this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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GenZedong
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: Yeah but....this system allows some "unworthy" people to not die, so it's clearly an authoritarian failure.Clearly this means the evil see see pee is stealing our literacy.
It's worse, they're forcing people to be literate. This is cultural genocide on an industrial scale with see see pee wiping out the culture of illiteracy!
they just keep genociding slow trains and poverty and illiteracy, when will their evil regime stop
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You’re welcome
Ok i thought for sure this is bullshit, but apparently not:
Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1). This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills
I didn't believe it until I started working. Now if you asked me what the literacy rate is I'd say sub-50%. I've met so many people who literally cannot read. As in, they've clearly been taught what the letters are and how to sound them out, but following a list of instructions based on those letters is completely impossible for them.
Your assessment is probably closer to the truth. 54% of American adults have a literacy below sixth grade level link and some of the people you've met probably are considered barely literate yet counts towards the 79%.
A curious statistic I've found while reading up on this is that 77% of African Americans have moderate or high reading proficiency while only 65% of white Americans qualify as such. A statistic that you'll never see racists mention (and libs for those that somehow fit outside the venn diagram)
I haven't done any research on this, but my gut says it's because black people are more likely to live in urban areas with at least the basics of public education. Whereas white people comprise more rural areas. Not saying living in a rural area makes you illiterate, like I grew up in a small town in the woods, but it does mean there's just less of everything, including education. More homeschooling too among white people.
Could also be that white people take education less seriously because they don't feel threatened by a hostile job market. Did your readings say why there's a disparity between demographics?
It was just a cute factoid that I noted, so I didn't look further into the claims.
Your theory could be correct. Another reason I suspect is that due to racial biases and different job market situation arising from the urban/rural divide, black Americans are forced to be more literate in order to survive compared to the average white American.
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There is no way US literacy in the 1950s was anywhere near 90% unless you excluded marginalized and minority populations.
Excellent point, and that's likely exactly how they counted it.
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Fewer then 97% of China are fluent in English.
I rate this 5 Pinocchios.
😄
Do Cuba too! 
I hate to rain on y'all's parade, but the US measure of literacy is much more stringent than China's. America is counting literacy as the ability to use print materials like brochures and manuals fluently, the rest of the world just bases literacy on the ability to read a handful of test sentences in a controlled testing context. That's the reason that America appears to have gone down as well, they switched literacy measures. The 79% measure is people who are "at or below level 1 literacy", meaning it counts people who met level 1, people who didn't meet level 1, and people who couldn't even take the test at all because of a language barrier or disability. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf
I'm all for dunking on America but the apples to apples here would be comparing America's 96% (just excluding those below level 1) to China's 97%. Historical materialism requires a true material basis to work.
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well the stats come from the chinese government, are you just going to trust their stats? they're probably lying about the numbers, don't be so gullible!1!!11
This is the final refuge of the person that uses Chinese stat's to prove Uigher genocide through some sort of numerology
It's the ultimate response. "Everyone who disagrees with me is lying" is a perfect way to always be right about everything, after all, if someone else disagrees, that's just because they're pretending to.
final refuge
Very often the first and only one.
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Also, Chinese script, even simplified Chinese, is significantly harder to master than English. I for example can speak Mandarin fluently (as a Chinese person in Canada) but can barely read or write it, and no you don't just "pick it up" if you can speak it because there is zero correlation between the spoken language and written script, it's all memorization of every single character. I would have to actually take classes or something to learn to read and write Chinese, which I am definitely considering doing.
Actually, English is technically my second language since I was born in China (long story, left as a young child so wasn't my choice), and after having learned English and become fluent in both reading and writing it, I keep asking myself "how the hell can you be fluent in speaking English and not be fluent in writing it? If you know how to say a word you know 90% of how to write it unlike Chinese."
So, sorry anglophones, even if China had the same literacy rate as the US, it would still be more impressive (not of the intellect of Chinese people or any racial bullshit like that, but the effectiveness of their education system and socialist ideology, which English speakers are fully capable of implementing as well with no excuse not to.)
Hi, I wanted to encourage you to learn to read and write Chinese. Don't push it off for later, go start looking for courses now! 我相信你可以的，加油。
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That actually explains so much about the US
:but-at-what-cost:
By linear extrapolation, one may conclude that China will reach its goal in 2025, while the US will only reach its goal in 2539
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Is the 79% literacy of who can read English or read period? 79% seems insanely low
It's probably a measure of functional literacy, like the ability to read through a page of information and understand it fluently. Someone who is able to sound words out one by one wouldn't be considered functionally literate, for instance. They'd lack the ability to reasonably get through a text using reading as a tool. Instead reading would be an obstacle.
They might know a few words they need to know, like writing their own name, or reading some road signs, but they'd be unable to get through a novel or textbook. They might even know how to recite the alphabet or do math.
I used to teach adult literacy in the US and I've met hundreds of illiterate adults. Most of our studies showed 87% literacy but I could believe 79% too depending on the methodology and definition of literate.
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Adults with the reading level of a small child, basically
English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences
Persons with very poor skills, for example, may be unable to determine the correct amount of medicine to give a child from information printed on the package
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For a couple of years now I have been working at a shop in a very, very impoverished and rough part of my city that is predominately occupied by low income minorities. I hope this doesn’t come off condescending but it took me a while to realize that a not insignificant number of our customers struggled to read the menu and price, info ect about products we had. I feel bad even for being a bit frustrated in the past by this, and we do our best to accommodate everyone and make them feel welcomed now I like to think anyway. But this is certainly a widespread issue that is rarely discussed or understood especially by those who reside only in wealthier areas or what not.
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