A rebuttal to the previous post...

A number of newspaper articles have announced yet another "decline in literacy." This time it's adults, who, it is claimed, have dropped in literacy between 1992 and 2003, with a greater percentage lacking basic literacy.
This has resulted in the usual pious pronouncements about the low quality of our schools, our teachers, and poor teaching methods at all levels. Education Secretary Spellings, for example, was quoted in USA Today as saying that adult literacy programs are "inefficient" and "not using research-based methods" (January 8, 2008).
A look at the actual report shows that these conclusions are completely unjustified.
In 1992, only 24,000 adults in 11 states were actually tested on literacy. In 2003, only 18,500 adults in seven states were tested on literacy, a tiny percentage of the population. Researchers then gathered data on factors known to be connected to literacy, factors such as poverty levels, level of education, and minority status. They then used this data to make an educated guess about levels of literacy for the rest of the population.
In other words, one or more of the values of the predictors changed between 1992 and 2003 (the report does not specify which predictors have changed or how much). The change in the values of the predictors is undoubtedly the major reason for the "decline" of literacy that was reported. Literacy wasn't actually measured for most of the country.
The estimates of adult literacy are probably fairly accurate, and the value of the study is that it gives planners of adult literacy programs some idea of what they are up against.
The study does not, however, tell us whether schools are improving or getting worse, or whether one method of teaching reading is better than another, or whether teachers in general are better or worse than they were. All we really know from the study is that some things have changed between 1993 and 2003, factors that have nothing to do with teaching methods and teachers.
Critics should not blame schools for factors that have nothing to do with schools.
Posted by: STEPHEN KRASHEN January 14, 2009 at 03:49 PM