From a perspective that considers who controls the production and recognition of skills -- a question of class power -- it is extraordinarily misguided to buy the story of "functional literacy" as told by the National and International Adult Literacy Surveys, much less the corporate media that sensationally misrepresent the Surveys' findings.
"Functional literacy" is defined in such a way as to legitimate the class system that ceaselessly recreates socioeconomic and educational inequalities from one generation to another, promoting the idea that "[t]he fall in real wages of people with low skills and widening earning differentials since the 1980s are also evidence of upskilling in Canada, the European Union and the United States (OECD 1996b)" ("Literacy in the Information Age," <http://www.oecd.org/publications/e-book/8100051e.pdf>, p. 8). As the explanation for the fall in real wages since the mid-1970s offered above is bogus, the wrong remedies are devised and applied to the ostensible problems: more tests for both teachers and students, allegedly to raise educational standards, like "Bush's No Child Left Behind Act" (at <http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/index.shtml>). That doesn't benefit anyone, except the ruling class, especially those who invest in testing companies: "States are likely to spend $1.9 billion to $5.3 billion between 2002 and 2008 to implement NCLB-mandated tests, according to the non-partisan Government Accounting Office (GAO)" (Barbara Miner, "Testing Companies Mine for Gold ," <http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/test192.shtml>, Winter 2004/2005 ).
Almost all workers in the United States are literate and skilled today, in their own ways. We have to establish a system that creates public-sector jobs that suit the skills that US workers, who are more literate than ever in the history of the United States, already have or wish to acquire. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>