Illiterate America

Chapter One: A Third of the Nation Cannot Read These Words

 

You have to be careful to not get into situations where it would leak out…if somebody gives you something to read, you make believe you can read it…*

 

He is meticulous and well-defended.

 

He gets up in the morning, showers, shaves, and dresses in a dark gray business suit, then goes downstairs and buys a New York Times from the small newsstand on the corner of his street. Folding it neatly, he goes into the subway and arrives to work at 9 A.M.

 

He places the folded New York Times next to the briefcase on his desk and sets to work on graphic illustrations for the advertising copy that is handed to him by the editor who is his boss.

 

“Run this over with me. Just made sure I get the gist of what you really want.”

 

The editor, unsuspecting, takes this as a responsible request. In the process of expanding on his copy, he recites the language of the text: a language that is instantly imprinted on the illustrator’s mind.

 

At lunch he grabs the folded copy of the New York Times, carries it with him to a coffee shop, places it beside his plate, eats a sandwich, drinks a beer, and soon heads back to work.

 

At 5 P.M., he takes his briefcase and his New York Times, waits for the elevator, walks two blocks to catch an uptown bus, stops at a corner store to buy some groceries, then goes upstairs. He carefully unfolds his New York Times. He places it with a mechanical precision on a pile of several other recent copies of the New York Times. There they will remain until, when two or three or more copies have been added, he will take all but the one most recent and consign them to the trash that goes into a plastic bag that will be left for pick up by the truck that comes around during the night and, with a groaning roar, collects and crushes and compresses all the garbage of the occupants of this and other residential buildings of New York.

 

Then he returns upstairs. He opens the refrigerator, snaps the top from a cold can of Miller’s beer, and turns on the TV.

 

Next day, trimly dressed and cleanly shaven, he will buy another New York Times, fold it neatly, and proceed to work. He is a rather solitary man. People in his office view him with respect as someone who is self-contained and does not choose to join in casual conversation. If somebody should mention something that is in the news, he will give a dry, sardonic answer based upon the information he has garnered from TV.

 

He is protected against the outside world. Someday he will probably be trapped. It has happened before; so he can guess that it will happen again. Defended for now against humiliation, he is not defended against fear. He tells me that he has recurrent dreams.

 

“Somebody says: What does this mean? I stare at the page. A thousand copies of the New York Times run past me on a giant screen. Even before I am awake, I start to scream.”

 

If it is any comfort to this man, he should know that he is not alone. Twenty-five million American adults cannot read the poison warnings on a can of pesticide, a letter from their child’s teacher, or the front page of a daily paper. An additional 35 million read only at a level which is less than equal to the full survival needs of our society.

 

Together, these 60 million people represent more than one third of the entire adult population.

 

The largest numbers of illiterate adults are white, native-born Americans. In proportion to population, however, the figures are higher for blacks and Hispanics than for whites. Sixteen percent of white adults, 44 percent of blacks, and 56% of Hispanic citizens are functional or marginal illiterates. Figures for the younger generation of black adults are increasing. Forty-seven percent of all black seventeen-year-olds are functionally illiterate. That figure is expected to climb to 50 percent by 1990.

 

Fifteen percent of recent graduates from urban high schools read at less than sixth grade level. One million teenage children between twelve and seventeen cannot read above the third grade level. Eighty-five percent of juveniles who come before the courts are functionally illiterate. Half the heads of households classified below the poverty line by federal standards cannot read an eighth gradebook. Over one third of mothers who receive support from welfare are functionally illiterate. Of 8 million unemployed adults, 4 to 6 million lack the skills to be retained for hi-tech jobs.

 

The United States ranks forty-ninth among 158 member nations of the U.N. in its literacy levels.

 

In Prince George Country, Maryland, 30,000 adults cannot read above a fourth grade level. The largest literacy program in this county reaches one hundred people yearly.

 

In Boston, Massachusetts, 40 percent of the adult population is illiterate. The largest organization that provides funds to the literacy programs of the city reaches 700 to 1,000 people.

 

In San Antonio, Texas, 152,000 adults have been documented as illiterate. In a single municipal district of San Antonio, over half the adult population sample is illiterate in English. Sixty percent of the same population sample is illiterate in Spanish. Three percent of adults in this district are at present being served.

 

In the State of Utah, which ranks number one in the United States in the percent of total budget allocated to the education sector, 200,000 adults lack basic skills for employment. Less than 5 percent of Utah’s population is black or Hispanic.

 

Together, all federal, state, municipal, and private literacy programs in the nation reach a maximum of 4 percent of the illiterate population. The federal government spends $100 million yearly to address the needs of 60 million people. The President has asked tat this sum be reduced to $50 million. Even at the present level, direct federal allocations represent about $1.65 per year for each illiterate.

 

In 1982 the Executive Director of the National Advisory Council on Adult Education estimated that the government would need to spend about $5 billion to eradicate or seriously reduce the problem. The commission he served was subsequently dismissed by presidential order.

 

Fourteen years ago, in his inaugural address as governor of Georgia, a future president of the United States proclaimed his dedication to the crisis of Illiterate America. “Our people are our most precious possession…Every adult illiterate…is an indictment of us all…If Switzerland and Israel and other people can end illiteracy, then so can we. The responsibility is our own and our government’s. I will not shirk this responsibility.”

 

Today the number of identified nonreaders is three times greater than the number Jimmy Carter had in mind when he described this challenge and defined it as an obligation that he would not shirk.

 

On April 26, 1983, pointing to the literary crisis and to a collapse at standards at the secondary and the college levels, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned: “Our Nation is at risk.”