21% of US adults are illiterate. Not good.

[dlockhart]

My old school, still doing great.

[Dixie]

Originally Posted by 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.

You're correct. The presented statistics are being purposely misrepresented for effect. That 79% of people in the survey were literate enough to fluently derive information from texts, compare and contrast information, and otherwise exhibit higher level literacy skills. The remaining 21% were a mix of people with basic literacy (they could read words but weren’t great at working with the information), completely illiterate, or were approached but unable to participate (they spoke Spanish). If you count the people with basic literacy skills, and exclude those unable to participate, the rate is in the 90s.

Its also important to not assume illiterate and uneducated are synonymous. Someone can be highly educated in Spanish, and illiterate in English.

https://www.wbir.com/article/news/verify/education-verify/recent-claims-about-american-literacy-statistics-are-misleading/536-c5dc5cea-93a8-488c-9648-3f6d4709a7e4

[wdfifteen]

A cautionary tale about Literacy:
A guy, Joe, was down on his luck. He hadn't eaten in over a day. He was wandering dejectedly, and when he passed the Baptist church he saw the pastor outside and ask if there was any work he could do for some food. The pastor said, "We are hiring a new janitor if you want job."
Joe said great and took an application.
The problem was Joe couldn't read. When he told this to the pastor the pastor said, "I'm sorry, but with all the cleaning chemicals and so on we use, you would have to be able to read the safety precautions. I can't hire you, but we just finished a food drive and we have a bag of apples left. You can have them to eat if you want."
Joe took the apples, but what he really wanted was a cup of coffee and a cheeseburger.
He ate an apple, and stood on the corner selling the rest of them for 50 cents a piece. When they were gone he got his cup of coffee and a cheeseburger and had money left over.
The next day he used the money to buy another bag of apples, sold them for enough money to buy two bags the next day.
Pretty soon, Joe had enough money to buy a cart and started selling all kinds of fruit. He had so much money he opened a bank account.
Eventually Joe bought a truck and started wholesaling fruit to local stores.
He took his profits to the bank every Friday. The bank manager noticed him coming in every Friday and befriended this amazingly entrepreneurial man.
Years went by. Joe's business grew to the point where he had bought out the fruit wholesaler and became a millionaire.
When it was time to retire and he took his last deposit to the bank, the bank manager waved him into his office.
"Joe, you have made yourself a millionaire starting with nothing but a bag of apples. And you cannot read nor write. That is an amazing accomplishment."
"Why, thank you sir," Joe replied.
"But Joe, do you have any idea where you would be today if you could read and write?"
"Yes," said Joe. "I'd be the janitor down at the Baptist church."

[URY914]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

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

The DOE hands out federal funding. The locals systems educate or fail to educate.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

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

Not since. The poor state of the education of American children is the reason the department of education was formed. It's also the reason the Head Start program was initiated 60 years ago.

[David]

Probably because we overspend on education, at least I think that's what Texas politicians think.

Teachers are by far the biggest influence on student success: Do away with teacher tenure, promote good teachers, pay good teachers more, and fire bad teachers.


Quit comparing our schools to other US schools because that's not our competition. We need to compare our education system to China's.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by David

Probably because we overspend on education, at least I think that's what Texas politicians think.

Hard to say we "overspend." What is a good education worth?

Originally Posted by David

Teachers are by far the biggest influence on student success: Do away with teacher tenure, promote good teachers, pay good teachers more, and fire bad teachers.

Parents are by far the biggest influence on student success. Without parental buy-in, we can't have good educations for our children.

Originally Posted by David

Quit comparing our schools to other US schools because that's not our competition. We need to compare our education system to China's.

Agreed.

[Sooner or later]

Parents
Home life

[Dantilla]

Originally Posted by David

Probably because we overspend on education,...

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Hard to say we "overspend." What is a good education worth?

What is good education "worth"? Immeasurable.
What does good education cost? Different question.

Catholic schools spend less per student, but have higher success rates.
I suppose when parents are willing to invest education dollars on top of their property taxes paying for public schools, they will be engaged, and take part in their child's education.
Catholic schools also have the advantage of being able to kick out troublemakers.

Public school systems typically have a much higher percentage going to administrative costs.
Cost per student goes up, success rates do not change.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by David

Probably because we overspend on education, at least I think that's what Texas politicians think.

Teachers are by far the biggest influence on student success: Do away with teacher tenure, promote good teachers, pay good teachers more, and fire bad teachers.


Quit comparing our schools to other US schools because that's not our competition. We need to compare our education system to China's.

I disagree. The teacher is part of what determines the success of the student. If the parent or parents aren't an active participant in the education of their children, the children won't succeed.

[creaturecat]

trajectory not pretty.
..... seemingly by design - given present day "activities".
OTOH - highest literacy rate regarding active shooters - in a school.
winning?

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by David

Teachers are by far the biggest influence on student success

Thank you Mr Dee for the role model you set. And for taking the time to personally talk with each of us kids and to work out how to manage us.

[David]

My overspending comment was of course sarcasm.

As far as which is more important, parents or teachers: I forget which one of the books I just finished, Factfulness by Hans Rosling or Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman, covers this but they review studies on education and found that teachers are the overwhelming key to better education. Sure bad parents are a big problem but I think that affects kids as they get older. If kids have good teachers from the beginning, even a bad parent can't derail them as bad as a bad teacher from the beginning can.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Hard to say we "overspend." What is a good education worth?



Parents are by far the biggest influence on student success. Without parental buy-in, we can't have good educations for our children.



Agreed.

I certainly agree what what you said about parental/guardian influence. If there's no focus on education at home, or no consequences (that a student cares about) for blowing education off, then the student's only motivation to study and learn is whatever is internal to that student.

You've got a point about education spending. We should be prepared to spend on education, but at the same time, I believe that there can be overspend (if the spending isn't smart and effective, assuming there's no bloat, fraud, etc...).

Parents need to push students to learn and do well, and the parents need to be respected by the children. I'm sure that you have parents that tell kids "you need to learn" and the kids just don't care what the parents say. What I assume is more likely is that the parents don't care if the kids learn because the parents never learned.

There are cultures where there's a strong focus on education, and whether that focus is cultures that come to mind (China and Japan immediately come to mind) or just that some parents believe that education is important and something that their kids need to do to better themselves. So "culture" the way that I'm using it could be due to ethnicity, familial group, etc...

There are cultures (whether it's based on one family or a neighborhood or whatever) where the assumption is that it doesn't matter what you do, you and your life is going to suck whether you learn or not. (maybe that's not the underlying cause, but it seems to me that must in some cases or at some level be what's going on). In those cases, if the kids get crap grades or don't even go to school, whatever, it doesn't matter.

There are people that will overcome the odds and strive or even excel on their own, but I think they are the minority. Most of the time, lack of support and peer pressure win out. So when the authority pressure and peer pressure is positive, the end is probably at least average. If it's negative then the result is probably negative.

And remember, not everyone has the ability to mentally excel to the same level. There will always be folks that struggle even if they want to learn. Some folks just don't have the capability.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by David

As far as which is more important, parents or teachers: I forget which one of the books I just finished, Factfulness by Hans Rosling or Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman, covers this but they review studies on education and found that teachers are the overwhelming key to better education. Sure bad parents are a big problem but I think that affects kids as they get older. If kids have good teachers from the beginning, even a bad parent can't derail them as bad as a bad teacher from the beginning can.

Interesting, and that makes sense, as you say, in the beginning. I would think most of the literacy issues come later on after the basics have been learned and before the more in depth learning begins, but maybe I'm wrong.

It may be that some of the discussion of 5th grade and 6th grade reading levels triggered my brain to mostly consider this an issue at those grades and higher.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

What are the little tiny marks and swooshes and round things and zigzags all over the screen? There's a ton of them. What are they?

[varmint]

abandoned public library in Detroit.

[jyl]

The purported factoid is b*ll-s**t.

Plenty of people are dumb as mud, and plenty don't read or write complex, long-form, formal English text. But they are functionally unable to read or write well enough to do all kinds of jobs and get by fine. Some of them are highly literate in another language, but so far only functionally literate in English. Some of them are simply old (I guarantee my 86 y.o dad would fail the test shown below). Some of them just DGAF about tests.

Showing "6th grade" reading ability means reading a couple pages of fairly long, rather complex, not particularly well-written or clear text on an unfamiliar topic, then correctly answering some questions about it designed to see if you picked up on and remember fairly small details. Oh, lots of people also don't test well and/or aren't going to/allowed to go back and re-read the text to find the detail point.

Here is a 6th grade reading sample:

"Have you ever been watching when a tv weatherperson points to a large, white spiral of storm clouds spinning over the Earth on their video screen? If so, then you’ve gotten a small look at what the most powerful storm in the world looks like: a tropical cyclone.

Tropical cyclones start as tropical storms that form in warm ocean waters near the Earth’s equator. The Earth’s equator is an invisible line that wraps around the center of the Earth. It divides the Earth into two halves: the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The warm air and water at the equator rise into the atmosphere, cool off, and then sink back down. As this cycle repeats itself over and over again, the storm begins to grow and the winds around the storm begin to move faster. Once wind speeds reach 74 miles per hour, the tropical storm becomes a tropical cyclone.

Depending on where a tropical cyclone is in the world, it is called either a hurricane, a typhoon, or a cyclone. If a tropical cyclone moves over the northwestern Pacific Ocean, it is called a typhoon; if that storm was to move over the northeastern Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean, it is called a hurricane; and if that storm moves over the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean, it is called a cyclone.

The center of a tropical cyclone is called the “eye.” The rest of the storm moves in a circle around the eye at incredibly high speeds. Most of the strong winds do not reach the eye of the storm, so the eye is the calmest part of the storm.

Tropical cyclones are put into categories based on their strength. A storm that is rated as a Category 1 is the weakest; it is still dangerous, but the winds are not as high. A Category 5 tropical cyclone is the strongest; this type of storm can cause heavy damage to buildings and can cause heavy flooding.

The strongest tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere ever recorded was a Category 5 hurricane named Hurricane Patricia in 1979. This hurricane had winds that reached 215 miles per hour. It produced flooding rain in Mexico, Central America, and Texas. The strongest tropical cyclone was Typhoon Tip, also in 1979. Its winds reached 260 miles per hour, and caused damage in the Philippines, Japan, and other areas of the Pacific.

While tropical cyclone winds can be incredibly strong and destructive, the winds are not the only reason that these storms are the strongest on the planet. They can also cause heavy rains, a rise in sea levels, heavy flooding, and tornadoes. All of these factors can be life-threatening to those in the path of the storm.

Once these storms come onto land, they no longer have the warm ocean water they need to grow larger. This means that they begin to grow weaker once they no longer spin over the water. This, however, doesn’t stop them from causing a lot of damage before they go away. They still may produce strong rain and tornadoes.

If you live in an area that experiences tropical cyclones or if you ever encounter a tropical cyclone, it’s extremely important to know how to prepare and how to keep yourself safe. First, if you live in an area that has a hurricane warning, pay attention to evacuation notices. If your governor or local authorities ask you to evacuate, you and your family should seek shelter with a loved one or at a designated storm shelter. If there’s no evacuation notice before a tropical cyclone, you and your family should make a plan to stay safe while the storm is in your area.

Tropical cyclones are an amazing natural phenomenon. It’s important to respect how powerful and destructive they are."

And here are comprehension questions.

"1. On what part of the planet is a tropical cyclone called a hurricane?

2. Where does a typhoon occur?

3. Which tropical cyclone is the strongest: a Category 1 or a Category 5?

4. What is the eye of a tropical cyclone?"


Or print it here https://www.readingvine.com/hurricanes-typhoons-and-cyclones-a-world-of-difference-passage/

Honestly, participating in discussions here, I see enough poor reading comprehension and retention, people mis-reading and missing things, that I think the literacy exhibited here occasionally fall well below sixth-grade level.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

What are the little tiny marks and swooshes and round things and zigzags all over the screen? There's a ton of them. What are they?

A sign you might want to cut back on the wine just a bit.

[jyl]

Reading over that sample, it occurs to me that how you read is also a factor.

Personally, I speed read everything. My eye skims from noun or verb to the next noun or verb, typically ignoring adverbs, adjectives, connectors, flowery or atmospheric or introspective passages, anything boring or overly detailed, etc. Anything that isn't immediately interesting to me or clearly important to me, I ignore.

Yes, I can force myself to read word-by-word but normally you'd have to pay me to bother.

I read the sample text in my usual casual way - skimming it - and found myself answering the questions with only what I already know about weather, because the text was so boring that my mind glazed over.

When we are kids in school, we are forced to read things carefully because we know we'll get tested on it. As adults, I think many of us don't do that, unless we have to for our work/personal needs.