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Importing Illiteracy?
Posted 12/16/2005


Immigration: A new study shows no progress in promoting the ability to read English. Cheap labor has social costs, and this could well be one of them.

For those who can read, America is rich in opportunities. Not so for the others. So it's dismaying to learn, from the government's latest National Assessment of Adult Literacy, how many residents lack basic English reading skills. What's worse is the rate of illiteracy hasn't changed since at least the early 1990s.

The study found 11 million Americans 16 or older can't read even simple English. In all, about 30 million adults, or 14% of the adult population, have "below basic" prose skills â€â€