Little Progress Seen in U.S. Adult Literacy Rate

A December 15, 2005 article from The Associated Press reports that approximately 1 of every 20 adults in the U.S., totalling nearly 11 million individuals, is not literate in English. During the time period from 1992 to 2003, no progress was seen in the general adult population's ability to read or understand printed materials. African American adults demonstrated improved literacy skills, but Caucasian skills remained unchanged while Hispanic adults showed a decline in their ability to work with English prose. Experts are concerned about the fact that, even though more Americans are receiving a formal education, the overall literacy rate is not improving. The ability of U.S. adults to handle math computations has shown improvement.

The article is available at the CNN.com Web site. A related press release can be found at the U.S. Department of Education's Web site.