Summary

A new survey by the National Center for Education Statistics reveals that 28% of U.S. adults perform at the lowest levels of literacy, up from 19% in 2017, with a growing gap between top-skilled and lowest-skilled individuals.

The Survey of Adult Skills, which compares literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving abilities across over two dozen countries, found the U.S. remained average as many nations experienced similar declines.

NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr noted these low scores indicate functional illiteracy, affecting basic life and work tasks, though the exact causes of the decline remain unclear.

  • @NarrativeBear
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    281 day ago

    This is by design, a dumber population is easier to control by the few.

    A educated population is beneficial to society as a whole.

    • @kmartburrito
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      101 day ago

      That’s why the Dept of Education is getting dismantled in the next four years and returning it “back to the states” so that they can privatize things and profit from it.

      Damn it feels good to be a gangsta billionaire

  • @ieatpwns
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    191 day ago

    “No child left behind or whatever”

    -George bush circa 2000s more likely than not

    • @RagingRobot
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      517 hours ago

      all the other kids were waiting for one of them to learn to read so they all couldn’t move on and now no one can read lol

    • @njm1314
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      211 day ago

      Seems to indicate this is a universal problem not just the United States problem.

      • @ChicoSuave
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        161 day ago

        The rise of right wing politics with it is no coincidence.

        • @[email protected]
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          218 hours ago

          The isolation during the pandemic has been proven to have affected kid’s education as well.

  • @gnomesaiyan
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    131 day ago

    All of the people online that were getting chastised for correcting spelling and grammar left the Internet. Misspelled memes became a thing, and now everyone’s fucking retarded. Eating Tiktok for breakfast and shitting Twitter by lunchtime. This fucking species, I swear.

    Alien overlords, AI emergence, a fucking ELE asteroid, I’ll take anything over this Onion of a planet.

    • @[email protected]
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      211 hours ago

      Lol imagine thinking the reason education is failing is because not enough grammar Nazis are online lol

      No wonder y’all are 1/4 illiterate.

      • @gnomesaiyan
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        29 hours ago

        Imagine using ‘lol’ to start and finish a sentence. I award you the obligatory dunce cap. Go sit in the corner.

  • Blackout
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    81 day ago

    Can someone record themselves reading this article and send me a link?

  • @foggy
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    112 days ago

    Gonna get worse.

  • Optional
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    92 days ago

    And as for media literacy? Negative numbers.

  • MrSilkworm
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    51 day ago

    The movie idiocracy is turning from a comedy to a documentary!

  • JackFrostNCola
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    41 day ago

    Financial literacy question #1: how does a tariff work?

  • partial_accumen
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    82 days ago

    There was a similar story posted here on Lemmy about a month ago. On that one it was referring to English literacy only without any regard to other languages.

    The article linked here doesn’t like to the actual study, so I can’t see if its the same thing here.

    • @MySkinIsFallingOff
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      11 day ago

      I mean the numbers here seem very high across the board. I’m Norwegian, and I can’t imagine the numbers for our illiteracy to Norwegian being anywhere near that high. It would make sense for the number there to be in regards to English, both for my country and the others there.

      • @captainlezbian
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        112 hours ago

        Someone posted a chart and it looks like Norwegens are just real good at readin. Seriously though, I’m shocked too as an American. I just assume everyone around me can read except when I’m reminded of our illiteracy problem

  • @reddig33
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    11 day ago

    I wonder how many of these people went to public school in the US? How many are native English speakers?

      • @reddig33
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        71 day ago

        Or homeschooled? It would be interesting to see where the illiterate people are coming from. Id like to know where the failure points are.

        • Drusas
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          31 day ago

          I used to work in a school at a correctional facility for incarcerated teenagers and almost all of them were homeschooled. Many of them could barely read, fewer than 10% could write a coherent statement, and almost none of them had even basic math skills.