[AAACE-NLA] FW: Announcement: NAAL Report: Literacy in Everyday Life

[David Collings]

The following message is an important announcement from Jaleh
(jsoroui at air.org).

David C.

====================================
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) just released Literacy
in Everyday Life, the most recent publication of the 2003 National
Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL).  This report provides extensive
information on the literacy of American adults age 16 and older and changes
in their performance since 1992.  Furthermore, it examines the relationship
between literacy and several demographic variables including education,
occupation, and income.

Findings include the following:

* Women have closed the gap with men in Quantitative literacy. They are
doing better than men in Document and Prose literacy. 
* Younger and older adults have lower literacy than adults in other age
groups.  
* Median weekly earnings increased with each level of literacy. 
* At each higher level of Prose literacy, more adults were employed full
time.  
* Approximately 51 percent of adults with Below Basic Document literacy and
43 percent with Below Basic Quantitative literacy believed their job
opportunities were limited a lot by their lack of computer skills. 
* The percentage of parents who never helped their school-age child with
homework declined at each higher Prose literacy level. 
* Approximately half of US citizens of voting age with Below Basic Prose and
Document literacy reported voting in the presidential election of 2000
compared with 84 percent of citizens with Proficient Prose and Document
literacy. 

Full results are available at http://nces.ed.gov/naal

To download, view and print the publication as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007480
 

Jaleh Behroozi Soroui
Education Statistics Services Institute 
American Institutes for Research 
1990 K Street, NW Suite 500 
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202/403-6958
email: jsoroui at air.org