Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id eBEGxK929846; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 11:59:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 11:59:20 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <5DCA49BDD2B0D41186CE00508B6BEBD01B2D5C@WDCROBEXC01> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Crawford, June" <jcrawford@nifl.gov> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:326] RE: Cross-Posted from the NLA List: New Pe X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Status: O Content-Length: 7183 Lines: 139 Tom Sticht's comments are interesting. What does anyone think are the effects of multiple languages in making the difference in the scores on the ILS? June Justice Crawford Learning Disabilities Program Associate National Institute For Literacy 202-233-2064 Phone 202-233-2050 Fax jcrawford@nifl.gov -----Original Message----- From: Mary Ann Corley [mailto:macorley1@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:28 PM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:325] Cross-Posted from the NLA List: New Perspectives on Social Justice From the IALS FYI: The following Research Note by Tom Sticht is cross-posted from the NLA List ************************************** Research Note 12/13/00 >From International Competitiveness to International Inequality: New Perspectives on Social Justice From the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) On September 8 of this year, International Literacy Day, I attended ceremonies at the Library of Congress in which a new report on adult literacy was released and discussed. I think it is of interest to note that since then there has been little discussion of the report. This is unfortunate because the report takes a somewhat different stance with regard to the results of the International Adult Literacy Survey than has been reported in the past. Funded by the U. S. Department of Education, the report entitled Benchmarking Adult Literacy in America: An International Comparative Study, was authored by Albert Tuijnman of the Institute of International Education, Stockholm University. It is available for downloading at: http://www.ed.gov/offices/ovae/publicat.html and it has a publication date of September 2000 (it is also available at www.nald.ca under Full Text Documents). One of the major findings of interest to me in the Benchmarking report are the data for the literacy proficiency of the adult population aged 26-65. These data indicate that, for 21 nations, the United States' average literacy score was significantly better than 11 nations (including the United Kingdom and Switzerland), no different from 6 others (including Australia, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands) and statistically lower than only three nations-Finland, Norway and Sweden. For the population aged 16-25, the U. S. was no different from the United Kingdom, Italy, New Zealand, Ireland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Belgium (Flanders), though it scored lower on the average than Denmark, Australia, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland, but not by much. It seems to me that the foregoing is especially important given the concerns for global competitiveness that some policy-oriented reports have used to focus adult literacy education on workforce development. For instance, the influential Jump Start report of 1989 stated, "There is no way in which the United States can remain competitive in a global economy, maintain its standard of living, and shoulder the burden of the retirement of the baby boom generation unless we mount a forceful national effort to help adults upgrade their basic skills in the very near future (p.iii)." Yet now we find the U.S. pre-eminent in the global economy, with very low unemployment rates internally, and on a par with the world's leading economic western nations in terms of average adult literacy skills. Overall then, there is not much of a basis in the report for arguing that the U. S. is not economically competitive internationally because of low adult literacy. Hence such economically-based arguments are likely to be less influential in the foreseeable future for advocating for adult literacy education. Concerns for Inequality and Social Justice On the Rise When one looks in the Benchmarking report at the range of scores in each nation, there are clearly differences across nations in terms of the range of literacy scores between the lower scoring and higher scoring adults. There are large international differences in the variation among the adult populations within nations with regard to their literacy scores. The report makes a great deal about these inequalities among nations. The report creates an index of inequality in literacy for each of 22 nations by dividing the literacy scores of those at the 90th percentile by the scores of those at the 10th percentile. For the United States, the score of 183 (10th percentile) was divided into 355 (90th percentile) producing an inequality index of 1.9. For the adult population aged 26-65 years, the U. S. has a larger index of inequality than 14 of the 21 nations, and has less inequality in literacy only than Portugal, Poland, Slovena, Italy, and Chile. Only Canada and the U. S. are equal in their distributions of literacy and both of these nations have inequality indices that are not statistically different from the average inequality index computed using all 22 nations (1.8). Similar findings hold for the adult population aged 16-25, though in this case the U. S. has more inequality than in 13 other nations, including Canada. The report goes on to note that ".inequality in the range of literacy scores in North America is also among the highest of the nations surveyed. Especially in he United States, inequality in the distribution of literacy scores on the English test [that is, the NALS] used for the survey is strongly related to economic inequality measured by income differentials between households." It seems to me, then, that the emphasis of this recent report using IALS data is largely on the inequality of literacy among adults within nations, and the economic consequences of these differences in literacy for adults within a given nation. In many respects, this seems to be somewhat of a change in perspective from the concern for adult literacy as a factor in international competitiveness that has in large part driven the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, to a return to the concern for issues of poverty and the need for individuals to be economically competitive within our nation that led to the enactment of the adult basic education program as part of the War on Poverty's Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. In a sense, with this new report using IALS data, we seem to have gone back from the concerns with international competitiveness of A Nation at Risk of the 1980s and 1990s to the concerns for People at Risk of the 1960s. This might be a more fruitful stance for advocating for the full recognition of the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) as the third major, mainstream component of our nation's publicly supported educational structure (K-12, AELS, Higher Education,) for promoting the general health, welfare and prosperity of the nation. It might also augur well for placing workforce development in a more appropriate, tertiary position with regard to its importance as an outcome for adult education and for getting the WIA changed to the Adult Education, Literacy and Workforce Investment Act (AELWIA) when it next comes up for reconsideration. ********************************* Mary Ann Corley Director, National Center for Literacy and Social Justice macorley1@earthlink.net
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