Who are you calling literate?

If you're writing to a college graduate, be careful what you say. Not all of them are literate.

Teacher and blogger Betsy Newmark tells us more about that in a post that begins :

Wouldn't you guess that college graduates were, well, literate? Apparently not. Less than a third of college graduates tested in 2003 scored as proficient in literacy.

Betsy provides test findings and commentary that should have us all asking why, after sixteen or more years of formal education, so many students can't "read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences."

And how do we correct the situation?

I'm sure we'll hear from "student advocates" who'll claim the test results prove we're "failing these college graduates." They'll say our college and university remedial reading and math programs are underfunded. They'll appeal for more government money "to expand and improve student services."

While I'm usually sympathetic to most any appeal to help students, I don't think expanding remedial programs will solve the college graduate illiteracy problem.

Instead, why not do this: In each state, set up a program designed to enable students to achieve literacy before they go to college?

The states would start with children when they were about five, and then give them -- say twelve or so years of formal education.

At the end of that time, literate students would receive a credential attesting to their literacy; and colleges would require that candidates for admission possess such a credential.

That would seem to take care of the problem.

How do you like the plan?

Do you think the leaders of the National Education Association, and here in North Carolina, the NC Association of Educators, will support such a plan?

Read Betsy's post here.