What is the level below which one is no longer literate (it seems to be 5th grade level, which I think is 10 yo?)
Is this English (as opposed to perhaps a higher literacy rate in other languages (ie literacy is high, just America has a lot more non native speakers than we expect)
Just confused
The state with the lowest adult literacy rate was California.
Must be immigration..
In fact. I had a really shocking encounter at my house with some young men (maybe as young as 16, hard to tell) who were digging a ditch for my sewer line as subcontractors to my plumber. I was trying to communicate with them in Spanish but I was having a hard time so I pulled out google translate. I realized they couldn't read Spanish. I used the text to speech in the app but that was quite a sobering realization just how little education they had experienced.
They're from indigenous tribes from the highlands in Mexico and further south. We are allowing in illegal aliens who aren't even literate in their home countries' dominant language.
Also, you interact with and work amongst many, many, many more undocumented people than you think you do. Be kind.
[0] The Founding Fathers had the right idea even if "everyone" didn't mean "actually everyone" at the time the country was founded.
Maybe they'll suggest chaining the sign, but they never created it in the first place.
This is an absurd falsehood. It is an indefensible assertion based on nothing but modern moralism.
>We are the wealthiest country in the world
This wealth can be squandered by catering to the desires of outsiders that want to come here. We should stand behind maintaining that wealth, power, and quality of life for our dependents and pass along that prosperity to them.
Turning the country from 96% literate to 79%, and all the associated degradation that comes along with that, is not the morally honorable position. The demographics in 1980, let alone 1776 were very specific and narrow.
I'll note that no one supporting this seems to be claiming the country will be better or stronger or this will benefit the citizens already here. Only that it is good for the people coming in. This is not how politics is done well or national interest is defended. Leaders that pursue this are abdicating their responsibility towards the people they are supposed to serve.
Further, insinuating that this literacy drop (putting aside changes to how literacy was measured during that time) is entirely the fault of undocumented persons is careless.
Plenty of comments will call out demographic changes and immigration, but if 54% of adults don't have literacy rates of 6th grade, then there are some serious other things to talk about.