Club des Cordeliers

#NATO hyped #Srebrenica massacre to justify war. An atrocity, among many, but hardly genocide....

Thu, 26 May 2011 19:57:53 -0400

#NATO hyped #Srebrenica massacre to justify war. An atrocity, among many, but hardly genocide. http://bit.ly/c5sxLO #mladic

Proposed legislation gives President unchecked authority to wage perpetual war. http://bit.ly/iADiAC

Wed, 25 May 2011 20:27:26 -0400

Proposed legislation gives President unchecked authority to wage perpetual war. http://bit.ly/iADiAC

“Democracy movement” in #Syria is mainly led by the Muslim Brothers, including diehard Salafi...

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:21:30 -0400

“Democracy movement” in #Syria is mainly led by the Muslim Brothers, including diehard Salafi Islamists. http://bit.ly/kuqRtS

Outstanding photomontage as video for Amal Murkus song La Ahada Yalam http://ow.ly/50omT #Palestine...

Mon, 23 May 2011 03:11:10 -0400

Outstanding photomontage as video for Amal Murkus song La Ahada Yalam http://ow.ly/50omT #Palestine #BDS

Asia Times: Given unfavorable events, area 10s of 1000s of sq km could turn into nuclear wasteland...

Sun, 22 May 2011 07:54:50 -0400

Asia Times: Given unfavorable events, area 10s of 1000s of sq km could turn into nuclear wasteland http://ow.ly/1t50XK #Fukushima

Irony: Ron Rosenbaum, defender of Israel’s war crimes, trashes #BobDylan for playing in China...

Sat, 21 May 2011 11:08:22 -0400

Irony: Ron Rosenbaum, defender of Israel’s war crimes, trashes #BobDylan for playing in China http://ow.ly/1t3G4X

“Bombing peace conference of #Libya religious leaders shows how much #NATO is threatened by...

Thu, 19 May 2011 09:08:56 -0400

“Bombing peace conference of #Libya religious leaders shows how much #NATO is threatened by any chance of a ceasefire” http://bit.ly/k63mLd

RT @Antiwar2: Philadelphia MOVE Bombing Still Haunts Survivors http://n.pr/iRryWz #Move #nowar

Sat, 14 May 2011 06:47:08 -0400

RT @Antiwar2: Philadelphia MOVE Bombing Still Haunts Survivors http://n.pr/iRryWz #Move #nowar

RT @lockean: Whistleblowing’s D-Day is approaching and the troops are still fighting over the...

Fri, 13 May 2011 08:07:33 -0400

RT @lockean: Whistleblowing’s D-Day is approaching and the troops are still fighting over the vehicle of delivery.

Lowry, Engel nail Jaczko on ludicrous 10-mile evacuation plan for Indian Point. http://ow.ly/1sUBnO...

Thu, 12 May 2011 07:41:47 -0400

Lowry, Engel nail Jaczko on ludicrous 10-mile evacuation plan for Indian Point. http://ow.ly/1sUBnO #nonukes

Yglesias and Kristof Get Illiteracy Wrong

Fri, 06 May 2011 14:54:00 -0400

Recent headlines touted a “shocking new study” revealing that 47% of adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate. The story got big play in both the traditional press and the blogosphere (see this and this; the reliably superficial Nick Kristof even tweeted it to his million-plus followers).

Journalists loved the story because it meshes with the agenda of the big-money foundations and corporations that want to scare us into privatizing our schools. After all, if things are that bad, surely any kind of “reform” is justified – even it if it involves breaking unions, trashing teachers, and turning urban schools into drill-and-kill testing mills. Wrote prominent “progressive” blogger Matthew Yglesias: “Under [these] circumstances, I find it difficult to be seized with worry that schools are going to be ruined by teachers ‘teaching to the test.’”

We were curious about the source and methodology of the study, so we spent a few minutes researching it.

Turns out the “new study” is actually a report by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund (to his credit, Yglesias links to it). The report contains no research but simply states, in a single bullet point, that “the National Institute for Literacy estimates that 47% of adults (more than 200,000 individuals) in the City of Detroit are functionally illiterate.”

That’s it. No new research; no new study; no new data. So where did the figure come from?

We tried to track down the research on the National Institute for Literacy Web site and couldn’t anything remotely relevant. (One thing we did find while Googling is that this same “new” factoid, variously sourced, has been a staple of white supremacist Web sites for at least a decade.)

So where did this oft-cited, little analyzed statistic originate? After a fair amount of hunting we located the source: It’s a 1998 National Institute for Literacy Report entitled “The State of Literacy in America: Estimates at the State, Local, and National Levels” where — if you look hard enough — you can indeed find an estimate that 47% of adults in Detroit are at “Level 1 Literacy.” (Level 1 Literacy is not quite the same as functional illiteracy, by the way, but it’s close enough that we’ll let the distinction slide.)

The 47% figure is ultimately derived from a 1993 federal study, the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). The NALS, it should be noted, did not include statistics at the municipal level because the sample size – 26,000 adults nationwide — was regarded as too small for confidence at the local level.

So the 1998 study crunched raw NALS data for US counties with 1990 census data, applying a computerized “regression model” to “predict literary proficiencies for other aggregates [i.e., cities].” The resulting estimates, the study warned, had a 95% confidence interval larger than plus or minus five points and “should be used with corresponding caution.”

There you have it: not new research, but a 1993 computerized extrapolation of information collected two decades ago. It’s not even on point, since the low literacy rates among adults in US urban areas have at least as much to do with recent immigration as with failing schools.

To be sure, the statistic is not exactly encouraging, but it’s far from an urgent mandate for doubling down on testing and other corporate reforms. Too bad Yglesias, Kristof, and their unthinking followers couldn’t be bothered to do some elementary research before granting new life to an ancient and misleading factoid.