[AAACE-NLA] New Literacy Statistics for U.S.

[Benseman John]

Great to know that such great progress has been made in your part of the world - especially in the numeracy. We can only look on with envy
 
John

________________________________

From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org on behalf of tsticht at znet.com
Sent: Tue 19/09/2006 8:14 a.m.
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] New Literacy Statistics for U.S.



Aaace-nla Colleagues: Many of you may remember those old U.S.literacy
statistics from 2003 in the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL).
In those days there were only about 60 percent of adults with adequate
literacy skills. Now the new report for the White House Conference on
Global Literacy (www.globalliteracy.gov) presents a footnote after the
discussion of the U.S. program that gets pediatricians to give books to
children and advise their parents to read to their children (assuming their
parents can read). The foot note states that in the U.S. the literacy rate
for women is 98 percent and for men 97 percent with a combined rate of 95
percent (a numeracy problem?). With this drastic increase in the literacy
rate it is now clear why the Bush administration asked for a two-thirds cut
in the funding for adult literacy education for FY 2006. Why spend it on
adult literacy to make adults smart, when $375 million will buy about 375
smart bombs? These bombs could then be used to help eradicate illiterates
in other nations and raise literacy rates there, too. As our British
friends would say, Brilliant!
Tom Sticht

(Note: My name is Tom Sticht and I approve this message.)
_______________________________________________
AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
http://literacytent.org


The Faculty invites you  to its 125th Jubilee of Teacher Education,  23 September 2006 
For further information: http://alumniandfriends.education.auckland.ac.nz 
Phone Maureen Tizard on [09]6238899 extn48689 
######################################################################
Attention: 
This e-mail message is privileged and confidential. If you are not the 
intended recipient please delete the message and notify the sender. 
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author.

This e-mail has been scanned and cleared by MailMarshal 
www.marshalsoftware.com
######################################################################