher this year, white dude that self taught Spanish as an ICE agent until last year. My brother in law is an ICE agent and said this guy’s Spanish is terrible. Shocker that my senior daughter (who is in AP Spanish) is having to tutor my son. Also shame on the school for promoting their former Spanish teacher to administration even though they didn’t have a replacement. It generally feels like the qualifications to be a teacher are so low that they will hire anybody, that’s just one example of many.

[masraum]

Looks to me like the states with what I suspect are huges amounts of immigrants have some of the lowest literacy. Makes me wonder if they are giving immigrants that don't speak English and were educated outside of the US the test and going "yep, these immigrants are illiterate" and those results are skewing the results.

Yes, I'm sure that there are folks that are American born and raised that dropped out of school, or didn't care and weren't pushed to learn by parents or whoever.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by cabmandone

I see libraries mentioned. I don't see how that's really all that relevant in the digital age where any home with a tablet, phone or computer and the internet has a library at their fingertips. Also, statistics show that around 88% of all public schools (I was surprised it wasn't 100%) have a library. I don't believe the problem is lack of access. I believe it's the result of an education system that is failing kids and has been for a long time.

Many, many libraries are being closed in schools. The libraries are expensive, require space, technology, and workers (payroll). Presumably, they track utilization which I suspect has dropped precipitously in recent years.

I think there are schools that use and/or require pads and even use digital textbooks instead of physical textbooks.

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/one-of-the-countrys-largest-districts-is-turning-school-libraries-into-discipline/2023/08

< not the full article, only specific excerpts >

School librarians and media specialists at 28 of Houston Independent School District’s 274 campuses will not be returning to their former jobs this coming school year.

Houston Superintendent Mike Miles, who was appointed in June by the Texas Education Agency as part of a state takeover of the district, authorized the repurposing of former school libraries into “team centers,” where students who misbehave will be sent to watch lessons virtually. That means 28 schools, most of them serving student populations that are either majority-Black, majority-Hispanic/Latino or economically disadvantaged, will not have school libraries in the coming school year.

This decision stands in direct contrast to efforts by the previous superintendent, Millard House II, who actively pushed to get school librarians into every school and, according to longtime district teacher Sarah Rivlin, was well on his way to attaining the goal before the state takeover of the district this spring.

The affected libraries are all in feeder patterns of three historically poor-performing high schools. The district website describes these New Education System Schools as “priority schools ... that will be provided resources and support to dramatically improve outcomes for their students.”

Houston, the largest district in Texas with an estimated 194,000 students, recently recorded its worst reading scores on national assessment tests in nearly two decades.

Nationwide, nearly 20 percent of full-time school librarian positions were eliminated between 2010 and 2019, according to research conducted by SLIDE (short for the School Librarian Investigation—Decline or Evolution?) and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Between 1999 and 2011, per pupil spending on library materials dropped by nearly half, from $36.33 per student to $8.50 per student, according to federal figures adjusted for inflation. During that same period, though, total per pupil spending rose almost 15 percent to $11,149 a year from $9,729. Here’s a look at what’s behind some of the recent closures, what they mean for students, and who is affected most.

< snipped text >

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner condemned the plan in a press conference. “You cannot have a system where you’re closing libraries for some schools in certain neighborhoods, while more-affluent neighborhood schools have libraries that are open and stocked with books and other resources,” he said.

< snipped text >

Other districts have seen a downward trend in the number of school librarians employed. In 1991, Philadelphia public schools, with 259 schools, had 176 librarians. The district stopped funding school librarian positions in the late 1990’s, shuttering its Office of School Libraries in the mid-2000s, according to The Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Librarians, or PARSL, an advocacy group.

By the 2012-2013 school year, the number of full-time equivalent school librarians in the district had fallen to 57.6; by 2021-2022, that number had dwindled to the equivalent of one full-time school librarian, consisting of six part-time librarians with other teaching responsibilities.

The decline in the Philadelphia district’s pool of school librarians coincided with lower reading scores for students, according to the District Scorecard. In the 2012-2013 school year, 42 percent of the district’s 3rd through 8th graders were reading at or above proficiency levels, compared to 34 percent in 2021-2022.

Data also suggest that districts serving a high percentage of minority and economically disadvantaged students are most likely to have too few school librarians. A nationwide analysis of school librarians from four consecutive school years (from 2015-2016 to 2018-2019) found that high-poverty districts were more likely to be without a consistent librarian presence than districts with low rates of impoverished students.

< snipped text >

[URY914]

So let's abolish the Department of Education. Keep the voters stupid.

Educated folks tend to be employed and associate with other educated folks. Many here work in the tech field or other fields with college educated employees where you're not exposed to the illiterate but I'm telling you they are out there. I have a guy that lives on my street that is so out of touch that it's hard to talk to him.

Edit: As an example, the guy is 74 years old and was still working part-time as a stock man at a store loading shelves. He said he got laid off and said he didn't know what he was going to do for income. I said how much do you get from social security? he said nothing. What? He's never applied for it. He said he was told he wasn't eligible because he "didn't pay in to it". I told him no you can and I'd help him apply. I got with the friend across the street that is retired and he took him down to the SS office and got him signed up. He's not getting a monthly check and has an income.

[911 Rod]

How many of the 21% are in rural US?

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by URY914

So let's abolish the Department of Education. Keep the voters stupid.

Educated folks tend to be employed and associate with other educated folks. Many here work in the tech field or other fields with college educated employees where you're not exposed to the illiterate but I'm telling you they are out there. I have a guy that lives on my street that is so out of touch that it's hard to talk to him.

Since the federal Dept. of Education was formed, the education of American children has steadily declined.

As a kid I loved to read. Back in the 80s I did not even have a TV, as I just read all the time. I had to go to my parent's house to watch the Space Shuttle's first launch.