Today Afternoon the group of civil liberites had a teleconference with an official from the Departament of Education. It is clear that the theme of tekeconference was about the functional illiteracy. The official first made a brief presentation about this educational problem that USA are facing now days. The statistics says that the actual position is not in favor of the goals that the american society has but the good news is that the number is not increasing. This means that the programs that are being followed by the functional illiterates has served at least to maintain the problem at the grade that it actuallt is.

After representing the problem and representing the work that the Departament of Education has done and will keep doing the official was very pleased to answer some of the questions that were made by the members of the group of the civil liberties. Mostly the questions were about the importance of decreasing functioanl illiteracy, how responsible is the comunity to help this people, which are the programs that foreign citizens or imigrants should participate to, how much time does it take to learn these adults and which is the cost that the state and the comunity should pay for them.

At the end we all agreed that “the cost of non-helping this people is higher than the cost of helping them”- finished her speech the official from the Departament of Education.  

The question that the group that is taking care for the civil liberties has build are as we pass:

1. While the literacy rate in the United States of America is very high (99%), the problem of functional illiteracy is not given proper attention. New statistics says that at present there are about 30 milion functionally illiterate people in the USA and the numbers are growing. As president what would you do to increase functional literacy?

Looking forward to hear (read) any answer from all of you.

Thank you very much.

This the group of Civil Liberties and what we are actually working in the functional illiteracy. Acording to the Wikipedia dictionary functional iliteracy is: Functional illiteracy refers to the inability of an individual to use reading, writing, and computational skills efficiently in everyday life situations. Illiteracy is the inability to read or write simple sentences in any language. In simple words functional illiteracy is when you can easily read or write smth but in fact you don’t really understant what you are reading. So it is not a question of the ability to read but the ability to understand what you are reading.

Unlike an illiterate, one who is functionally illiterate is able to read and write text in his/her native language. However, he/she does so with a variable degree of grammatical correctness, speed, and style, and cannot perform fundamental tasks such as: filling out an employment application; following written instructions; reading a newspaper article; reading traffic signs; consulting a dictionary; or understanding a bus schedule. In short, when confronted with printed materials, adults without basic literacy skills cannot function effectively in modern society.

Functional illiteracy also severely limits interaction with information and communication technologies (i.e. using a personal computer to work with a word processor, a web browser, a spreadsheet application, or using a mobile phone efficiently).

Those who are functionally illiterate may be subject to social intimidation, health risks, stress, low income, and other pitfalls associated with their inability.

The correlation between crime and functional illiteracy is well-known to criminologists and sociologists throughout the world. In the early 2000’s, it was estimated that 60% of adults in federal and state prisons in the United States were functionally or marginally illiterate, and 85% of juvenile offenders had problems associated with reading, writing, and basic mathematics.

 We as a group would appreciate very much if ypu could blog about this topic and if you have any information to share with us, please do it.

with respect

the “civil liberties” group.