Here are the three bits that I find interesting:
1. The report showed that overall, adults can read about as well as they could in 1992 when the last survey was done but that they are better at math.
2. One positive finding of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy was that African-Americans are making significant gains in reading and math and that blacks as a whole are reaching higher levels of education. For instance, the report showed that the average rate of prose literacy, or reading, among blacks rose 6 percentage points since 1992.
3. Men seem to be losing ground compared with women, whose literacy levels are on the rise. Women's average computing and math skills rose by 10 points in the decade; men's remained the same.
--So there's not an across the board decline: previously disadvantaged groups (no college ed, minorities, women) are improving. Given the fact that only about 25% of people in the U. S. earn college degrees, this study is actually good news about the language and math literacy of the U. S. population (and it fits in with the Flynn effect that I love to bring up!).
That said, I have to agree with W. about some college students' lack of fundamental academic skills. --Example: on the first exam in my research methods course, students have to calculate the strength of association statistic (r-squared), given r. Trivial calculation, right?
About 1/4 of the class gets it wrong: they'll say "if r is .20, r-squared is .40". I know some of this is stress, but I often wonder what on earth some of them are doing in upper division college courses.
Miles