That article does not do a good job of backing up its claims. The CNN article it references makes much weaker claim. The NALS report specifically states
> While the literacy levels on each scale can be used to explore the range of literacy demands, these data do not reveal the types of literacy demands that are associated with particular contexts in this pluralistic society. That is, they do not enable us to say what specific level of prose, document, or quantitative skill
is required to obtain, hold, or advance in a particular occupation, to manage a household, or to obtain legal or community services, for example. Nevertheless, the relationships among performance on the three scales and various social or economic indicators can provide valuable insights, and that is the goal of this report.
So, contrary to the article's claim, the report does not define anyone as being "functionality illiterate".
Furthermore, "functionality illiterate" is not the same as "can't read". It's a weaker standard. It's still a major problem, but that is not an excuse to conflate the two and make claims that high schools can't require graduates to know how to read at all.
I agree that it wasn't the most scholarly article.
As an alternate, I just finished a week ago this book by the former Secretary of Education that talked about how poorly a lot of the schools in America prepare students for success in the world, and how often they have lowered their standards rather than working to teach kids better.
He told a story at the beginning about how when he was in college he was going to tutor a star basketball player for a rough school in Chicago. He said the kid came from one of the rare for the area homes where both parents were present and working. He had a stable family life in an area where most kids didn't. His parents were doing their best to set their kids up for success.
Anyway, the first thing the author did as part of tutoring was to give the kid some placement exams to see what he needed work on for getting into college. This was a kid who made the honor roll and was a junior in high school. The guy had a 4th grade reading level. The school system had been promoting these kids every year to the next grade even though they weren't learning anywhere near what they should be.
So it may not be 20%, and it probably isn't in any of the better schools that people hanging around HackerNews are likely to have come from, but there are some really rough schools in America where kids are getting terrible educations.
> While the literacy levels on each scale can be used to explore the range of literacy demands, these data do not reveal the types of literacy demands that are associated with particular contexts in this pluralistic society. That is, they do not enable us to say what specific level of prose, document, or quantitative skill is required to obtain, hold, or advance in a particular occupation, to manage a household, or to obtain legal or community services, for example. Nevertheless, the relationships among performance on the three scales and various social or economic indicators can provide valuable insights, and that is the goal of this report.
So, contrary to the article's claim, the report does not define anyone as being "functionality illiterate".
Furthermore, "functionality illiterate" is not the same as "can't read". It's a weaker standard. It's still a major problem, but that is not an excuse to conflate the two and make claims that high schools can't require graduates to know how to read at all.