Stephan: Twenty-three percent of Americans are basically functionally illiterate, and struggle to read and write. This group, of course, if they are White, overwhelmingly votes for Republicans, so this illiteracy has a strong political correlation with powerful effects on the health of our democracy. As with so many issues of social wellbeing, the United States is the outlier, in a negative way, compared with the rest of the developed world's democracies. Now add to that the reality that the Republican Party is doing everything it can to turn public schools into indoctrination, not educational institutions. And, of course, this is happening mostly in Red states, although California has some serious literacy problems, and that impacts the Great Schism Trend that is tearing the United States apart. We are a very sick and dysfunctional country.
Student makes reading progress during a one-on-one tutoring session through Literacy Mid-South. Applicants often face a monthslong waitlist.
In Amite County, Mississippi, where a third of adults struggle to read, evidence of America’s silent literacy crisis is everywhere.
It’s in a storefront on Main Street, in the fading mill town of Gloster, where 80-year-old Lillie Jackson helps people read their mail. “They can’t comprehend their bills,” she said. “So many of them are ashamed that they haven’t finished grade school.” She longs for the day she can retire, but she doesn’t want to abandon her neighbors. “That’s the only reason I really stay open,” she said.
It’s in the Greentree Lumber mill, where dozens of residents cut Southern yellow pine into boards, but supervisors — who must be able to page through machine guides and safety manuals — are recruited from other counties. “We’re going to have demand for jobs with no people to supply them,” mill accountant Pam Whittington said.
And it’s in the local high school, in a district where a fifth of students drop out, one of […]
sam crespi
on Friday, December 16, 2022 at 9:25 am
If I’m reading the news, data, etc correctly, a large number of Americans no longer value education. Either they don’t care about schools, are concerned over safety, ie from guns, or believe they can self educate on the Internet, which includes ‘tailoring’ what they learn to their personal values.
If I’m reading the news, data, etc correctly, a large number of Americans no longer value education. Either they don’t care about schools, are concerned over safety, ie from guns, or believe they can self educate on the Internet, which includes ‘tailoring’ what they learn to their personal values.