The State of Adolescent Literacy Today

Why Adolescent Literacy Matters

"Only in popular education can man erect the structure of an enduring civilization." — Andrew Carnegie (President, Carnegie Corporation, 1911-1919) "We don't even know what skills may be needed in the years ahead. That is why we must train our young people in the fundamental fields of knowledge, and equip them to understand and cope with change. That is why we must give them the critical qualities of mind and durable qualities of character that will serve them in circumstances we cannot now even predict." — John Gardner (President, Carnegie Corporation, 1955-67)1

Suggested Reading Anne Grosse de León. "The Urban High School’s Challenge: Ensuring Literacy for Every Child." New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2002. Lucy Hood. High School Students at Risk: the Challenge of Dropouts and Pushouts. New York: Carnegie, 2004. Andrés Henríquez. "The Role of Nonprofit Organizations in State and Local High School Reform Efforts." Oral testimony submitted to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Education Reform, June 9, 2005.

Carnegie Corporation of New York has, from its very beginning, believed that a solid education system is the bedrock of any great society. In his 1971 annual report, Alan Pifer, then President of Carnegie Corporation of New York, asked of the American educational system: “Are these institutions serving the best interests of the people? Are they adequately accountable? Have they kept in step with the needs of the times?”²

Thirty five years later, alarmed that the answer to Pifer’s questions was still a resounding “not yet,” Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian promised that Carnegie Corporation “will do what it takes to ensure that the appalling [dropout] rate of 3,000 a day quickly becomes one of those shameful memories in American history that we are all eager to forget. What does America’s magnificent legacy of free, universal public elementary and secondary education mean if we fail to provide every American child with the reading and writing skills they need to succeed in higher education, to become productive citizens in the workplace — and, dare I say it — to fulfill their own happiness?”³

In the past decades, significant progress has been made in literacy education for students in kindergarten through third grade, but there has been notably less importance placed on, and consequently less progress and investment made in, literacy education for older students.

In their 2004 report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy, Harvard Graduate School of Education professors Gina Biancarosa and Dr. Catherine Snow write that a focus on early literacy training alone cannot prepare students for the demands of higher education:

“It is clear that getting third graders to read at grade level is an important and challenging task, and one that needs ongoing attention from researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and parents. But many excellent third-grade readers will falter or fail in later-grade academic tasks if the teaching of reading is neglected in the middle and secondary grades.”⁴

In Standards for Middle and High School Literacy Coaches, a 2006 report funded by Carnegie Corporation’s Advancing Literacy program, researchers explain why elementary literacy is not sufficient preparation for today’s job market:

“In past years, literacy was limited to the ability to read and understand a simple document and write one’s name on a contract. Literacy demands in today’s workplace have accelerated. High school graduates are required to interpret a wide range of reference materials: journal articles, memoranda, and other documents that may contain technical information, including intricate charts and graphs. Increasingly, they are expected to judge the credibility of sources, evaluate arguments, develop and defend their own conclusions, and convey complex information in ways that will either advance scholarship in a discipline or contribute to workplace productivity- skills well beyond the reach of poor readers.”⁵

In other words, poor literacy among adolescents is in no way an isolated, academic problem, but rather one that will affects young people and society as a whole for years to come. Small wonder then that the National Governors Association has made this a priority issue; its Center for Best Practices published Reading to Achieve: A Governor’s Guide to Literacy, which explores the effects of widespread adolescent illiteracy on the national economy:

“Neglecting students’ literacy has serious economic consequences for individuals and states. Today, almost 40 percent of high school graduates lack the reading and writing skills that employers seek, and almost a third of high school graduates who enroll in college require remediation. Deficits in basic skills cost the nation’s businesses, universities, and under-prepared high school graduates as much as $16 billion annually in lost productivity and remedial costs.”⁶

The Alliance for Excellent Education, a key partner in the Corporation’s efforts, lists the following statistics on adolescent literacy, all of which illustrate the severity and danger of the current crisis:

• Between 1996 and 2006, the average literacy level required for all American occupations is expected to rise by 14 percent. (Barton, 2000)
  
  
• The twenty-five fastest-growing professions today have far greater than average literacy demands, while the twenty-five fastest-declining professions have lower than average literacy demands. (Barton, 2000)
  
  
• Approximately 8 million of the 32.5 million students in fourth through twelfth grade read below the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s minimum or “basic” standards for their grade level. (Analysis of the National Center for Education Statistics, 2003)
  
  
• Only 31 percent of eighth graders and 34 percent of twelfth graders meet the National Assessment of Educational Progress standard of reading “proficiency” for their grade level. (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2002)
  
  
• In a typical high-poverty, urban school, approximately half of incoming ninth-grade students read at a sixth- or seventh-grade level. (Balfanz, 2002)
  
  
• Students in the lowest 25 percent of achievement are twenty times more likely to drop out of high school than students in the highest 25 percent. (Carnevale, 2001)
  
  
• Approximately 53 percent of undergraduates enroll in remedial courses in postsecondary education. Nearly one-half of the undergraduates enrolled in remedial courses in the 1999-2000 school year took a remedial writing course, and 35 percent took remedial reading. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001)⁷

These statistics clearly show the need for a new approach to literacy training; for a commitment to not only help students to learn to read between kindergarten and third grade, but also to teach them to “read to learn” in the subsequent grades.

Next: Which Adolescents Are Most At Risk?


Top | Contents