While other racial groups are making progress in English-language adult literacy in the U.S., Hispanics are falling behind. The story is getting national play today. While the AP proffers this santized PC-version, the Houston Chronicle gets to the point straight away. More here:

An estimated 11 million U.S. adults lack the literacy skills to perform everyday tasks, while an increasing number of Hispanics struggle to do more than sign a form in English, a federal survey shows. The U.S. Education Department reported Thursday virtually no progress over the past decade in the ability of the country's adults to read newspapers, bus schedules and prescription labels.

But every racial and ethnic group except for Hispanics improved in tasks ranging from reading materials arranged in sentences and paragraphs, computing numbers and comprehending documents such as bills. Forty-four percent of Hispanics, ages 16 and older, do not have basic English skills, meaning they might be unable to use a television guide to find out what programs are on at a specific time or to compare ticket prices for two events. That is a substantial increase from 36 percent a decade ago, the last time the federal government released such a comprehensive literacy study.

...Economics seems to play a role in the increasing percentage of Hispanics deemed illiterate in English, said David Dahnke, who leads the English as a Second Language program at North Harris College. "Many people come to the United States to get better jobs, and they don't have a lot of time to learn English because they're trying to get food on the table," he said. "In many ways, learning English is a luxury."

"All of this research indicates a need for a strong push in adult literacy and family literacy," said Dominique Chlup, director of the Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning at Texas A&M University. "These programs need federal money."

Previous waves of immigrants from Europe also had economic exigencies but learned enough English to get by, and made sure their children mastered the language. There were no calls for more federal spending to teach adult Lithuanians, Italians or Finns how to read English-language newspapers, bus schedules, or drug prescription labels. There were no academics opining to the media that learning the lingua franca was a "luxury," either. The word "programs," coupled with calls for more "federal money" sets me on scam alert, at least with regard to adult literacy. Part of it is the phrasing. Adult literacy classes are a great idea, and are already widely available. People have to take the initiative.

Hispanic slippage in adult English-language literacy in the U.S. may result largely from immigrants who don't care, but we're not doing their children any favors either, by coddling them with public school bilingual programs, as opposed to English immersion. Even when school districts finally get it, and want to ramp up the pace, there's the state, telling them to slow down. As this earlier post of mine shows, Hispanic community leaders in one school district near San Diego want to address poor math and English performance by Hispanic students with more Hispanic teachers, Spanish-language instruction, and Spanish-language tests. And The University of Arizona is developing a "Hispanic math" curriculum, with a $10 million federal grant.

Do our nation a favor: next time you hear some smugly sanctimonious local school board official pronounce with great pride, "there are 73 languages spoken in our schools," reply, "one is a better number."

TECHNORATI TAGS: ADULT LITERACY, UNITED STATES, HISPANICS, BILINGUAL EDUCATION

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 16, 2005 01:21 PM

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