Last week the National Center for Education Statistics released data about adult literacy rates(here). It shows both state and county level estimates. When I opened up the links to the data, I was expecting the numbers to be bleak, but not as bleak as they actually were. Nationwide 14.5 percent of adults are estimated to be low literacy. And as you would expect, these adults are concentrated, and the concentration generally mirrors the communities where educators struggle to help K-12 students achieve. But some of the concentrations of illiteracy are startling. The data is provided by county:
Los Angeles – 33%
New York – 25%
Bronx – 41%
Queens – 46%
Miami-Dade – 52%
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I'm not sure why these numbers would be so surprising, seeing how these cities and borroughs have high populations of non-native English speakers. Literacy in English is directly related to proficiency with the language. For a more accurate result on actual literacy, populations could be examined in native language literacy. Functional English language literacy should be noted as such, since an argument could be made that many people counted toward these numbers are literate in other languages.
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