We has a literacy problem! So says a new report on adult literacy released Thursday:

America is losing its place as a world leader in education, and in fact is becoming less educated. Among the 30 OECD
free-market countries, the U.S. is the only nation where young adults are less educated than the previous generation.
And we are losing ground to other countries in educational attainment.
More and more, the American economy requires that most workers have at least some postsecondary education or
occupational training to be ready for current and future jobs in the global marketplace, yet we are moving further
from that goal. By one set of measures, more than 88 million adults have at least one major educational barrier-
no high school diploma, no college, or ESL language needs.With a current U.S. labor force of about 150 million
(16 and older), a troubling number of prime working age adults likely will fall behind in their struggle to get higher
wage jobs, or to qualify for the college courses or job training that will help them join or advance in jobs that pay a
family-sustaining wage.

Here’s the cool graphic that goes with that: 

If that’s true, and I think it is, then surely Congress is moving with dispatch to ensure school districts use reading programs based on actual research, as opposed to programs teachers like because, well, they’ve been comfortable with them for years. Not so. Instead, Congress is poised to wipe out the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program, not because it was ineffective but because it was run by sometimes-bullying true believers.

Well, I never much cared for Larry, my neighborhood bully, either, but is it really right to respond by pulling the reading rug out from under thousands of poor children who appear to need the kind of highly structured reading programs the bullies were pushing? Oh wait, the House and Senate have reasons for their actions; they have research showing the program was not effective.

Remember former WPostie Karin Chenoweth, whose book about schools serving poor and minority children that are succeeding I recommended a couple of days ago? Well, my timing is great … she just did an analysis of that research. Chenoweth is a shoe-leather reporter; she both gets out of the office and crunches numbers. I trust her assessment of the research:

 If this were a medical trial, this would be like comparing two groups of people, both of which had asked for a particular treatment. One group gets the treatment and results are compared to the second, control, group, and the treatment is declared to have no effect. But - and this is the important part - members of the second group are never asked whether they went to the drug store and bought the generic version of the treatment. They could all have been using substantially the same medicine.

Translation: The comparison group used to conclude Reading First was ineffective was, well, ineffective. I vote for Karin and against both chambers of Congress. 

I know what you’re wondering: What the hell has this got to do with boys?

Ok, I hear you. First, check the graphic atop my blog. Then read About the Blog. Literacy issues, I believe, are at the root of what’s limiting those higher education ambitions we’re seeing among boys. We don’t know how to teach reading, and its affecting boys more than girls. They can’t compete, so they withdraw into video games and other distractions.

If Reading First is truly ineffective, and I don’t believe that’s the case, then let’s re-do the National Reading Panel that settled on the phonics-heavy Reading First strategies while keeping current reading programs at full strength. If the review calls for changes, then make them. But don’t kill the program based on this research. This is too important an issue to get wrong.