A New Year Alert: Americans Cannot Read
January 1, 2025
The United States is a large country with a self-contained nature. Because of its monolith status, the United States is very isolated. The rest of the world views the US as a stupid country and NBC News shares evidence to that statement: “Survey: Growing Number Of U.S. Adults Lack Literacy Skills.” The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that the gap between high-skilled readers and kid-skilled immensely increased from 19% in 2017 to 28% in 2023.
The substantial difference doesn’t bode well for the US, but when it is compared to the countries the US faired well. The US’s scores stayed even according to the Survey of Adult Skills. This test surveyed over two dozen countries and many of them are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The survey measures the working-age population’s literacy, number, and problem-solving skills. Most of the countries, including European and Asian countries, had comparable results to the US.
The greatest surprises were that Japan saw a 4% increase from 5% to 9%, England remained the same at 17%, Singapore jumped from 26% to 30%, Germany saw a spike from 18% to 20%. The biggest changes were in South Korea and Lithuania. Both countries went from the teens to thirty percent or higher.
This doesn’t mean the US and other nations are idiots (arguably):
“Low scores don’t equal illiteracy, [NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr] said — the closest the survey comes to that is measuring those who could be called functionally illiterate, which is the inability to read or write at a level at which you’re able to handle basic living and workplace tasks.
Asked what could be causing the adult literacy decline in the U.S., Carr said, ’It is difficult to say.’”
The Internet and lack of reading is the cause, dingbat!
Whitney Grace, January 1, 2025
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