I’m originally from a US state that currently sits at a 40% literacy rate, but I’ve lived for the last decade in various European countries. I say this only because, even if still anecdotal, I feel like I have a decent basis for comparison. Certainly there are educational disparities from center to periphery and across income brackets everywhere, but I have never lived somewhere that the division was as stark as the US.

France — with all its problems — ensures the same incredibly high standard of curriculum across the country and perhaps most importantly it is actually expected that top university performers who will become researchers teach at high school in the periphery. It’s even a nation-wide competition by discipline (look up the “aggregation”) to obtain these highly sought positions. The idea is something like you teach high school outside Paris while preparing your doctorate and then either return triumphant to the big research institutes or continue teaching in the provinces. Something like this in the US would have immeasurable impact, since probably one of the biggest issues is just convincing well-educated people to teach in rural areas.

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bluGill 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy... "California’s 23.1% of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills make California have the lowest literacy rate of 76.9%". I don't know where you are from with a 40% literacy rate, but it isn't any US state.

	▲	agentcoops 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I had to double-check my source and I realize the error was mine. “40% read at or above an eighth grade level” is the correct description of the state-level data I was looking at, which is distinct from the general metric used for literacy. This led me into a bit of a rabbit hole trying to understand what in fact the official literacy rate is measured by if it’s so wildly different from - indeed almost double — the portion who can read at an eighth grade level. The data is actually quite interesting. US National Center for Education statistics administer tests to assess “the ability to understand, evaluate, use, and engage with written texts to participate in society” and an individual falls into one of five categories. Official literacy definition considers above category one (“below basic”), but it is category three that maps approximately onto “eighth grade knowledge” (thus four as high school, five as post-graduate). The most interesting thing I found in the data is exploring that gap between two and three, ie states that have a high attainment of official literacy but then very low rates of the higher levels. California, for example, has the highest percentage of people below level two, but a relatively high percentage at level three and above — obviously I haven’t considered the data for long enough to conclude, but that suggests to me largely a question of immigration/non-English speaking populations. The state I’m from does better than California on attainment of level two, but significantly worse at attainment of three or above. States where level 3+ > levels 1-2: District of Columbia, Washington, Minnesota, Oregon, Massachusetts, North Dakota / Utah / Colorado. States with lowest level 3 (ie “eighth grade” equivalent) attainment: Mississippi 35%, Louisiana 35%, West Virginia 37%, New Mexico 39%, Nevada 39%, Alabama 39%, Arkansas 39%, Texas 40%, Tennessee 40%, Kentucky 41%. TLDR that gap looks like an interesting way to separate issues with a state’s educational system from other questions. Whatever the best measure of literacy may be, it seems like the bar should be a bit higher than just “native speaker of the measured language.”

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username332211 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That's by design. France has a cabinet with full control over education in the entire nation. In the United States, education is in the hands of locally elected school boards and the role of the federal and state secretaries of education seems to be mostly limited to dumping money on those people. (And attaching conditions to that money in general seems to be fairly controversial, as the present discussion shows.)

There's no way such a system can produce uniform results.

(The wisdom in forcing voters to elect all sorts of local commissions is another matter entirely. I struggle to see how anyone can make an informed choice, in ballots with 10 or more elected positions, but they seem normal in America.)

	▲	chrisco255 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The US has always had a state-run or private education system, since even before it was founded as a country. And the U.S. is among the top 10 most educated countries in the world, with over 50% of population having at least a bachelor's degree. It's pretty simple to vote on local offices: are you happy with the current state of education in your district? Good, keep the incumbents around. Otherwise change out school board members until you achieve the desired results. https://www.statista.com/statistics/232951/university-degree...