PROMOTING LITERACY

Paul Cummins
Mirror contributing writer

   I was asked recently to speak at a conference on “Promoting Literacy.” Of course, this is an enormously complex topic, yet there are also some simple observations to make and some relatively simple solutions to the problem of illiteracy. The complexity resides in the fact that illiteracy is a manifestation of many social, economic, political, and ethical issues. In most cases, illiteracy is a symptom of a deep illness—the illness is poverty. It is also a symptom of a nation which has not yet sorted out its values and priorities.
   The simple part is this: we could eliminate illiteracy relatively quickly if we resolved to do so. The first step, however, is to care about those who cannot read, for they suffer deeply. They suffer humiliation and loss of dignity. They suffer economically. They suffer a host of related deprivations: they represent 60% of the prison population; they cannot secure well-paid jobs. They cannot help their children with homework. They cannot read menus, voter instructions, notices from the IRS or Social Security, and warnings on cigarette packages. Students who cannot read drop out of school and often enter the jobless, prison, and homeless populations. They don’t vote and this, of course, triggers a vicious circle: they don’t vote — politicians support those who vote and those who contribute to their campaigns; illiterates are generally poor and don’t vote, thus too many politicians ignore them and don’t pass legislation to remediate their conditions.
   The tragedy is that this need not be. There are four books which I believe shine a great deal of light upon this subject. One: in 1944, Gunnar Myrdal wrote his classic study, An American Dilemma, in which he presented the great social and moral paradox of American history: The United States speaks eloquently of universal justice and equal opportunity but its treatment of minorities belies those basic ideals.
   Two: eighteen years later in 1962, Michael Harrington, in his study The Other America, exposed the nation’s underworld—unskilled workers, the aged, and racial minorities. Harrington estimated the poor in America at about 25% of the population. In his conclusion, he wrote, “For until the facts shame us...until they stir us to action, the other America will continue to exist, a monstrous example of needless suffering in the most advanced society in the world.” Note his use of the word “needless.”
   Twenty years after Harrington, in 1985, Jonathan Kozol wrote Illiterate America which decried that one-third of adult Americans are functionally illiterate, dooming them to lives of poverty, ignorance, and humiliation.
   And, finally, in 1992, Andrew Hacker wrote his Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal in which he states, “A huge chasm remains, and there are few signs that the coming century will see it closed.”
   What all four books make clear is that there is an easily identifiable cancer in our society, and it could be cured. The cancer is poverty, and the cure is care. We must decide as a nation that we care to eliminate poverty which will, in turn, remediate problems such as illiteracy. Of course, the reverse is also true: if we focused our attention on eliminating illiteracy, then poverty would diminish. the two are virtually intertwined. What is clearly separate is our resolve to remove both. If we can consider spending 200 billion dollars for one airplane to fight an enemy, in ten years, that we have not even identified, then surely we can wage an all-out war against illiteracy and poverty. If we can provide massive tax cuts for the wealthy who do not “need” tax cuts, then surely we can find the funds to clean up the neighborhoods we condemn poor children to grow up within, and surely we can teach them to read. It is a case of priority and empathy.
   Marion Wright Edelman speaks of our era as one of opportunity: a new century, a new millennium, an enormously wealthy country. We have sent men to the moon, sent spaceships to Mars, cracked the DNA code, found cures for century old diseases—surely we could teach our children to read — if we cared enough. For finally, it is a matter of caring.
   In his profound work, Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol wrote, “Surely there is enough for everyone within this country. It is a tragedy that these good things are not more widely shared. All our children ought to be allowed a stake in the enormous richness of America. Whether they were born to poor white Appalachians or to wealthy Texans, to poor black people in the Bronx or to rich people in Manhasset or Winnetka, they are all quite wonderful and innocent when they are small. We soil them needlessly.”
   Paul Cummins is the President of Crossroads School, a founder of New Roads School, and the Executive Director of the New Visions Foundation.