do you have anything on this handy?
i recall reading a very persuasive argument in a chicago reader article a couple of years ago that went along the lines of the resnick's argument noted by doug. what i'm curious about is what mike larkin sort of gestures toward, that is, levels of literacy.
i'm seeing in my students that they can read the words in front of them on a page, but often (a) it takes them a long time to do it, (b) their vocabulary is limited (and they show no interest in expanding it), (c) they haven't read much if anything, and (d) they write very poorly, even to the point of understanding what a sentence is, but more often a general inability to communicate ideas (which makes one wonder about their ability to *think* and *understand* ideas). purely anecdotally, then, i would guess that people are more functionally literate in the sense that they can read and understand and write wrt forms, do grocery shopping, buy tickets, whatever, but they can't and don't, say, read even john grisham, much less capital.
i'm winging it, but that's my guess. and if i'm even close to right, that's not a failure of public education per se. it's a failure in what we ask public educators to do.
j