50% of US Failing Literacy Test, or is the test too hard? "Only 52% scored at Level 3 or higher. While adults who score below Level 3 do have some limited literacy skills, they are not likely to be able to perform the range of complex literacy tasks that the National Education Goals Panel considers important for competing successfully in a global economy or exercising the rights and responsibility of citizenship." Does that sound like Mark Tucker to you folks? I've got news for you loop folks, the national literacy suffers from the same problems as other "really hard" criterion referenced tests. Only the top 5% of the popuation (about the number that go to colleges like UC Berkeley, Ivy Leage or better) scored in the top category, and these scores are evidently the same "higher order thinking" skills that all these new tests take delight in inflicting on unsuspecting parents and students. This is just about the only test where, compensating for education, Asians did just as poorly as blacks. A task might be to read a stock table, and then figure out if the company is really going down the tubes, or assembling a reasearch paper from a couple of charts and pages of text. You folks really need to be wary of criterion based tests where some pointy headed acacemic types get to decide "what skills will be needed for the 21th century" and such crap. Another recent article showed that about 50% of ALL developed nations were lacking in such "high level" literacy skills, and it's got to make you wonder if something is wrong with the standard when you've got a standard of literacy that flunks half of the population when 95-99% of developed nations can read or write at some level. The kind of literacy we should be demanding is ond where average citizens can look at these new tests and know that something smells when experts say that everybody is failing. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 12:44:01 -0800 To: sleeper@warwick.net, education-consumers@tricon.net From: The Riggs Institute Subject: Re: School Board's and Parents responsibility (+a poem) The points made in this posting are well taken - especially the wonderful poem, but, we must remember that many more than 1/2 of these parents are themselves victims of the system; many, especially parents of so-called "learning disabled" students have also been told that it is their own fault that their children do not do well in the system. Please consider the following taken directly from the 1994 National Education Goals Report: Building a Nation of Learners, pp. 41 and 42: "Although literacy assessments of adults in the labor force and young adults had been conducted in the U.S. prior to l992, the National Adult Literacy Survey was the first nationally representative assessment of the literacy skills of the entire adult population. NALS assessed proficiency on three scales (prose, document and quantitative), and grouped scores into five levels (5 was highest and 1 was lowest). Prose literacy tasks required readers to understand and use information contained in texts such as newspapers and pamphlets. Document literacy tasks required readers to locate and use information contained in materials such as tables, charts, and maps. Quantitative literacy tasks required readers to perform arithmetic computations using numbers found in printed materials. Because performance was fairly similar across the three scales, only one scale (prose) is used to illustrate performance for this indicator. NALS revealed that nearly half of all American adults read and write at the two lowest levels of English literacy. Only 52% scored at Level 3 or higher. While adults who score below Level 3 do have some limited literacy skills, they are not likely to be able to perform the range of complex literacy tasks that the National Education Goals Panel considers important for competing successfully in a global economy or exercising the rights and responsibility of citizenship." The report went on to say, "Despite the fact that nearly half of all American adults scored at the two lowest of five levels of proficiency, nearly all American adults believed that they could read and write English well." It is my own conclusion that many more than one-half of parents, and young grand-parents and the workforce in this country are in the two lowest levels of proficiency. Why? Because it isn't likely to be the above 65 crowd - the senior citizens who were mostly taught to read, write and spell with sensible methods. These results must necessarily reflect the younger side of those considered "adults" for this survey. Even though they've obviously had better lessons in self-esteem, speaking out at school board meetings or even discussing academic progress with their child's teacher comes under the realm of not just parenting but of "exercising the rights and responsibilities of citizenship." We've taught thousands of homeschoolers across this country where one parent or the other must learn right along with their children - and, sometimes, it is both parents who have supportive grandparents or others who came help them. Even those who do read very often cannot write, speak, spell, think or put their thoughts on paper with proper grammar and syntax, punctuation, capitalization, etc. Many tell us they've never had any grammar, that they've never heard of diagramming a sentence, parsing the parts of speech, learning phonetics for correct spelling; they know one or two spelling rules (perhaps) nothing about syllabication, Latin and Greek roots, prefixes, suffixes. How then do these people argue successfully with those in charge of the public school system. We've taught many adult illiterates most of whom have never had any phonics of any kind nor are they "visual" learners which has been required by publishing houses (remember, they are into selling paper with print on it) since the early 30's. Not being a visual learner does not mean that there's anything more wrong with one's intellect than someone who is tone deaf or color blind. These are neurological functions having nothing, whatever, to do with IQ. Yet, these people have been caused to think themselves "dumb" or "disabled" or both. I recall one special case of a "learning disabled" adult, age 49. The son of a physician and five siblings all of whom had advanced degrees, this man came to us at grade one levels in reading; he could not write or spell at all. In six weeks (in a summer spelling camp with children, ages 7 and up), he was reading the newspaper fluently and understanding every word. In the 4th week, he was doing so well he enrolled in a teacher training seminar in which we were training 41 professional teachers. At the end of the class he addressed them to tell of his experiences as an adult illiterate. He began by saying, "This summer I have learned that letters have sounds. I never knew that before." Another 25-year-old came to our office accompanied by the janitor from his former highschool who had befriended him because "he couldn't learn to read." He had become handyman with his own truck and tools. His worst problem was trying to find the addresses of the people by whom he was employed. He couldn't read the street signs. Once he was almost arrested because he sat at a filling station for such a long time trying to figure out whether it said self service or not, the proprietor thought he was "casing the joint" for a pending robbery. He still lived with his parents. His janitor friend always helped him follow up on any possible opportunity to learn to read and they'd already been many places without success including the community colleges; he had graduated from highschool as a total non-reader. He didn't have any money to pay the tuition for the spelling camp so we exchanged some painting and fixing chores for his fee. He learned to read, write and spell almost immediately and, in six months had moved from his parents home and gotten a new truck. Later, a free-lance reporter wrote a story about him and his janitor friend; when she tried to get the Oregonian to print it, they were interested until they found out that Riggs had exchanged handiman work for the tuition (we are a totally self-supporting non-profit agency and we must pay our well-qualified teacher tutors). They said, "Well, gee, couldn't he find someone to do it for FREE?" He'd already been to the "freebie" groups who get all the money and press already, but they had failed to teach him (I think they don't know about multi-sensory instruction). So much for the press. We found a private tutor for another young lady, a brand-new, totally illiterate highschool graduate, age 18, who graduated totally unable to read her own diploma. She learned 54 (of the 70) Orton phonograms in the first 3 hour session and was reading at 6th grade levels in a few weeks. She was then taken to be examined by the Supt. of the school system from which she had graduated. He was a personal friend of her father. He was completely amazed and said, "I will put this system into this school; this is wonderful"! However, after the IRA and the NCTE people within his system found out and practiced on their anti-phonics testimony for the board, you know what happened. When boards are sued for these failures (and a little of this is beginning to happen here and there), they may be forced to become a little more knowledgeable. But, first we need to remove the political constraints, like state textbook adoption, which relieve them of their personal responsibilities. Isn't this what the principle of subsidiarity is all about? So, please, my primary message is: Don't be too hard on the parents who don't come forward; perhaps they cannot. However, conversely, as my mentor Oma Riggs would have said, as she fixed her eye firmly on the potential or past offender, "But, then, there are those of us who do something and don't." At 10:55 AM 12/26/97 -0800, sleeper@warwick.net wrote: >WitchyPooy wrote: > > >>The folks against me are very vocal, while the parents that agree with >me and what I am trying to do, and these are usually well informed folks >like those on this server, stand by and watch and wish things could be >different. How sad it is for me, when I ask them to run for the board >and come help me make change , and I get answers such as "its not worth >the hastle" , or "you can't change things anyway". > >And then someone else wrote: > >>"I am the only parent to show up at any of these board meetings." or something to that effect. > >In all the complaining about school boards and their 'willingness' to >allow certain things to happen to our childre, we are neglecting to >assign the blame to those others who have allowed it to happen: > >The Parents. > >Why do I say the parents? Because just like the other person who wrote, >in my area my husband and I were the only ones who bothered to show up >for any meetings. > >If the parents 'cannot make the time' to go to these meetings, 'cannot >make the time' to keep really informed about what is going on in their >childrens classrooms, 'cannot make the time' to read through their >childrens textbooks and/or journels, and can only 'find the time' to >complain when something 'really bad happenes' then whose fault is it, if >not theirs, for not finding the time? > >I am sure that those of our members that are on the boards, have like >me, heard every excuse as to why parents 'can not make the time', >'cannot find the time', 'have other proirities', or the most famous - >'you speak so much better than us' excuses! > >Ask yourselves and your friends just what is more important? Is not >your childrens education hence their future, more important than >anything else? > >Time is so important to our childrens education or lack there-of. >Time moves so quickly that before you know it your children are all >grown and moved away yet you still see them as if they were little ones, >for in our minds they always will remain. > >Here is a poem that I wrote to help me remember that even little >snatches of 'time' are very very important. > >I hope that all of you had a very merry holiday! >I hope that the New Year brings all that you wish for to you and yours! > >Sincerely yours, >Sleeper >*********************************************************************** >LOST MINUTES: > >As I sit here on the floor, gazing at your face. >With moonlight streaming from above, a silhouette you make. >I do recall with sadness now, what I said to you: >"Please wait. A minute now. I'm busy can't you see?" >"I'll be right there. Do hold on. Just a few more please!" > >And so you waited patiently, for time to pass at last. >How was I to know, that time would move so fast? >The minutes turned to years you see, the moments never came. >I missed the best years of your life, a minute at a time. >You have grown and moved away, of that I had no say. >You never asked, you just replied, "I'm busy can't you tell?" > >So I sit here on the floor, gazing at your face. >This picture I am holding, wet with tears of horrid shame! > >By C.A. Carroll >EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE > > Myrna McCulloch, Director, The Riggs Institute 4185 S.W. 102nd Avenue, Beaverton, Oregon, 97005 503-646-9459 fax 503-644-5191 http://www.riggsinst.org [100+ pages and two listservs] "An Equal and OPTIMAL Educational Opportunity Through Multi-Sensory Language Arts" Now linked to by: http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/ieo/bibs/phonics.html EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE