36% of people in Washington D.C. are functionally illiterate

[Ban Hammer 13,678]

DC? I don't need to look far from NJ. It's not only literacy but basic math too. There's something wrong when you have to help your waiter work out the amount of the bill...

Saw a lot of that in Britain also - around outer London where I used to live.

on my last business trip, i gave some gal $10 for some food and she had that deer in the headlights look while trying to figure out what my change was. i had to tell her what to give back to me.

[Lewis 0]

A massive problem that will take years and possibly decades to fix. Schools, parents, teachers, educational policies, and changing social values may all have roles in the illiteracy problem. IMO, if you are motivated enough to learn, you will find a way to do it while living in the U.S. In DC, the results could be skewed by the influx of new immigrants, as the article mentions.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I don't quite understand why schools are blamed for the mistakes of children. As I were growing up, my father would punish me severely by physically grabbing a metal chain and whipping me if I ever miss a school day. Or, if I ever come home with a report card less than an A-. Children nowadays are in a niche of comfort where they take things for granted. Time has changed. Maybe it's better for the children not be treated harshly as myself. But, everyone has to work together to make sure their kids are working hard as you want them to be. In college, there are many professors who are very bad at teaching. I learned everything through the book, and never paid attention to them. Learning is more of a self-expansion process more than having somebody teaching it to you.

All you need to do is make the children work harder. They have high standards so that the children will have high standards as well. If they goto the playground after school ends for the day, they're sacrificing study time. And, you're aware of the situation already that sacrificing study time can loose children ability to achieve high standards. I'm not tell anyone what to do, but, the blame is not on schools because it worked out for me. My parents kept me in check all the time.

[mybackpages 0]

So, damned if you do, damned if you don't? They need to pass kids to make people happy and they need to have high test scores. Where I went to high school, we had a sophomore year efficiency test and a graduation test. It was a public high school and you had to pass these tests to continue and to graduate. I thought it seemed like a good standard. Was this only my high school?

Lots of schools do this, but often the passing rate is merely 60% or 70% of a test that is minimum skills. Schools can claim high passing rates, but how many are barely passing what is a bare minimum skills test?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

We are much more stupider than we think.

[cbd2cai 0]

Well, I think there has been a failure in Texas . . . all these stupid tests, etc, so the teachers are forced to push the testing process instead of teaching.

FYI, I was reading about the come-back of the "wood shop" type classes in DISD (Dallas Independent School District) . . .

Seems like someone finally realised that not everyone wants to go to college and take college prep classes!! I wish I could find the article that talked about this but it must be "old" news.

[mybackpages 0]

We are much more stupider than we think.

Is our children learning?

[cbd2cai 0]

We are much more stupider than we think.

Is our children learning?

Yep, they's learning by example . . . but whose??

[lisaf 0]

None of this surprises me. Try advertising something on craigslist ( we've put an apartment, puppies etc) and see the replies you get. Not so bad if the person is obviously not a native english speaker, but when you get people in the medical \ educational fields who can barely string a sentence togther, its frightening. ...and sad.

[Anna C. 4]

I think children don't learn enough at high schools - I've talked to my relatives, hubbie of course and friends here in the United States. The requirements are so low - of course children won't learn anything if you don't demand them. The so-called AP classes are so easy compared to what we learned at my high school. And btw we had constant testing - at least 5 exams a week and the constant chance of being called by the teacher in front of the class to be asked about the current subject. It didn't do me any harm, I also had enough time to play and later to hang out with my friends.

I can see the "we cannot overstrain our chlidren" attitude in Germany as well - it has brought no good. When I was in first grade we learned all the alphabet within two weeks, now they take a whole year! Kids are so capable to learn things quickly in elementary school - it's a shame to waste that time!!! I never encountered violence from my parents nor were they unhappy when I brought home something worse than an A. They supported me and said well done if well done and said don't be sad if it wasn't an A.

(I know that the PISA test demands the German system to break up into a system likely to the US system. We currently have a very selective system. After elementary school kids either go to middle school or high school. Some people complain that this was too selective... I don't want to sacrifice the quality of high schools to get the lowest common denominator.)

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

In DC, the results could be skewed by the influx of new immigrants, as the article mentions.

Exactly, we're talking about functional illiteracy here. Reading a map or bus schedule, were two of the examples given. It is not something that easy to learn for people that grew up without ever being exposed to either. Filling out job applications is another one of those items that recent immigrants just aren't familiar with. The DC area is much of a transit station for recent immigrants meaning that you'll always have lots of new arrivals around there that will move away by the time they know how to handle some or all of those things. That will skew any such statistic quite a bit. I personally know tons of Ethiopians that lived in the DC area for the first few years in the US to then move to a place that's not quite as expensive to live.

[Jenn! 918]

I think one of the biggest problems is lack of proper tracking. Everyone wants their kid in the honors class, even if they don't deserve to be there, so they make a big stink until they get their way. I think kids should be tracked from pretty early on. Bright kids aren't progressing up to their potential because too much time is spent focusing on the kids who need more help and a slower pace.

[Boiler 46,322]

You can graduate High School in Denver without knowing any English....

Unfortunately the system is going down the tube and I have no idea how it can be turned around without a major meltdown first.

[ace13 0]

You can graduate High School in Denver without knowing any English....

Unfortunately the system is going down the tube and I have no idea how it can be turned around without a major meltdown first.

no way

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I would guess that Washing DC has the highest per capita education expenditures too. Just a guess.