Forces Changing Our Nation's Future: The Comparative Performance of U.S. Adults and Youth on International Literacy Assessments, the Importance of Literacy/Numeracy Proficiencies for Labor Market Success, and the Projected Outlook for Literacy Proficiencies of U.S. Adults

This presentation is devoted to four main topics: (1) the comparative performance of U.S. adults and high school students on international literacy assessments; (2) the literacy/numeracy proficiencies of the nation's adults in different educational groups and among those who recently participated in federally-funded adult education programs; (3) the links between the literacy/numeracy proficiencies of U.S. adults and their labor market success; and (4) the projected outlook for the literacy proficiencies of U.S. adults in the absence of any sizable, sustained improvements in their existing proficiencies across age, racial, and ethnic groups. A major portion of this presentation is based on research findings from a recent report, "The Perfect Storm," on current U.S. literacy levels and the future outlook for the literacy and numeracy proficiencies of U.S. adults. This report was prepared by Irwin Kirsch, Andrew Sum, and two other ETS researchers and published by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in March 2007. Also used in this presentation are findings from a series of earlier ETS monographs on literacy issues, a comprehensive report on literacy in the labor force published by the National Center for Education Statistics in 1999, and a national assessment of the literacy and numeracy proficiencies of adult education learners. (Contains 13 footnotes.)