After reading the first few statistics-ridden pages of thie article on adult literacy, I can already feel a familiar objection to the report surfacing. After all of the data is collected, the figures are added up, and the margin of error calculated, I think that studies such as this do not serve any actual practical purpose. The numbers show us how many people in which groups have obtained levels of a certain defined literacy, but to what purpose are we going to use this information? We already know that a better education usually leads to a job and that those who have little experience with English are not going to be considered literate in English. I think that a different kind of study would be much more productive and could actually have some positive benefits for actual people, who are more than just numbers in a report.
Perhaps a survey could be taken of groups of people in very small geographic areas asking them what kinds of skills or education they feel that they are lacking and whether or not they feel that the opportunities exist in their communities to gain those skills. Quite a bit could be done with this information, depending on your purpose, from locating cities with few options for adult education to locating broader geographic trends in types of services people wish were available. As far as the survey goes, it could pose questions that go way beyond the normal “prose, document, and quantitative” measures in asking about what people really want for their communities. Perhaps this has already been done in some manner and I am just not aware of it, but at the moment I do not have the time to search the vastness of cyberspace to find out if this is the case. Anyway, it is my opinion that we should really think about how we interpret statistics and what we mean to use them for in order to get some practical information out of our research into literacy.
Also, just a quick note on the idea of requiring an online course for high school graduation. If appropriate courses can be identified and a system set up that makes it easy for teachers to evaluate their students, I think it could be very valuable for enhancing all of the different kinds of educational experiences students could be exposed to. I have never taken an online course in college because I feel that I learn the best in a classroom setting, but I think that has to do with my areas of study (social studies and English) where class conversation is an important part of what goes on. Back in high school, however, an online course probably would have been a welcome change of pace, and it would be useful not only for the sake of learning about technology but also for the general skills of self-monitoring and responsibility if the students were given enough independence in taking the course.
