[NLA] Third World Illiteracy in the United States

[freemannola]

Thanks, Tom, for putting  our literacy challenges into a world context.
Margery Freeman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Sticht" <tsticht at znet.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 2:02 PM
Subject: [NLA] Third World Illiteracy in the United States


> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
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