From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Aug 30 2001 - 07:32:34 MDT
hibbert@netcom.com wrote:
>
> On the subject of time series for literacy rates:
>
> Sorry Mike. You objected to Pat's sources of data and pointed to other
> sources. You then compared the recent statistics in your preferred sources
> to the earlier statistics in Pat's, and claimed that that showed the trend
> you believed. If his oranges aren't any good, you can't prove anything by
> comparing your apples to them.
>
> I didn't look for very long, but I didn't find time series at the URLs you
> posted. Can you say where the time series are buried, so we can tell
> according to this (you claim) more objective standard what has happened
> over time? The interesting question is what has happened to levels of
> literacy according to any unchanging standard of what it means to be
> literate. If some unvarying standards show improvement and others show
> degradation, we can argue about the merits of the different standards, but
> until we see a series that shows the same standard being applied at
> different times, we haven't learned much about changes in literacy.
www.nifl.org has their data all tied up in their Literacy Survey, which
is not very well presented on the site. The problem with the standards
used in Pat's data is that they changed over time, so different years
data represents different standards. Today, 'illiteracy' is used only to
describe someone who cannot read, write, or calculate anything at all,
which rather obviously only applies to severely retarded individuals.
The NIFL more properly grades its subjects into 5 levels of relative
literacy, with level 1 being, as was defined, being able to read a
little but not enough for any really functional capabilities in society.
In prior decades, 'level 1' was what was considered 'illiterate'. I
think that their 21-23% numbers for level 1 people is rather damning,
and that there is little chance that Pat could fudge similarly high
numbers for any time in the 60's or 70's.
My final point is that Pat cannot disprove my point by using such old
data. Until and unless he provides data from the late 80's or early
90's, he is making no valid argument against my points.
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