Adolescent Literacy: Where We Are Now?
(2007)
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For years, the majority of federal and state policy initiatives and resources have been directed at younger children. For example, in 2002, federal funding for Head Start was $6.7 billion, and for Title I in grades K-6 it was $10.49 billion. By comparison, federal funding for Title I programs in grades 7-12 was only $1.85 billion (National Center for Educational Statistics; NCES, 2004). Two relatively new federal initiatives, Reading First (for children in grades K-3) and Striving Readers (for students in grades 6- 12) reflect a similar pattern of marked inequities in federal expenditures: $1.04 billion for Reading First versus $24.8 million for Striving Readers.
Among other things, this policy is based on the assumption that by providing intervention at a young age, many of the manifestations of learning problems later on will be avoided or minimized (Deshler, 2002). While early interventions are important, they have often been pursued at the expense of addressing the unique needs and problems manifested by struggling adolescent learners in secondary schools (Strickland & Alvermann, 2004). That is, the heavy emphasis on early intervention may be misinterpreted as indicating that such efforts will address most of the problems presented by young children who are at risk for failure and that, therefore, less attention is required later on.
While there is evidence to suggest that early intervention efforts can lead to improved outcomes in adolescence (e.g., Campbell & Ramey, 1995), large numbers of students enter secondary schools ill prepared to respond to the heightened curricular demands of these settings (Kamil, 2003). In short, many of the problems that are encountered in the early years tend to persist into adolescence. Thus, there are reasons for re-examining the wisdom of placing so much of our resources at the early education level.
First, even though a growing list of reading interventions have been developed for younger students (e.g., McCardle & Chhabra, 2004), it is unlikely that these methods (in spite of their effectiveness) will be successfully implemented to scale on a national basis given the complexity of successfully implementing educational innovations with fidelity in multiple sites (e.g., Cuban, 1993; Elmore, 1996; Fullan, 1993; Knight, 1998). Because of the enormous challenges of effecting large-scale implementations, many students will not receive successful, targeted intervention and will move on to later grades with significant, unaddressed deficits. Second, even if children do receive quality interventions during their early years, there is a reasonably good chance that they will encounter additional learning difficulties as the demands of the curriculum become more rigorous in the later grades.
The need for effective intervention strategies for older individuals is as great as the need for interventions for younger children given the fact that almost 40% of high school graduates lack the reading and writing skills that employers value, and nearly 30% of high school graduates who enroll in colleges and universities require remedial assistance (Greene & Winters, 2005). Even more alarming is the fact that almost one quarter of all 8th and 12th graders score at the "below basic" level in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and that only 70% of all high school students graduate from high school (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2005).
For African-American and Hispanic adolescents, the graduation rate drops to nearly 50% (Swanson, 2004). As compelling as the case for early intervention can be, if that case is made at the expense of addressing the equally problematic and unique set of problems presented by adolescents, the long-term effects of such policies on adolescents will be detrimental, given the rapidly changing environment in a global economy (Friedman, 2005; Levy & Murnane, 2004; National Academies, 2006).
In his book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Friedman (2005) describes how making the Internet readily available to a large portion of the world's population has dramatically altered the dynamics among the economy, employment trends, access to resources, and ultimately wealth and power.
…the net result has been the creation of a global, web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration and the sharing of knowledge knowledge and work…This playing field is open today to more people in more places on more days in more ways than anything like ever before in the history of the world…Billions of people have access to billions of pages of raw information which will ensure that the next generation of innovations will come from all over Plant Flat. The scale of the global community that is soon going to be able to participate in all sorts of discovery and innovation is something the world has simply never seen before. (pp. 262-63)
The implications of these trends for adolescents and young adults who are not proficient in core literacy skills are significant because of the keen competition that is emerging in this global dynamic. For example, by the year 2015 over 3 million service and professional jobs are expected to move out of the United States. This poses a particular problem for Americans in low-skilled jobs that can be easily moved overseas because every 20 low skilled American workers will be competing with 920 low-skilled non-Westerners who will do the same work for a fifth of the cost (Friedman, 2005). Similarly, Levy and Murnane (2004) argue, based on an analysis of employment demographics, that in an economy heavily influenced by computerization, the workers who will be most successful are those who can engage in "expert thinking" (i.e., identifying and solving uncharted problems for which there are no rule-based solutions) and "complex communications" (i.e., interacting with others to acquire or interpret information, to explain it, or to persuade others of its implications for action).
The recently released report by the National Academies (2006) entitled Rising Above the Gathering Storm also underscores how important it will be for students in the United States (and the Western world) to significantly increase the number and difficulty level of courses they take in the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) in order to be competitive in the changing dynamic created by the global economy. In short, in this new environment, literacy and the ability to skillfully engage in an information-laden world is the currency that will enable one to have a place at the table where ideas are shaped, solutions are created, and decisions are made. The cost to individuals who are not prepared to do so will be profound.
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