I saw a comment on cleveland.com that 69% percent of Clevelander's are "functionally illiterate" (reading at a 4th grade level). I thought there was no way that could be true, so I started searching around the iterwebs and I came across this website:

 

http://www.seedsofliteracy.org/index.php/facts

 

They're associated with all the big literacy programs in Cleveland and list the literacy rate of city residents at 69% and as high as 95% in some neighborhoods.  I just cannot believe that these facts are correct.  Anyone know anything about this or "seeds of literacy"?

 

Not sure about that but another study showed Cleveland as the 13th most literate city.

 

http://web.ccsu.edu/amlc07/overall_rankings/11-30.htm

OK, so someone tell me what to believe.  I don't feel like critically thinking tonight.

 

I find it hard to believe that 69% of Cleveland's residents are functionally illiterate... but that's just my opinion.  I could see a number as high as 40%, but 69% seems really high to me.  No way that most of this city is functionally illiterate... but, again, just an opinion.

They're both right of course!

 

The second links criteria is less about ones ability to effectively read and states "This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources".

The second is a ranking and does not really tell us much. The Seeds of Literacy website should have more information about how they reached "69%". I wrote to them about the source and methods used to reach that conclusion; I'll let you know if they write back.

http://www.literacycooperative.org/pr/ATR.pdf

 

This is the source that http://www.seedsofliteracy.org/index.php/facts used.

 

The 69% is the Literacy rate for level 1 and level 2. The National Average is approximately 51% for level 1 and level 2.

 

It's 72 pages long but has a lot of information on Literacy rates in Cleveland and the county as well. It also details the Cleveland Neighborhoods as well as what level of literacy they are at.

This explains some of MTS's behavior on this site.