Adding Up the Under-Skilled

By Paul Gray

For years U.S. employers have been grousing that more and more aspiring workers lack the know-how to get the most basic jobs done. Last week such complaints received alarming confirmation. Adult Literacy in America, a 150- page survey conducted by the Princeton-based Educational Testing Service and released by the Department of Education, reported that roughly 90 million Americans over age 16 -- almost half that category's total population -- are, as far as most workplaces are concerned, basically unfit for employment.

Who is included in that definition? Those who can sign a credit-card receipt but are incapable of writing a letter when they think their bill is wrong; those who can pay the correct change at the supermarket but have difficulty calculating the difference between regular and sale prices; those who can scan a newspaper story but cannot paraphrase its contents.

ETS based its findings on the performance of 26,000 people chosen to represent a cross section of adults. Over a period of four years, all subjects were interviewed and given between 35 and 40 tests, drawn from a bank of 185 prepared for the survey. The tasks simulated real-life situations, calling upon basic reading and math competence and the ability to interpret charts, graphs and timetables, and were assigned degrees of difficulty on a scale of 0 to 500. Thus totaling the sums on a bank-deposit slip rated a 191; calculating the costs, including handling and shipping, of a catalog order garnered a 382.

After tabulating the test scores, ETS designated five different grades and projected that 42 million American adults fall within the lowest category; 52 million fill the next rank, which is still below the level required to perform a moderately demanding job. Perhaps the worst news from the survey was the hubris expressed by those who were tested: when asked if they read well or very well, 71% of those in the bottom grade said yes.

If the ETS survey is accurate, the U.S. is not only significantly populated by people unprepared for current and advancing technologies, but most of them do not know that they do not know.

With reporting by Janice C. Simpson/New York