Monday, January 16, 2006

Literacy of College Graduates Is on Decline

Literacy experts and educators say they are stunned by the results of a recent adult literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade, with no obvious explanation. "It's appalling -- it's really astounding," said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at California State University at Fresno. "Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder."

While more Americans are graduating from college, and more than ever are applying for admission, far fewer are leaving higher education with the skills needed to comprehend routine data, such as reading a table about the relationship between blood pressure and physical activity, according to the federal study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Experts could not definitively explain the drop. "The declining impact of education on our adult population was the biggest surprise for us, and we just don't have a good explanation," said Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of education statistics. "It may be that institutions have not yet figured out how to teach a whole generation of students who learned to read on the computer and who watch more TV. It's a different kind of literacy." "What's disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels," he added.

The test measures how well adults comprehend basic instructions and tasks through reading -- such as computing costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials and reading prescription labels. Only 41 percent of graduate students tested in 2003 could be classified as "proficient" in prose -- reading and understanding information in short texts -- down 10 percentage points since 1992. Of college graduates, only 31 percent were classified as proficient -- compared with 40 percent in 1992. Schneider said the results do not separate recent graduates from those who have been out of school several years or more.

The results were based on a sample of more than 19,000 people 16 or older, who were interviewed in their homes. They were asked to read prose, do math and find facts in documents. The scores for "intermediate" reading abilities went up for college students, causing educators to question whether most college instruction is offered at the intermediate level because students face reading challenges.

Gorman said that he has been shocked by how few entering freshmen understand how to use a basic library system, or enjoy reading for pleasure. "There is a failure in the core values of education," he said. "They're told to go to college in order to get a better job -- and that's okay. But the real task is to produce educated people."

Other experts noted that the slip in scores could be attributed to most state schools not being particularly selective, accepting most high school graduates to bolster enrollment. In addition, Schneider said schools may not be taking into account a more diverse population, and the language and cultural barriers that come with shifting demographics. That would account for the dramatic drop in average prose literacy for Hispanics, which slipped by 18 percentage points, he said. "The Hispanic scores were somewhat understandable based on the changing demographics," Schneider said. "Diversity may lead to more difficulties in education."

Dolores Perin, a reading expert at Columbia University Teachers College, said that her work has indicated that the issue may start at the high school level. "There is a tremendous literacy problem among high school graduates that is not talked about," said Perin, who has been sitting in on high school classes as part of a teaching project. "It's a little bit depressing. The colleges are left holding the bag, trying to teach students who have challenges."

On average, adult literacy is virtually unchanged since 1992, with 30 million people struggling with basic reading tasks. While adults made some progress in quantitative literacy, such as the ability to calculate taxes, the study showed that from 1992 to 2003 adults made no improvement in their ability read newspapers or books, or comprehend basic forms.

One bright spot is that blacks are making significant gains in reading and math and are reaching higher levels of education. For instance, the report showed that the average rate of prose literacy, or reading, among blacks rose six percentage points since 1992. Prose and document reading scores for whites remained the same

Source





Australia: Parents dig deep to pay for choice in education

Soaring costs are squeezing some families out of private education as fees top $12,000 a year at prestigious Brisbane schools. But enrolments are still expected to rise, with parents willing to "make significant sacrifices" to put children through their "school of choice". Even Catholic education was becoming unaffordable for some families, Federation of Parents and Friends Association of Queensland executive officer Paul Dickie said. "Increasingly poor Catholic families can't afford to attend Catholic schools," Mr Dickie said. "I know that principals do a lot to assist families, and we say that no one will be denied an education in a Catholic school because of their financial situation, but the thing is a number of them don't come because obviously they don't like coming up and saying, 'Well, I can't afford to go there.' "So the Catholic schools try to keep fees to a minimum, but because of increasing costs, fees will go up more than the consumer price index."

Fees at some Catholic schools are at the bottom of the cost ladder. The Southport School is Queensland's most expensive, charging tuition fees of $12,276 for a student in Year 11 or 12. At Brisbane Grammar School, parents will pay $12,270 to educate a child in Years 8 to 12. At the Anglican Church Grammar School at East Brisbane, "Churchie" parents will pay $11,124 for a son in Year 12. One of Brisbane's leading girls' schools, Somerville House at South Brisbane, will charge $9882 for tuition in Years 7 to 12, but this does not include levies for technology, excursions, bus travel and house expenses....

Association of Independent Schools of Queensland operations director David Robertson said enrolments were still increasing by about 4 per cent a year. Parents were willing "to do anything" to make sure their children attended their school of choice. "All of the research and data that we see keeps on coming back to the same issues," Mr Robertson said. "It's about parental choice, those parents value the partnership between the school and parents. There is a high sense that there is a very high quality of teachers in independent schools and issues like good discipline, academic outcomes - parents value all those things very highly."

Mr Dickie said demand for Catholic education also continued to increase because of their caring pastoral program, competent teachers and academic excellence, which all created "a happiness factor" that attracted mums and dads.

More here




Stupid in America: "For 'Stupid in America,' a special report ABC will air Friday, we gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and in Belgium. The Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks. The Belgian kids called the American students 'stupid.' We didn't pick smart kids to test in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey's kids have test scores that are above average for America. The American boy who got the highest score told me: 'I'm shocked, 'cause it just shows how advanced they are compared to us.' The Belgians did better because their schools are better. At age ten, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age fifteen, when students from forty countries are tested, the Americans place twenty-fifth. The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from countries that spend much less money on education. This should come as no surprise once you remember that public education in the USA is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse. In New York City, it's "just about impossible" to fire a bad teacher, says schools chancellor Joel Klein." (Update: There are a lot of comments on this story here)

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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