Originally published by AMERICANSCAPEGOAT.COM
October 8, 2015
According to the CIA, the United States ranked 45th in the world in adult literacy in 2003. (That sounds alarming.) At the same time, 99% of American adults were deemed literate by the same intelligence experts. (That sounds reassuring.)
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 14% of American adults were below basic readers (that’s a euphemism for illiterate) in 2003. (That sounds alarming, and it’s also confusing because it seems to contradict the CIA’s figures.) To make matters worse, the National Center for Education Statistics claims that only 13% of American adults were/are (gosh, it’s old data) proficient readers. That means that 87% of American adults do not have strong reading skills. Those numbers would be scary if American adults preferred reading books to watching movies about superheroes or their childhood toys.
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