Literacy - Thread Split from "A Fight Broke Out Today"

[Thesemindz]

I guess the question is, what is that the gov't schools are interested in?

The government schools are interested in propagandizing the populace. Their structure is designed to discourage any challenge to government authority and to create workers, not thinkers. They are a social engineering tool which exists for the sole purpose of creating generation upon generation of cogs who will accept the state as a natural and necessary intrusion into their lives and who will see the state as the only legitimate solution to their problems.

Before the advent of mandatory government schooling we had a 97% functional literacy rate amongst the free people of this country, and education rates between 75 and 99 percent by region. Since then, the definition of functionally literate has gone from the ability to read and comprehend the founding documents of this nation, to the ability to fill out a job resume. And still by this new definition, less than half of american adults are functionally literate. 20% of high school graduates can't read their own diplomas, and these are the kids who succeeded in the government school system.

Since the inception of mandatory government schooling, literacy rates have declined, basic knowledge has declined, and standardized test scores have declined. And this is based on the government's own numbers.

The government schools are not, and have not been since their inception, about education. They are about indoctrination. Nothing more.


-Rob

 

[Gordon Nore]

I would love to see sources on these statistics since I've never heard anything remotely like it before. I do believe there is a strong element in our schools design to create workers and promote the state, but your statistics don't sound even remotely believable.

Comparing literacy today with literacy of generations ago is difficult. One has to consider -- deskilling notwithstanding -- that our literacy expectations are higher than they were in my grandparents' time.

Don't have a source in hand, but I can some good examples from when I worked in adult literacy twenty years ago and was studying current data of the time. A circa 1890 census showed ten percent of adults (I don't know the age parameters) in Hamilton, Ontario, could only indicate their name by making an X. Realistically, if you asked adults in the same region to do the same thing today, the success rate would be closer a one-hundred percent.

Take a different spin on this. In 1990 Statistics Canada (whose information gatherings standards are world class) study determined ten percent of of 9600 Canadian adults (ages 16-69, in their preferred language of English or French) could not read the instructions on a gov't for upon which they had to simply add their signature to obtain a social insurance card.

Translation: Just about everyone can sign their name. A significant proportion of adults (say, 10%) may be signing important documents without actually understanding them. Now, there are other factors to consider in this. Government documents traditionally crept up to higher levels of reading over the years. The form I mentioned above was at about a high school reading level. I 1930s era gov't pamphlet on Infantile Paralysis (polio) tested at grade six, using the same instrument.

More of us are reading better than we were a hundred years ago, but we need to read more materials that are more complex to get by.

Further inquires into our national statistics demonstrated lower literacy among the older population. So when analyzing literacy needs and attainment levels of students today, we need to make sure we haven't lumped in data from people who were already illiterate or about to be illiterate two generations ago. We have these headlines here that are highly misleading: Four million illiterate Canadians. (Schools doing a terrible job). Then you discover that many of those four million left school decades ago, like my grandparents had, in the sixth grade.

Speaking of today, yes, no doubt about it, we find lower literacy in the economically poorer school districts. Middle to upper-middle income public schools, and private schools, register higher scores. Surprise, surprise -- the latter tend to have more homogeneous student bodies, less special ed, less ESL, and boom the averages go up.

The lack of reading abilities of students, I can tell from years in the classroom, is not a reflection of our ability to teach reading. We have methodology and technology coming out the wazoo. It might an indication of how equitably those resources are dispersed. Parental literacy plays a huge role in the literacy of young learners today.

 

[Thesemindz]

I would love to see sources on these statistics since I've never heard anything remotely like it before. I do believe there is a strong element in our schools design to create workers and promote the state, but your statistics don't sound even remotely believable.

Always happy to provide sources.

97% literacy rate amongst free whites prior to compulsory education - compare the number of illiterate to the number of free whites over twenty in 1840.

75 to 99 percent education rate - Look specifically at where it describes the number of students attending primary schools, academies, and those being home schooled.

This study from 2002 lists fully half of adult Americans as falling within the "at risk" category for literacy. While some were able to perform basic single digit mathematics if the numbers were provided to them in a paragraph, like if suzy has four apples and you have two how many apples do you have together, others "had such limited skills that they were unable to respond to much of the survey."

You're right. The statistics do seem unbelievable. That's how bad the government schools have gotten.


-Rob

 

[Gordon Nore]

This study from 2002 lists fully half of adult Americans as falling within the "at risk" category for literacy. While some were able to perform basic single digit mathematics if the numbers were provided to them in a paragraph, like if suzy has four apples and you have two how many apples do you have together, others "had such limited skills that they were unable to respond to much of the survey."

Thanks.

I'll read this with interest. The 1990 StatsCan study derived a total of about 40 percent of Canadians on a continuum from almost no literacy to barely functional literacy. I'll look forward to this newish document from the USA.

G

 

[Thesemindz]

Thanks.

I'll read this with interest. The 1990 StatsCan study derived a total of about 40 percent of Canadians on a continuum from almost no literacy to barely functional literacy. I'll look forward to this newish document from the USA.

G

Sadly, if you compare this document to the previous study done in 1992, you will find that the numbers of functionally literate have actually decreased.


-Rob

 

[blindsage]

Always happy to provide sources.

97% literacy rate amongst free whites prior to compulsory education - compare the number of illiterate to the number of free whites over twenty in 1840.

75 to 99 percent education rate - Look specifically at where it describes the number of students attending primary schools, academies, and those being home schooled.

This study from 2002 lists fully half of adult Americans as falling within the "at risk" category for literacy. While some were able to perform basic single digit mathematics if the numbers were provided to them in a paragraph, like if suzy has four apples and you have two how many apples do you have together, others "had such limited skills that they were unable to respond to much of the survey."

You're right. The statistics do seem unbelievable. That's how bad the government schools have gotten.


-Rob

Those are interesting sources and thanks for posting them. But the last source on there refutes your argument and this article does as well. The current illiteracy you are talking about is functional illiteracy by contemporary standards engaging in the contemporary world. Do you have any source than defines literacy in 1840? From the source you give, we don't really know if it's much more that being able to sign your name and read simple sentences. The CIA world factbook lists U.S. literacy as 99%, because they use a standard that may be misleading and lacking in nuance. The point is, your sources don't prove the argument, and actually call it into question. I agree that functional illiteracy is a huuuge problem in the U.S. and that the U.S. public school system is really not serving the needs of the population, but to say that we were at a phenomenally high level of literacy in the past compared to now, is not really born out by the evidence.

But don't get me wrong, I pretty much agree with everything you said in this comment,

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not attacking the teachers. I have many teachers in my family, and most of them are hard working dedicated people who sacrifice their own time and money because they believe in what they are doing.

I'm attacking a system which I believe, and I believe that this is easily provable, has no interest in educating children. Educated children ask questions and challenge authority. Instead, they want to create workers who will believe the government when they tell them they are fixing the problem, and will hate who they point at and buy what they're selling.

When I entered a government high school my parents were sent a letter where the school bragged about how they create young adults who are ready for the work force. Not young adults ready to change the world, or build a better mouse trap, or cure cancer, or write poetry. Join the work force. Because that was their goal, and they were proud of it. I had to drop Calculus to take a class called "workplace readiness" because it became a mandatory credit for graduation my junior year. Despite the fact that I had held a job for over two years already. That is what is going on in the government school system.

Just not your historical comparison.

 

[Gordon Nore]

The CIA world factbook lists U.S. literacy as 99%, because they use a standard that may be misleading and lacking in nuance.

Seen it. They probably used the 'write your name' rule. I can dig into old UN standards later.

G

 

[Thesemindz]

Those are interesting sources and thanks for posting them. But the last source on there refutes your argument and this article does as well.

I don't see how that refutes my argument. I pulled this quote from that article.

Governments may label individuals who can read a couple of thousand simple words they learned by sight in the first four grades in school as literate; but the most comprehensive study of U.S. adult literacy ever commissioned by the U.S. government argues that such adults are functionally illiterate — they cannot read well enough to hold a good job.

And this one.

A follow-up study by the same group of researchers using a smaller database (19,714 interviewees) was released in 2006 that showed no statistically significant improvement in U.S. adult literacy.[5] These studies assert that 46% to 51% of U.S. adults read so poorly that they earn "significantly" below the threshold poverty level for an individual.

Do you have any source than defines literacy in 1840?

Admittedly, it is hard to fine sources that define literacy in 1840. I was able to find this book, which describes the importance and prevalence of literacy in colonial America.

to say that we were at a phenomenally high level of literacy in the past compared to now, is not really born out by the evidence.

I still feel that it is, but I'm willing to accept disagreement with my positions. My sources, and my research, and my experience have all proven to me that what passes for literacy today would be disdained by prior generations, and only half of our adults can even accomplish that.

Take a look at the New England Primer. You can find a copy at this website. (I'm only putting the link up for comparative purposes, I don't support the views of the website itself.) It was the most widely sold and used textbook in colonial America for the purposes of teaching children to read. I'm not arguing in favor of it's religious teachings, but look at what it contains. Compare that to the text books being used to teach children to read today. Compare it to "hooked on phonics."


-Rob

 

[Thesemindz]

Seen it. They probably used the 'write your name' rule. I can dig into old UN standards later.

G

I think it's based on the ability to read and comprehend around four hundred words, which would be far below the threshold for "functional literacy," but I'm not sure about this.


-Rob

 

[Gordon Nore]

I think it's based on the ability to read and comprehend around four hundred words, which would be far below the threshold for "functional literacy," but I'm not sure about this.
-Rob

If that's the case, the number shouldn't be that high. There would have to be huge sectors of the population excluded from the data to come back with 99% writing and reading 400 words. Many, many people, for instance, with a cognitive disability would fail that standard. 99% is all wrong.

And yes, being able to read and write 400 words would fall below functional based on day to day needs in the USA. The CIA fact book, if I recall, made similar calculations of literacy in Canada, which I know to be bogus, because I know the person who designed the StatsCan study in 1990.

I'll hunt down the Canadian numbers, which have been well vetted.

 

[Thesemindz]

If that's the case, the number shouldn't be that high. There would have to be huge sectors of the population excluded from the data to come back with 99% writing and reading 400 words. Many, many people, for instance, with a cognitive disability would fail that standard. 99% is all wrong.

And yes, being able to read and write 400 words would fall below functional based on day to day needs in the USA. The CIA fact book, if I recall, made similar calculations of literacy in Canada, which I know to be bogus, because I know the person who designed the StatsCan study in 1990.

I'll hunt down the Canadian numbers, which have been well vetted.

This got me thinking, so I looked up some numbers.

According to this census data, something like 20 million people have some kind of disability which could interfere with their ability to read. This isn't any scientific number I'm coming up with, I just lumped together the 14 million with mental disabilities and the 7 and a half million who's eyesight prevents reading.

Now, that's only around .72 percent, but if we lump in some more people who are just straight up illiterate, that should easily bump us over the 1% illiteracy rate the CIA factbook offers.

So are they just making these numbers up out of thin air?


-Rob

 

[Gordon Nore]

...So are they just making these numbers up out of thin air?
-Rob

Not at all. They're probably using the most rudimentary instrument in order to make international comparisons. It's all a matter of the criteria one uses to define "literacy." If the goal is writing down our names, Canada and the USA and other countries have wiped out illiteracy. Here's a bit of the abstract from the 1989 Statistics Canada survey of adult literacy, Literacy Skills Used in Daily Activities. The survey was groundbreaking at the time -- no other country had undertaken such a large per capita sample with such a comprehensive instrument -- a literacy survey with some sixty tasks (from easiest to hardest.) The focus was reading, some math and a little bit of writing. Writing is very hard to test and score on a large scale, big $.

According to the link I found, the sample was 13,500 adults between the ages of 16 and 69 in their preferred language of English or French. Excluded from the sample were:

• Canadians living north of 60
• Military personnel living on base
• Residents of institutions
• Natives on Reserves
• Anyone who said they could not communicate in English or French

The sample was representative of approx 20 million adults:

This two-part document summarizes and analyzes the implications of a national study of adult literacy in Canada that included home interviews with a representative sample of 13,571 Canadians between the ages of 16 and 69...

Among the main findings are the following:

(1) 16% of adult Canadians have reading skill limitations that prevent them from facing most of the demands encountered daily;

(2) most functionally illiterate Canadians are either persons with limited school attainment or first-generation immigrants;

(3) 22% of those surveyed are able to understand simple, well-organized text; and

(4) 62% of the 22% of Canadians capable of understanding simple texts have had at least some secondary education.

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/cu...&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED374267

The tasks were broken into four levels, as follows:

1. (1.2 million, 7%) People at this level found most daily reading materials nearly impossible to deal with.
2. (1.8 million, 9%) People at this level can read simple words that are familiar in daily life.
3. (4 million, 22%) People at this level can read everyday materials if they are written simply, clearly laid out, and if they involve tasks that are easy to perform.
4. Canadians at this level can do most daily reading without difficulty.

Sample Tasks by level and percentage of respondents who could not complete them:

Level One:
Sign a Social Insurance Card 1%
Level Two:
Circle the expiry date on a driver's license 6%
Locate correct building using a sign 7%
Circle the charge on a telephone bill 10%
Level Three:
Read Aspirin Instructions 20%
Find a store in the Yellow Pages 25%
Level Four:
Find school hours in a pamphlet 41%

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPorta...&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED335478

StatsCan basically confirmed a traditional number of 4-5 million adult Canadians as non-literate. Previous stats were based on UNESCO standards of educational attainment. Yes, there were 4-5 million illiterate Canadians, but not all of them had lower educational attainment. According to the UNESCO standard, earlier last century, a literate person could, with understanding, both read and write a simple passage about his or her life. At some point, it was determined that this might be achieved with an elementary education, and so literacy stats were often tied to grade level -- not one-hundred percent reliable.

Level three was, I think, the most interesting group in terms of research and practice. This represented a vast number of people raised speaking English, often with secondary education or more, who potentially were teetering on the brink. Basically, they were literate -- as long as their lives didn't change. This was 1989-90. Al Gore's Internet was widely unavailable, email was a rare item, and we still thought fax machines were the bee's knees.

 

[blindsage]

Rob, the reason I say you source contradicts your point is a nuanced one. The source points to all of the different levels of literacy in the U.S. and then defines functional literacy which, along with the point about people with disabilities, shows that there are a lot of sublties and nuances to the question of literacy, none of which is addressed by the 1840 census data you provided. What percentage of the population, then, was disabled to the point of illiteracy? We don't know. What standard of literacy was used to come up with their numbers? We don't know. What percentage of those people considered literate at the time, would be classified as 'functionally illiterate' for the time and location by scholars today? We don't know.

My point is that using sources to demonstrate the level of literacy today that illustrate the subtle and overt differences in what literacy really is, but then comparing it to a single source from 1840 with no information on definitions, or any way to determine the legitimacy of the numbers, like the CIA ones today, does not prove that literacy was actually higher then. It just proves that we have little information on the accuracy of the source.

I also don't see how the New England Primer was in anyway more useful or complex than the materials that were used when I was in elementary school in the '80s, or now. It actually reminds me of the exercises we did.

 

[Steve]

Always happy to provide sources.

97% literacy rate amongst free whites prior to compulsory education - compare the number of illiterate to the number of free whites over twenty in 1840.

[snip]
You're right. The statistics do seem unbelievable. That's how bad the government schools have gotten.


-Rob

I'm a dummy when it comes to numbers. I am probably reading that wrong, but the chart you're referencing about literacy... I'm getting like 20% illiteracy total... worse in some areas.

Down where the totals are... I see 16,233 college students; 164,270 grammar schools scholars; 1,845,113 grammar school students; and 468,323 scholars at public charge (does that mean public school?).. for a total of 2,493,939 students. Add the illiterate population of 549,905 and that's 3,043,844 people included. This doesn't include free blacks or slaves. Not sure if it includes women... not a given at that time. So... what am I missing because isn't 549,905 way more than 3% of 3,043,844? My urban math skills put that at ~ 18-20%... more if you count ALL of the people who were illiterate. Also, add to that the innacuracies of the census methods at the time and I'm just not getting it.

EDIT To add:
Reading down a little further, it does explain that "at public charge" means supported by State taxes, but acknowledges that many of the students in other areas were supported "by a large public fund" or by a combination of the public treasury and private contribution, neither of which were considered "at public charge" but were "essentially the same, so far as regards the public bounty." And the sense I'm getting is that the recommendation or leaning of the document is that public schools should be encouraged.

Again, I'm kind of skimming this document, so I may be missing the boat.

Edit again: I found this quote very interesting. Of course, it's not advocating public over private, but is clearly in favor of the government taking a vested interest in insuring that all of the citizens are educated:

Of the many substantial benefits of educating the people, it is I scarcely necessary now to speak; since, wherever the experiment has been made, it has been found to favour industry, prudence, temperance, and honesty, and thus eminently conduce to the respectability and happiness of a people. But the motives for giving knowledge a wide diffusion are peculiarly strong in this country, where the people being the sole source of political power, all legislation and measures of public policy must, in a greater or less degree, reflect the opinions and feelings of the great mass of the community, and be wise and liberal, or weak and narrow-minded, according to the character of those by whose suffrages authority is given and is taken away. If the body of the people be not instructed and intelligent, how can they understand their true interests—how distinguish the honest purposes of the patriot from the smooth pretences of the hypocrite—how feel the paramount obligations of law, order, justice, and public faith ?

This passage comes just prior to the table you mention and articulates clearly the sense I was getting from reading the text following the table.

 

[Thesemindz]

I'm a dummy when it comes to numbers. I am probably reading that wrong, but the chart you're referencing about literacy... I'm getting like 20% illiteracy total... worse in some areas.

Ok, first of all, my number of 97% was wrong, but not as wrong as that.

I based that number on comparing the number of illiterate, shown in that chart to be 549,905, to the total number of white people in the 1840 census, which is shown on page 51 of that book to be 14,189,555. That gave me about three percent, although doing the math again, it would have been more fair to round up to 4 percent, as it came in closer to 4 than 3.

What I didn't notice when I posted that source earlier is that the number of illiterate listed in that chart is not total whites, it is total whites over 20. On pages 53 and 54 we can find the percentage of white people over 20 by adding the percentages of people under it and determining that percentage of the total number. Doing so arrives us at a total of, 6,440,008. 549,905 is 8.5 percent of that number.

So the correct rate of literacy amongst the free white population according to the 1840 census was 91.5 percent, not 97 percent, and that was my fault.

The numbers you were looking to and referring were total number of students, but the number of illiterates is referring to the total number of whites over twenty, regardless of their current educational status.


-Rob

 

[Thesemindz]

What standard of literacy was used to come up with their numbers? We don't know. What percentage of those people considered literate at the time, would be classified as 'functionally illiterate' for the time and location by scholars today? We don't know.

That's a fair point. I have repeatedly heard functional literacy during this time as relating to the ability to read and comprehend the founding documents of the nation, as well as read and understand the tenants of the christian bible, and in some communities, reading the latin bible as well. I don't have time right now to look up sources, but I will try to find some. I know that I saw a video where an expert was discussing this very issue. However, you are right in that it is difficult to compare what we consider functional literacy today to what they would have considered functional literacy in 1840, especially when the definition of the term changes even in our own times, as exemplified in the many contemporary studies on the subject.

I also don't see how the New England Primer was in anyway more useful or complex than the materials that were used when I was in elementary school in the '80s, or now. It actually reminds me of the exercises we did.

Ok. I think it's considerably more complex than See Spot Run, or Dick and Jane, or Hooked on Phonics.

My elementary school used the "Writing to Read" program, which involved spelling words like vase as v-"a with a line over it"-s, or apple as aple to avoid confusing new students with hard vowels and double consonants. There were certainly no six syllable words in that curriculum.

Then after spending a year learning to spell words wrong, we were counted off in first grade if we continued to spell in this fashion.


-Rob

 

[jetboatdeath]

Comparing literacy today with literacy of generations ago is difficult. One has to consider -- deskilling notwithstanding -- that our literacy expectations are higher than they were in my grandparents' time.

So diplomas were written different back then?

 

[Gordon Nore]

So diplomas were written different back then?

Huh?

 

[Thesemindz]

I'm still looking for that video, but in the meantime I thought these articles might be of some interest. They help to demonstrate some of the thoughts of those responsible for aspects of our current government education system as it exists today.

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/11801941.html

http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/mandatory_public_schooling.htm


-Rob

 

[Thesemindz]

Here's a book online about the creation of compulsory education around the world as well as here in America.

It details the reasoning behind it's creation as well as the effects.


-Rob