“Literacy” was always the most basic tool of totalitarian propaganda. If you are not literate you can’t be fed communist propaganda. The most steadfast anti-communist I knew in my childhood was my maternal grandfather who was illiterate. Communist propaganda did not reach him
I used to work for a municipal literacy program and the number we had on file was an 87% for "functional literacy" as in an ability to do basic tasks and write one's own name, not necessarily the ability to read a full paragraph and understand the information. I've seen wildly varying rates from other studies. America is pretty touchy about simply announcing a standardized, formal literacy rate, I've noticed.
I remember checking this out recently, it's a fun one (although I don't remember if America actually was significantly worse than other developed countries):
4% of Americans are nonliterate. Most can identify 1 piece of information on a familiar paper.
14% are below-basic. They can identify which candidate earned the fewest votes from a simple table identifying three candidates and the number of votes they received.
34% have basic literacy levels. (7/8th grade reading level.) Most can count the number of countries in which the generic drug market accounts for 10% or more of drug sales from two paragraphs and a chart of generic drug use in 15 countries.
36% have intermediate literacy levels, most can identify the link leading to the organization’s phone number from a website with several links, including “contact us” and “FAQ.”
12% are proficiently literate and can click to the second page of search results from a library website to identify the author of a book called Ecomyth.
2% can review search results from a library website to identify a book suggesting that the claims made both for and against genetically modified foods are unreliable.
the majority of americans aren't literate according to the department of education
if they were literate, this wouldn't work nearly as well
“Literacy” was always the most basic tool of totalitarian propaganda. If you are not literate you can’t be fed communist propaganda. The most steadfast anti-communist I knew in my childhood was my maternal grandfather who was illiterate. Communist propaganda did not reach him
I used to work for a municipal literacy program and the number we had on file was an 87% for "functional literacy" as in an ability to do basic tasks and write one's own name, not necessarily the ability to read a full paragraph and understand the information. I've seen wildly varying rates from other studies. America is pretty touchy about simply announcing a standardized, formal literacy rate, I've noticed.
I remember checking this out recently, it's a fun one (although I don't remember if America actually was significantly worse than other developed countries):
4% of Americans are nonliterate. Most can identify 1 piece of information on a familiar paper.
14% are below-basic. They can identify which candidate earned the fewest votes from a simple table identifying three candidates and the number of votes they received.
34% have basic literacy levels. (7/8th grade reading level.) Most can count the number of countries in which the generic drug market accounts for 10% or more of drug sales from two paragraphs and a chart of generic drug use in 15 countries.
36% have intermediate literacy levels, most can identify the link leading to the organization’s phone number from a website with several links, including “contact us” and “FAQ.”
12% are proficiently literate and can click to the second page of search results from a library website to identify the author of a book called Ecomyth.
2% can review search results from a library website to identify a book suggesting that the claims made both for and against genetically modified foods are unreliable.
Where is this particular study from? It's got an interesting way of framing the data. I like it.
Also, having a 4% nonliterate rate automatically places America behind most developed nations and behind more than a few developing ones.