Los Angeles: not fully as bad as originally feared

Remember the story about half (or 53%) of the working-age population of Los Angeles being functionally illiterate (or similar)?

When I originally posted that, I said there might be some observer bias involved, as the people who wanted to provide the services also did the survey. However, that wasn't the big problem with the survey, and my lack of bothering to read the executive summary [warning: PDF file] was to blame.

As it turns out, Los Angeles' illiteracy rate isn't that very far ahead of the country as a whole:

I don't know anything about the study's methodology, but the magnitude of the result isn't surprising. The last national study was done 1n 1992, where the (national average) illiteracy rate was 48%. The data include citizens and other residents, both legal and illegal. Whatever the national stats are now, California has to be ahead of the curve. In Los Angeles County the bulk of the illiteracy problem (though not all of it) is due to our high concentration of non-English speakers. Of these, a high percentage are functionally illiterate in their native languages as well (5% to 15% of the Latino immigrant population, reported in the Times article.) They speak it, but can't read or write it. The same conditions that make it easy for these immigrants to live-huge parts of the city where Spanish is the primary language-also makes the illiteracy problem difficult to eradicate. People can live pretty functional lives (if they have suitably low expectations for their economic futures) speaking only Spanish. Coping with the problem is costly for businesses. Low wages can justify the cost in some industries, but other businesses relocate to places where they can tap a better-educated labor pool. This is one of the trends that's creating a two-tiered economy here. Illiteracy also places huge burdens on public services. Schools serving large immigrant populations enroll kids performing far below grade level in English and math...

There are several shocking stats at that post, and from this we learn that "24.5 percent of public school teachers in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area send their own children to private schools, compared to 15.7 percent of the general public."

So, Los Angeles county isn't as bad as first thought, but, we're still #1.

Comments

This study of the illiteracy in a local workforce actually conceals the magnitude of the problem. What is worse, and left unmentioned, is that the growing class of functional illiterates, are increasingly outside the workforce.

John's right. It's unfortunate that the underlying data don't lend themselves to a more detailed study of the problem. However, there's no getting around the fact that mass immigration from our southern border is a huge problem. When an illiterate immigrant can move into a community where it's possible to get by with neither native language literacy nor English skills (as is the case in large parts of L.A.), it's hard for schools to pick up the slack, especially in our one-size-fits-all public schools. It's tragic and ironic that the very people who support open borders and multiculturalism are also the ones who scream the loudest that places like L.A. are becoming two-tiered societies. Of course they are, because of a flood of people into the bottom tier of the economy.

Another indicator like the above, is the educational attainment as reported by census.gov. CA is in the bottom ten states for high school graduates as a % of the population, and TX is in the very bottom position. Surely these are ominous facts for future economic progress, and can't be attributed to any cause other than anti-standards immigration?

This is a case of looking at functional illiteracy, which is common and thus can't be attributed to low standards in immigration control. If one looks at those who are reported as being totally illiterate, that percentage has increased enormously, and cannot be caused by any factor other than immigration."national assessments of adult literacy", "faqs: results", "historical data", indicate that total illiterates have increased in percent from around 1 to 5%, since the 70's. This reverses the entire progress made from the 20's on to the period of mass anti-merit immigration that got underway in the 70's.