Another Huffington Post Article says that the illiteracy rate is just as high as it was ten years ago. That's true. I was told a few days ago in an email from Leslie Gelders, former president of the Oklahoma Literacy Coalition and current Literacy Administrator at the Oklahoma Literacy Resource Office that "it's generally accepted that literacy hasn't changed much in the last decade." That's sad. This is corroborated by an April 2015 U.S. Department of Education National Institute of Literacy poll. 32,000,000 American adults can't read. 70% of prison inmates can't read. Lots of Oklahomans can't read either.
According to the State Assessment of Adult Literacy, an estimated 12% of Oklahoma adults can't read at the basic level. That's close to half a million people. The last time this assessment was executed was 2003 -- the time before that -- 1992. Ascertaining literacy levels is difficult, to be sure. Leslie Gelders, again, the Literacy Administrator at the Literacy Resource Office, was very helpful in explaining the troubles posed by these estimate attempts. The dropout rates can be used as indicators, but, Gelders reminds us, many of those who drop out are literate, and more scary still, many of those who graduate are illiterate. It was true a while ago, and it's just as true now. There are too many colors on the above map, nearly a continuous gradient, to actually distinguish carefully between any two percentage points. But that's not what's important. The information in this map is impressionistic -- and very evocative. What you can notice -- and what really matters -- is that the map is darker than it is lighter; that there are some counties where about 1/4 or 1/5 or the adults are illiterate; at that only 4 of our 77 counties are at the lowest illiteracy percentage point -- 8% -- which is actually higher than the entire state average of Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Let's keep things in perspective a little though, and avoid getting carried away. Our illiteracy rate of 12% is at the national average, and our GSP (the states version of GDP) per capita is much lower than the national average. Also we ought to keep in mind the fickle methods employed to ascertain illiteracy rates. These things are hard to pin down, really hard. One of the big complications to the estimate is its incorporation of recent immigrants to the United States, whose populations are increasing, especially in the region that includes Oklahoma, and who are more likely to be less literate in English. This is not to say that we don't have a crisis on our hands, nor to excuse our abysmal literacy rates, merely to temper and refine our approach to the problems. Those problems extend beyond the realm of adult literacy, though, and have insinuated themselves into the public school system, especially that of Oklahoma.
Let's keep things in perspective a little though, and avoid getting carried away. Our illiteracy rate of 12% is at the national average, and our GSP (the states version of GDP) per capita is much lower than the national average. Also we ought to keep in mind the fickle methods employed to ascertain illiteracy rates. These things are hard to pin down, really hard. One of the big complications to the estimate is its incorporation of recent immigrants to the United States, whose populations are increasing, especially in the region that includes Oklahoma, and who are more likely to be less literate in English. This is not to say that we don't have a crisis on our hands, nor to excuse our abysmal literacy rates, merely to temper and refine our approach to the problems. Those problems extend beyond the realm of adult literacy, though, and have insinuated themselves into the public school system, especially that of Oklahoma.