Question above is pretty blunt but was doing a study for a college course and came across that stat. How is that possible? My high school sucked but I was well equipped even with that sub standard level of education for college. Obviously income is a thing but to think 1 out of 5 American adults is categorized as illiterate is…astounding. Now poor media literacy I get, but not this. Edit: this was from a department of education report from 2022. Just incase people are curious where that comes from. It does also specify as literate in English so maybe not as grim as I thought.
It’s not just that. It’s not understanding words either. One example that Annoys me to no end is when I tell someone to flip a card over and they rotate it. This is in a upper middle class neighborhood. ( Just to be clear on the definition a card being rotated turns around the y-axis. Fliping a card rotates it around it’s z-axis) while the issue is clearly there it’s a bit more complicated than bad schools clearly.