[NLA] Third World Illiteracy in the United States

[Thomas Sticht]

Research Note January 21, 2003

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

The Shameful State of Third World Illiteracy in the United States:
An Inauspicious Start for the United Nations Literacy Decade

On a sunny, bright day in San Antonio, the light reflecting off the
austere whiteness of the stucco-covered, Spanish style church caused my
eyes to squint. Following a path to the rear of the church, our party came
to a small, rectangular out-building. Here, the stucco that was once white
all over was dirty and broken in several places, with pieces missing,
revealing the chicken wire and tar paper beneath. When I entered the
building, my eyes needed time to adapt to the cool darkness. I was greeted
by a Sister and lead into a small, windowless room with a cracked cement
floor and a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was an old,
weathered chalkboard hanging from the ceiling against one wall. A dozen or
so chairs and a couple of small square tables finished off the furnishings
of the classroom. I was introduced to the dozen or so adult students, all
of whom, I was told, were from Mexico, and illiterate in both their native
language and English.

I watched quietly as the lessons in English were conducted, and I couldn’t
help but think about the many times I had seen these types of barren
facilities for adult literacy students – but these were in videos and
photographs of classrooms in villages in Tanzania, or the jungles of
Indonesia, in the mountains of Peru, the deserts of Sudan, and numerous
other Third World, or what today are called developing nations, and were
part of the materials submitted as candidatures for UNESCO Literacy
Prizes. But here in the United States was a classroom for illiterate
adults that matched in its impoverishment the worst classrooms I have
viewed in over 24 years of studying applications for UNESCO Literacy
prizes. This was shameful, Third World illiteracy right here at home in
the United States.

Illiteracy in the United States at the Launch
of the United Nation’s Literacy Decade

Where does the United States stand today in the illiteracy of its adults?
In terms of percentages, Andrew Kolstad of the National Center for
Education Statistics was quoted in the Washington Post of July 17, 2001,
as saying that about 5 percent of adults in the National Adult Literacy
Survey of 1992 were totally illiterate. This means that some 95 percent of
adults in the United States are not illiterate. But when the focus is upon
the absolute numbers of adults who are illiterate, a different perspective
is obtained.

For instance, according to UNESCO, the United States is much like many
Third World countries in terms of the absolute numbers of adult
illiterates living in the nation. For comparison, here are some developing
nations, the estimated numbers of illiterate adults they include, and the
percentage of the adult population that is illiterate (data for 1995):

Iraq: 4,848,000 (42%)
Mexico: 6,246,000 (10%)
Afghanistan: 8,169,000 (69%)
Sudan: 8,507,000 (54%)
United States: 10,000,000 (5%)

As these data show, while the United States has the lowest rates of adult
illiterates among these nations, there are more than twice as many
illiterate adults in the United States as in Iraq.  There are 37% more
adult illiterates in the United States than in Mexico, our neighbor to the
south, and there are more illiterate adults in the United States than in
either war torn Afghanistan or famine/war torn Sudan.

In fact, out of 105 Third World, developing nations for which UNESCO
provided statistics in 1995, only 9 have a greater absolute number of
illiterate adults than the United States.

So while our rate of adult literacy places us among the developed nations
of the world, our absolute numbers of adult illiterates places us squarely
within the context of the least developed nations of the world. This
shameful state of affairs is reflected in the disgraceful approach that is
being taken to provide federal funds for adult literacy education. In each
of the last two years the Bush administration has sought no more funds for
the state grants in adult education than were available in the preceding
year. Today, this amounts to less than $200 federal dollars per enrollee
in the Adult Education and Literacy System of the United States. Even with
state funds added, adult education funding comes to less than $600 per
student.

Decades of UNESCO experience have repeatedly shown that one of the best
ways to improve adult literacy levels is to improve the literacy of
children  - and here is the main point -  one of the best ways to improve
the literacy of children is to improve the literacy of the children’s
parents. To leave no children behind we must move all adults forward.
Clearly then, if the United States is to move out of its Third World
status in numbers of adult illiterates during the coming United Nations
Literacy Decade, it needs to move beyond Third World funding for its Adult
Education and Literacy System.