Illiteracy deserves more informed examination

I would like to correct Cory Barker’s opinion piece titled “Can You Read This?” that was published in Wednesday’s IDS.

In the column, I believe Barker misinterprets the findings from 2003’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

The main figure from Barker’s argument – that “one in seven adults in the United States is illiterate” – is misleading, mostly because it is not true.

While it is true that, according to the study most likely cited, roughly 30 million adult Americans possess “below basic” literacy skills, “below basic” is defined by the NAAL as “no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills.” Therefore, not everyone with “below basic” literacy is completely illiterate. According to the study, only 11 million adults in the United States qualify as “nonliterate,” either because of the inability to answer even the most basic test questions or because of “language barriers.” By my own calculation, this means that about one in 20 – not one in seven – adults are illiterate.

In addition, I think it would be pertinent to address the issue of language barriers. The NAAL was an exam measuring English literacy. While respondents had the option of receiving some instructions in Spanish and were even allowed to respond to certain test questions in Spanish, the test itself was in English and was designed to measure the respondent’s ability to comprehend and use English in everyday life. So there may be an additional portion of the population that is indeed literate – just not in English.

This letter is not in defense of illiteracy. In fact, I share Barker’s concern for the state of our educational system.

But I was disappointed with Barker’s lack of competent research. He seemed to pull statistics out of midair, even to the detriment of his own argument. For instance, he claims that literacy is “said to be near 99 percent,” then proceeds to express incredulity over the discrepancy with his one-in-seven statistic.

Such anomalies should raise a journalistic red flag and be questioned, not simply bemoaned. This topic deserves better reporting.

Ryan Cunningham
IU junior