20% of high school graduates are 'barely literate'

One in four young adults -- and 20 percent of high school graduates -- are "functionally illiterate," writes Jessika Harkay on The 74, citing federal data. They can understand simple, short texts. They can read a restaurant menu. But they can't understand longer or more complex writing.

School closures during the pandemic is partly to blame, say researchers. They also see "troubling trends," writes Harkay. They see "students increasingly passed through their school years without acquiring needed skills, a disconnect with curriculum — and a changing standard of what level of literacy is needed now that technology can provide information without most people having to think twice about it."

"Understanding and critically questioning" writing “for sure is gone for the majority of the adult population," said Limor Pinhasi-Vittorio, a literacy specialist at Lehman College in the Bronx.

Nearly all states have passed laws calling for evidence-based reading instruction, writes Harkay. There are signs of success for K-3 students. But older students who've fallen behind rarely catch up.

In counties across the country, the majority of high school graduates are reading at the lowest literacy level or below.

Students "get pushed along," says Sharon Bonney, chief executive officer of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education. They get stuck at low-level, low-paying jobs. People who "can't read, write, speak the language or do math . . . can't be skilled up."

Some want to adapt the assessments to fit the times. Is reading more than a paragraph an obsolete skill in the age of TikTok and AI?

"The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which was last changed in 2004, is expected to roll out a new framework in 2026 to better measure literacy in different subject areas and disaggregate data further based on student background," reports Harkay.

Blame the slide toward illiteracy on declining standards and low expectations, writes Idrees Kahloon in The Atlantic. Smartphones aren't the major factor, he argues. Elementary students, who are far less likely to have phones, are sliding too. And inflation-adjusted school spending has been increasing while test scores declined.

Low-expectations theory explains why grades and graduation rates are going up, even as academic achievement declines, Kahloon writes. Schools expect less and get less.

"One in four students today is chronically absent, meaning that they miss more than a tenth of instructional days, a substantial increase from pre-pandemic averages," he writes. Many schools have shifted from excellence to "equity." For example, "roughly 40 percent of middle-school teachers work in schools where there are no late penalties for coursework, no zeroes for missing coursework, and unlimited redos of tests." It's supposed to be fairer.

Kahloon wants Democrats to learn from the success of fast-improving southern states and high-performing charter networks, and reconsider their opposition to merit-based pay systems for teachers. There's no equity without literacy, and that means more than knowing the difference between "hamburger" and "ham sandwich."