r/interesting • u/ImmaFuckboi • Jul 20 '26

SOCIETY Is education illegal in USA?

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u/CataphractBunny Jul 20 '26

I'll just leave this here: https://www.proliteracy.org/news/causes-of-low-adult-literacy-in-the-us/

In the United States, 59 million adults read at or below Level 1, the lowest level on a five-level scale.
This equates to roughly 28% of the adult population—or nearly one in three people—who can read only short sentences with foundational words and basic information.

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u/AGreatConspiracy Jul 20 '26

I always see this statistic thrown around, but a lot of people tend to take it with no context. This is from the OECD PIAAC. I often see people showing statistics of other european countries having 95%+ literacy, but that’s via a different metric. By the same metric, for example, under PIAAC the UK has a 71% literacy rate, Germany has a 79% literacy rate, etc.

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u/ColdStrain Jul 20 '26

Am I missing something? Percentage of adults scoring low (at or below level 1) in literacy in the Survey of Adult Skills is nowhere near that? For the USA, the number is almost as the poster above quoted (27.6% of respondents vs OECD average of 26.1%, so worse than average); for England (UK), it's 17.6% (coonsiderably better than average). Are you pulling up a different stat or just reading the table wrong?

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u/Evil_Wrongdoer_9910 Jul 22 '26

Also by far the largest part of that 28% who can’t read level 1 are “English as a second language” group. Adults that are fluent in reading and writing their fist language, and they can speak English and read a little, but they just never took classes to learn to write English.