Literacy Texas

Literacy Facts

     
• 3.8 million people in Texas need the services of an adult education program, but only 100,000 are being served (TWIC 2010, A Primer on Adult Education in Texas).
           
• Of the 93 million adults in the U.S. functioning at or below basic levels of literacy, 30 million are the parents or primary caregivers of children ages 0-8 (National Center for Family Literacy Fact Sheet).
• Texas has slipped from 45th to last among states ranked by percent for citizens in 2005—age 25 and older—who have a high school diploma or GED (Murdock, 2007).
• You can find the illiteracy rate in your Texas county at http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/docs/09illitmap.html.
• Dropouts Cost Texas $9.6 Billion (United Ways of Texas)
• One in three adults cannot read this sentence.(National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
• The U.S. Census Bureau reports that “adults 18 and older with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $79,946, while those with less than a high school diploma earned about $19,915.” Adults with a “bachelor’s degree earned an average of $54,689 in 2005 while those with a high school diploma earned $29,448.” (Census Bureau, 2007)
• Low health literacy was the top predictor of mortality after smoking, also surpassing income and years of education, the study showed. Most of the difference in mortality among people with inadequate literacy was due to higher rates of death from cardiovascular disease.” (Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 2007)
• Adult low literacy can be connected to almost every socio-economic issue in the United States:
1. More than 60 percent of all state and federal corrections inmates can barely read and write.
2. Low health literacy costs between $106 billion and $238 billion each year in the U.S. — 7 to 17 percent of all annual personal health care spending.
3. Low literacy’s effects cost the U.S. $225 billion or more each year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime, and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment. (ProLiteracy)
• Low Health Literacy Skills Increase Annual Health Care Expenditures by $73 Billion (National Academy on an Aging Society)
• 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
• Correctional populations report lower educational attainment than do those in the general population.  An estimated 40% of State prison inmates, 27% of Federal inmates, 47% of inmates in local jails and 31% of those serving probation sentences had not completed high school or its equivalent while about 18% of the general population failed to attain high school graduation.  (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report 4/15/03 - Education and Corrections Populations - full report attached.)
• As the education level of adults improves, so does their children’s success in school. Helping low-literate adults improve their basic skills has a direct and measurable impact on both the education and quality of life of their children. (National Institute for Literacy)
• Better educated citizens pay more in taxes.  In 2003, household headed by adults who never attended college equaled 47% of all US households, yet generated just 25% of all federal individual income taxes.  In contrast, individuals with bachelor’s degrees made up 27% of all households and paid 51% of all federal income taxes.  (Investing Wisely in Adult Learning is Key to State Prosperity, Southern Regional Education Board, 2005)

• 50% of the chronically unemployed are not functionally literate.
  (U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, Presentation: Dr. Susan Sclafani, April 2005)

• According to the 2008 American Community Survey, Texas ranked 51st, for its proportion of residents with a high school education, which fell to 79.6 percent.  Texas dropped one spot in the rankings from 2008 to 2007, being surpassed by Mississippi.
• A rise in of 1% in literacy scores leads to a 2.5% rise in labor productivity and a 1.5% rise in GDP.  (The Economist, August 28, 2004)
• Raising literacy and numeracy for people at the bottom of the skills distribution is more important to economic growth than producing more highly skilled graduates. (2005 C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, “Public Investment in skills: Are Canadian Governments Doing Enough?” by Serge Coulombe and Jean-Francois Tremblay)
• Today one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women while 75 million children are out of school. Since its founding in 1946, UNESCO has been at the forefront of global literacy efforts and is dedicated to keeping literacy high on national, regional and international agendas. However, with some 776 million adults lacking minimum literacy skills, literacy for all remains an elusive target.
• Literacy programs in Texas are only serving 3.6% of the 3.8 million in need of adult basic education services. (Texas LEARNS, April 2005)
• One in three adults cannot read this sentence. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)




• 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)

• People with low functional health literacy are less likely to understand written and oral information given by physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and insurers. (Center for Health Care Strategies,
  www.chcs.org)

• Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.” Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level. (www.begintoread.com)
• Reading is absolutely fundamental. It’s almost trite to say that. But in our society, the inability to be fluent consigns children to failure in school and consigns adults to the lowest strata of job and life opportunities. (Dr. Grover Whitehurst, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education - Director, Institute of Education Sciences; Children of the Code interview, 2008)
• Adults with ability to perform challenging and complex reading tasks made an average yearly salary of $50,700 in 2003. That is $28,000 more than those who lacked basic skills. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
• Workers 18 and over with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915; those without a high school diploma average $18,734.  (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005)
• Literacy programs in Texas are only serving 3.6% of the 3.8 million in need of adult basic education services. (Texas LEARNS, April 2005)
• A higher percentage of men (by a margin of 4 percentage points) than women have Below Basic health literacy. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
• 93 million American adults, or 45% of the adult population, have limited reading, writing, and math skills.  (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
• A rise in of 1% in literacy scores leads to a 2.5% rise in labor productivity and a 1.5% rise in GDP per person.  (The Economist, August 28, 2004)
• The health care industry estimates $73 billion per year of unnecessary health care expenses attributable to poor literacy.  (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Statistics, 2004)




• Six of the ten fastest growing occupations listed by the US Department of labor in its employment projections through 2012 require an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. (U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, 2004)
• Medication errors—many as the result of misread or misunderstood prescription labels—are the most common medical mistakes causing up to 7,000 deaths each year. (2005 White House Conference on Aging)
• An estimated 771 million adults, one-fifth of the world’s population, do not have the ability to read and write, with understanding, a short, simple sentence about one’s own life. (UNESCO, 2006)
• The percentage of adults age 25 or older who reported having read a novel, short story, play, or poem in the past 12 months decreased between 1982 and 2002. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005)
• In the 2003 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey, the United States outperformed Italy in literacy and numeracy, but was outperformed by Bermuda, Canada, Norway, and Switzerland in both skill areas. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005)
• There are 3.8 million adults in Texas without a high school diploma. (Texas LEARNS, 2005)




• Texas ranks 47 out 50 states, in terms of English literacy levels. (U.S. Department of Education)
• Texas has 6.5 million residents who speak a language other than English at home, almost double the national percentage, composing 38.6% of the Texas population. (Texas LEARNS, 2005)
• An estimated 11 million adults in the U.S. are nonliterate in English. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)