The Mess We’re In: Understanding The Illiteracy and Sub-Literacy Crisis
Sixty-four percent of students in Colorado performed below the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Proficient Level in Reading in 2024. The percent of Black students who performed below proficient was 88% and for Hispanic students that number was 93%. These performance gaps were not significantly different from those in 1998.
The Nation’s Report Card
The U.S. Dept of Labor estimates that illiteracy costs the American economy about $225 billion a year in lost human productivity, and it has been estimated that bringing all adults in the U.S. to an equivalent of a sixth-grade reading level would increase the Gross Domestic Product by 10%, or approximately $2.2 trillion”
(Rothwell, J. (2020). Assessing the economic gains of eradicating illiteracy nationally and regionally in the United States. Gallup, Inc.).
Where we went wrong with teaching America’s children how to read and write…
“Teaching reading is rocket science.” Louisa Moats, Ed.D.
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