Literacy Facts and Information

About This Site

This site lists information about adult literacy and education in Virginia and the United States. Links are listed in categories in the pages above. Additional links sit in the two side bars as well.

If you have any questions and you belong to an adult education and literacy organization in Virginia, please don’t hesitate to contact the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center for clarification.

Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center

Address: 3600 W. Broad St. Suite 669,

P.O. Box 842037,

Richmond, VA 23230-4930

Phone: (804) 828-6521 or (800) 237-0178

Email: contact@valrc.org

Young GED Examinees and Their Performance on GED Tests

GED Testing Service has released the research study, Young GED Examinees and Their Performance on the GED Tests.

This study provides a comprehensive picture of GED examinees between 16 and 19 years old. What are their characteristics and how do state policies on minimum age influence their test performance? Study results show that younger GED examinees needing additional documentation and approval before testing performed comparably to examinees at the states’ standard minimum age. States with stricter age requirements may possibly encourage early test-takers to thoroughly prepare. In addition, the study suggests that taking and passing a practice test has a positive association with obtaining a GED credential. –GED Testing Service

The full report can be found on the GED Testing Service web site at this link: http://www.acenet.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ged/pubs/gedts_research.htm.

2007 Fact Sheet from ProLiteracy America

Fact Sheet from Verizon Thinkfinity:

This 2007 fact sheet includes quick facts and statistics about adult literacy from Proliteracy America.

Taken altogether, the NAAL report indicated that up to 93 million adults in the U.S. would benefit from additional literacy instruction.

State and County Estimates of Low Literacy

This link will lead you to 2003 estimates of low literacy in adults 16 years and older in counties and cities in Virginia. The information is more recent than the Stephen Reder Synthetic Estimates, which were based on the 1990 census.

Health Literacy Facts

1. 88% of American adults have health literacy skill below the “proficient” level. This means that they cannot…

• Find the information needed to define a medical term in a complex document.

• Judge information to decide which legal document applies to a certain health care situation.

• Calculate a person’s share of health insurance costs for a year using a table based on income and family size.

(Source: The Health Literacy of America’s Adults: Results from the 2003
National Assessment of Adult Literacy)

2. The estimated added annual cost to the health care system due to low health literacy: $106-238 Billion

(Source: Low Health Literacy: Implications for National Health Policy
Vernon, J. Trujillo, A. Rosenbaum, S. DeBuono, B. October 2007)

(Image Source: Strategies to Improve Communications Between Pharmacy Staff and Patients, downloaded 12-3-08 from: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/pharmlit/pharmtrain2.htm)

Graduation Rates Map

The EPE Research Center at EdWeek.org offers an interactive graduation rates map of the United States. You can quickly find statistics about your region and district by entering information in the fields at the left. The second image shows graduation rates for Richmond City. When you click on report on the drop down menu, you will receive a detailed 7-page report about your particular area. Click here to enter the site.

First page of site

Richmond map

Adult Learning in Focus: National and State by State Data

Adult Learning in Focus: National and State-by-State Data

State policymakers care now, perhaps more than ever before, about the educational attainment of their states’ working populations. They also care about the responsiveness of educational systems in their states to the needs of adult learners. But relatively few have the data they need to understand how their states are doing in developing and educating its citizens.

In Adult Learning in Focus: National and State-by-State Data, CAEL has teamed with the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) to provide states with the information needed to assess state performance on adult learning and identify where to direct future strategies.

Pdf of full report

This comprehensive report contains national and state-by-state data on adult learning. Included are data and comparative charts on adult educational attainment, adult learning participation, affordability, accessibility and aspiration. Also discussed are data gaps that need to be addressed and next steps for state education leaders.

Youth Statistics

The National Youth Employment Coalition provides some startling statistics, such as:

Every day, an estimated 2,500 students across the nation drop out of high school. (Keith Melville, The School Dropout Crisis, The University of Richmond Pew Partnership for Civic Change, 2006, 1, http://www.pew-partnership.org/pdf/dropout_overview.pdf)

Click on the above two links to learn more about this dire situation.

Shining a Light on Virginia’s Adult Literacy Crisis

Virginia Issues and Answers (www.via.vt.edu), a public policy journal published by Virginia Tech, has just released its summer issue, focusing on literacy.

The feature story, Virginia’s Not-So-Hidden Secret: The Adult Literacy Crisis, was written by Resource Center staff members Victoire Gerkens Sanborn and Hillary Major. The article highlights national and state statistics which reveal that more than 2 million adults in Virginia struggle with basic or below basic literacy skills.

To download the article and find information you can share with your local legislators, community leaders, funders, potential funders, and colleagues, click here or go to:

http://www.via.vt.edu/summer08/feature2.pdf.

We encourage you to download the full article to distribute to your community leaders.

Overcoming the Crisis in Our Nation’s Workforce

DVD’s Available of the Report: Reach Higher America: Overcoming Crisis in the U.S. Workforce

The National Commission on Adult Literacy’s recently published report, Reach Higher, AMERICA: Overcoming Crisis in the U.S. Workforce, calls for a dramatically revamped service system with the capacity to effectively serve 20 million adults annually by the year 2020. It also calls for resetting the educational mission of this new system to demonstrated readiness for postsecondary education and job training.

The panel presentation and Q&A are now available in 5 short DVD segments from the Commission’s website: www.nationalcommissiononadultliteracy.org. Go to the Get Reports page and scroll to the bottom for the link. You will be able to view the segments on both PC and Mac platforms with current Flash or QuickTime players.

Note that the full DVD can also be purchased from CAAL for a nominal sum (contact bheitner@caalusa.org for instructions and cost).

U.S. Census Update for Virginia: 2006 – 2007

Double click on the image for a larger view:

Finding American Community Survey Data in American FactFinder:

• Click on this link (http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en)
• For the New User: Type in your city/town or county to access a fact sheet with the newest data from ACS. Fact sheets have selected general, social, economic, and housing characteristics. The fact sheet defaults to the latest data available for the geographic area. There are 2006 data available for population areas over 65,000. Additional tables and maps are available in the people and housing sections.
• For the experienced User: Experienced users will want to go straight to the detailed results of the ACS by accessing Data Sets then American Community Survey.
  • Data Profiles - Highlights demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics along with a narrative summary for all geographies.
  • Selected Population Profiles – View highlighted characteristics for race, ethnic, and ancestry groups that meet a population threshold a the national and state levels.
  • Ranking Tables – compare key indicators across available states.
  • Subject Tables – See more detail on frequently requested information for a single geographic area.
  • Detailed Tables – Access hundreds of data tables indexed by topic and available geography.
  • Geographic Comparison Tables - Compare data across available geographies in the same table (i.e., all the available counties in a state by topic).
  • Thematic Maps – Develop customized maps that reveal geographic data patterns for dozens of themes
  • Reference Maps - View boundaries and identifiers of a selected geographic area.
  • Download Center - Download up to 50 selected tables or whole data sets where available.

Regional Office Contact: Charlotte – 1-800 – 331 -7360

Wayne Hatcher, 704-424-6400

or contact the Census Bureau’s Customer Services Center at 301-763-INFO or 1-800-923-8282

Technology

Online Usage Statistics

Sharing Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World is filled with information, graphs, and statistics about online usage and searches. The following graphs show internet use by age and activities. Click on the link above for more detailed information (this 280 page PDF document takes a long time to download). Double click on the images below for the full size:

Workforce Report

The National Commission on Adult Literacy

published its final report, Reach Higher America: Overcoming Crisis in the U.S. Workforce, in June, 2008.

REACH HIGHER, AMERICA, the report of the National Commission on Adult Literacy, was released at a public event in Washington, DC, on June 26. The report documents the adult education and skills crisis facing American workers, proposes a fundamentally new approach to adult basic education and workforce skills preparation in America, and lays out the fiscal and social benefits that will result from substantially increased public expenditures for programs and services. Focus is on the need of the unemployed, low-skilled incumbent workers, immigrants with limited or no English, parents or caregivers with low basic skills, incarcerated adults, high school dropouts, and high school graduates not adequately prepared for college.

Among other things, the Commission recommends transforming the current system, which reaches about 3 million adults annually, into an adult education and workforce skills system with the capacity to enroll 20 million adults by the year 2020 and a mission of moving adults to readiness for postsecondary education and job training. The report offers a kind of “domestic Marshall plan” for meeting workforce education needs-including bold recommendations for state government, business and labor, philanthropy, and the general public. A clear message of the report is that unless the nation gives much higher priority to the basic educational needs of the workforce-adults 16 and older beyond the reach of the schools-America’s standard of living, its status as a leading world power, and its very social fabric will be further eroded. This important report and various related materials are available in PDF from the Commission’s website.

Instructions are given there for purchase of hard copies.

Virginia Fact Sheet

STATS for Virginia

This comprehensive site from STATS Indiana offers demographic profiles of USA states and counties. Click here to enter the page, then select Virginia from the drop down menu. You may then select a particular county. The information below is for Virginia. Note that our national rankings are included, but they are not live links. You will need to go to the site for additional information.

Family Literacy

Family Factors Critical to Closing the Achievement Gap

A press release announcing the 2007 ETS report: The Family, America’s Smallest School, summarizes important statistical information about developmental reading:

The Family: America’s Smallest School examines the family and home experiences that influence children’s learning. Factors include single parent families, poverty and resources, parents talking and reading to children, quality day care, and parental involvement in school. The report was written by Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley of ETS’s Policy Information Center. It includes a preface and endorsement by Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League.

“When parents, teachers and schools work together to support learning, students do better in school and stay in school longer,” says Barton. “Our analysis shows that factors like single-parent families, parents reading to children, hours spent watching television and school absences, when combined, account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores.”

Findings in the report show that:

• Thirty-two percent of U.S. children live in single-parent homes, up from 23% in 1980.
• Thirty-three percent of children live in families in which no parent has a full-time, year-round job.
• By age 4, children of professional families hear 35 million more words than children of parents on welfare.
• Half of the nation’s two-year-olds are in some kind of regular day care. Seventy-five percent are in center-based day care rated of medium- or low-quality.
• A comparison of eighth-graders in 45 countries found that U.S. students spend less time reading books for enjoyment — and more time watching television and videos —than students in many other countries.

Other highlights from the report include:

• Forty-four percent of births to women under 30 are out-of-wedlock.
• Nationally, 11 percent of all households are “food insecure.” The rate for female-headed households is triple the rate for married families.
• Sixty-two percent of high SES kindergartners are read to every day by their parents, compared to 36 percent of kindergartners from low SES groups.
• One in five students misses three days or more of school a month. The United States ranked 25th of 45 countries in students’ school attendance.

“The important educational role of parents is often overlooked in our local, state, and national discussions about raising student achievement and closing achievement gaps,” notes Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and former mayor of New Orleans.

Download the full report, “The Family: America’s Smallest School,” for free at www.ets.org/familyreport. Purchase copies for $15 (prepaid) by writing to the Policy Information Center, ETS, MS 19-R, Rosedale Road, Princeton, NJ 08541-0001; by calling (609) 734-5949; or by sending an e-mail to pic@ets.org.

About ETS

ETS celebrates a 60-year history of advancing quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide. Additional information is available at www.ets.org.