Illiteracy in America

Archive Report

Its Extent and Consequence

New Round of Scorn for Public Schools

Each year 850,000 students drop out of school. Most of them cannot read well enough to follow TV dinner instructions; they are too weak in math to compute sales tax. Thousands more who do manage to graduate are no better off; their diplomas mock the system. Together they swell the ranks of an almost invisible underclass of functional illiterates — as many as 23 million Americans, according to one estimate “Not only are most people unaware of the [illiteracy] problem, but those who are illiterate understandably try to hide it,” observed Rep. Paul Simon, D-Ill., who conducted congressional hearings on illiteracy last fall.

Prospects for reducing the number of students who fall through the educational cracks ...

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