It’s a given that as a nation, millions of children struggle to attain a functional level of literacy, but Tom Sticht of EducationNews.org wants to know, where does the reading problem go when children grow up? Overwhelmingly–but not always accurately–adults rate their own reading skills very highly. When broken out by ethnic groups, Sticht notes, the ratings are
Whites: Very Well-77%, Well-21%, or Not Well/Not At All-3%.
Blacks: Very Well-67%, Well-27% and Not Well/Not At All-6%.
Hispanics: Very Well-46%, Well-22% and Not Well/Not At All-32%
Just because adults think they read well, however, doesn’t mean they do. When the average proficiencies of whites and blacks on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) prose scale were compared, Sticht notes, the average proficiency of whites who rated themselves as reading very well was 308, well above average. Blacks rating themselves as reading very well scored 259, well below average. What’s going on here? Sticht has a theory:
Perhaps when children grow up and get out of the pre-K-12 world they adapt to the ambient literacy demands of a cultural niche that they find possible to occupy. They find jobs they can qualify for, they get information from sources they have access to and feel comfortable in using, and as they slip ever more firmly into their literacy niche, they feel more and more satisfaction with their literacy skills. Maybe this is why so many U.S. adults think they read Well or Very Well, despite their poor performance on literacy tests.
If they are using themselves as a standard, Sticht concludes ominously, many adults are not able to judge whether or not their children are learning to read well in school and fail to act accordingly.
In Vietnam, parents who want teachers to pay more attention to their children pay extra money to kindergarten teachers monthly. And when parents don’t abide by the unwritten rules of this “envelope culture,” kids can suffer.
“Hoang Thi Yen in district 8, HCM City, said she has to give VND200,000 [about 12 U.S. dollars] a month to both of her daughter’s two teachers for a ‘present’” VietNamNet reports. “Yen said that all the parents she knows also give extra money to teachers. Yen is afraid that the teachers will not take care of her child if she doesn’t do this.”
Another parent reports that when she picks up her daughter from school and is not given a warm welcome, she understands that it’s time to give an envelope to the teachers. “Teachers change their attitude towards me and my child if I’m slow in giving money.” Two months ago, says this parent, she was having difficulty persuading her son to go to kindergarten. Her son said he did not want to go to class. However, after she gave envelopes to teachers, her son all of a sudden liked going to school. “The teachers’ attitudes make me feel that they just want money, while they don’t care for children,” she said.
Who will govern a free nation if no one understands the mechanics and instruments of that freedom? Maybe, one day, a demagogue, writes columnist Kathleen Parker in The Baltimore Sun. That’s her bright and cheery conclusion after reviewing a poll that shows “only 27 percent of elected officeholders in the survey could identify a right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. Forty-three percent didn’t know what the Electoral College does. And 46 percent didn’t know that the Constitution gives Congress power to declare war.”
In his book Just How Stupid Are We?, historian Rick Shenkman, founder of George Mason University’s History News Network, is tough on everyday Americans. Why, he asks, do we value polls when clearly The People don’t know enough to make a reasoned judgment? The founding fathers, Mr. Shenkman points out, weren’t so enamored of The People, whom they distrusted. Hence a republic, not a democracy. They understood that an ignorant electorate was susceptible to emotional manipulation and feared the tyranny of the masses.
OK, American’s lack of civic knowledge is low-hanging fruit when you need an evergreen column on a holiday weekend. But Parker has more than half a point. In tough economic times and a dangerous world, the potential to lead an uneducated country in any number of unsavory directions will always be a danger.
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