I Can’t Read!

Try making conversation by showing an interesting newspaper article to the person sitting next to you somewhere in the United States and there is a good chance that he or she wouldn’t be able to read it! According to the US Department of Education half of the US adult population can’t read above the sixth-grade level.

Experts believe there has been a literacy crisis in the United States and in some ways it has only become worse. The literacy problem is not only in adults, American children also have serious literacy issues, more than a million students drop out of US schools every year, never finishing high school.

In this episode we will discuss the literacy crisis in America. How is illiteracy among many adults impacting the society and economy? How long has the country been trying to tackle the literacy problem? And does social and racial discrimination play a role in the literacy crisis in the US?

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