Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id f6PL2Tf16826; Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:02:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:02:29 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <5DCA49BDD2B0D41186CE00508B6BEBD00449EC17@wdcrobexc01.ed.gov> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Johnson, Alice" <Alice.Johnson@ed.gov> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:540] RE: Washington Post Article on the NALS X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: multipart/alternative; X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Status: O Content-Length: 31910 Lines: 589 This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C1154C.F1AC1910 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" The following is forwarded at the request of Statistics Canada. July 25, 2001 Letters to the Editor The Washington Post 1150 15th Street Northwest Washington, DC 20071 Dear Sir/Madam: I am writing in reference to Jay Mathews article Adult Literacy, Rewritten published in the July 16, 2001 edition of the Washington Post. Specifically, I want to take exception with the statement that the results of the original National Adult Literacy Survey were wrong. The comments attributed to Messrs. Kolstad and Sticht reveal a profound misunderstanding of the aims of the study and leave the mistaken impression that the methods employed to profile and report the literacy proficiency of American adults were flawed. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The NALS study was not about illiteracy and the authors of Adult Literacy in America went to great pains to avoid using the term. The 80% response probability applied in the NALS study reflects the study's desire to provide US employers and policy makers with an objective assessment of what US citizens and workers can reliably read. Kolstad's argument implies that American employers would be content with employees who only understand half of what they read. 22 of the world's most economically advanced nations have paid the NALS study the highest form of compliment by replicating the study, including adopting the 80% response probability. Data from these studies, published by the OECD in Literacy in the Information Age: Final Report of the International Adult Literacy Survey, reveal that reading skill plays an important role in advanced economies, affording workers with higher skill better access to jobs and higher wages. All the evidence suggests that the economic importance of reading will increase as jobs become increasingly knowledge and information intense. In many countries the study's results have precipitated quite dramatic public investments in programs aimed at equipping citizens with the tools needed to compete in the global economy. It is ironic that the nation that had the skill and foresight to field the NALS study in the first place should be the one to benefit the least from the rich understanding of literacy skill that these methods provide. Yours sincerely, T. Scott Murray Director General Institutions and Social Statistics Statistics Canada Tel: (613) 951-9035 e-mail: scott.murray@statcan.ca -----Original Message----- From: Johnson, Alice Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 11:50 AM To: 'nifl-povracelit@nifl.gov'; Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:535] RE: Washington Post Article on the NALS I've been asked by ETS to post Irwin Kirsch's response to the Post article, which follows: If You Are Literate You Have a 50/50 Chance of Reading This! In an article titled Adult Illiteracy, Rewritten, Washington Post reporter and columnist Jay Mathews draws our attention to a 1992 literacy assessment of America's adults conducted by Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the U.S. Department of Education. In his article, Mathews cites information that questions whether the results from that study, the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), present an overly pessimistic view of literacy in America. He quotes the study as showing that 20 percent of America's adults are illiterate and nearly half read poorly. The views expressed in Mr. Mathews's article come from a reassessment of the survey by Andy Kolstad, who managed the original study for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Department of Education. Mathews quotes Kolstad as saying that "the study used the wrong response probability" and, therefore, exaggerated the severity of the problem. For instance, Mathews writes "among the people judged to be illiterate, 70 percent say they read a newspaper once a week." He then quotes Kolstad as saying, "This is not illiteracy." As the one who directed this survey for ETS, I feel it is important to point out the mischaracterization of the study made in this recent article and to place the interpretation of the data into a broader - and therefore correct -- context. First, the study never reported that 20 percent of the adult population was illiterate. What was reported is that approximately 20 percent or some 40 million adults performed in the lowest of 5 defined literacy levels. The report, Adult Literacy in America, went on to say that although adults in this level displayed limited skills, their characteristics are diverse. Quoting from the report, "Many adults in this level performed single, routine tasks involving brief and uncomplicated texts and documents. For example, they were able to total an entry form on a deposit slip, locate the time or place of a meeting on a form, and identify a piece of information in a brief news article." Only some 5 percent were unable to perform any of these tasks. Kolstad is quoted in the article as saying that the study used a response probability standard of 80 percent for characterizing whether or not someone was judged to be proficient with a given type of task and that this was too high. He believes a standard of 50 percent would make more sense. Furthermore, he says that using this standard would reduce the percentage falling in Level 1 from approximately 20 percent to 9 percent. There are two major problems with the argument put forth by Kolstad. First, changing the response probability from 80 percent to 50 percent also lowers the standard for literacy to what many think is an unacceptable level. The 50 percent criterion he suggests is the point at which the least is known about whether an individual can or cannot perform a single task or type of task. No other national or international survey uses this 50 percent criterion to judge proficiency. The 80 percent criterion was drawn from the education literature on mastery learning to reflect a level of performance at which someone is judged to be proficient or competent. Lowering that standard to 50 percent in this case would mean that an adult at a given level of proficiency would be expected to perform tasks at that level with 50 percent accuracy - hardly a standard we should accept as indicating someone is proficient at something. Would you want to go to a restaurant that filled your order correctly 50 percent of the time or visit a dentist that fixed the correct tooth 50 percent of the time? How many employers would want to hire someone knowing they had a 50/50 chance of performing tasks correctly? Second, and more important, the argument over which response probability to use masks the real issue of how literacy is distributed in America and how it relates to social, educational and economic outcomes in our society. Here the data from this survey are clear because the selection of the response probability, whether it is 80 percent, 50 percent, or somewhere in between has nothing to do with the underlying distribution of literacy skills. As Kolstad points out in his report that is referenced in the news story, the "true literacy proficiencies of the population remain as reported. ... The response probability convention influences how the results are interpreted not how well adults perform on the assessment." How well did adults perform on the assessment? Since years of schooling completed is the single best predictor of literacy skills, one way to answer this question is to look at the distribution of skills by levels of educational attainment. Those judged to be in Level 1 on the survey had literacy proficiencies that were defined at or below 225 on a 500-point scale. The 40 million adults in this level demonstrated proficiencies that were below the average performance of adults who had not earned their high school diploma or GED. The average performance on the prose literacy scale for adults with 9-12 years of schooling but no diploma was 231. This is far below the average performance of those adults who terminated their education with a high school diploma or GED (270 and 268, respectively). This comparison is important because most states in America identify people who are in need of adult education services as those who are 16 years of age and older and who have not earned their high school diploma or GED. As stated in the 1975 book Toward a Literate Society: The Report of the Committee on Reading of the National Academy of Education, "We take the position that the 'reading problem' in the United States should not be stated as one of teaching people to read at the level of minimum literacy, but rather as one of ensuring that every person arriving at adulthood will be able to read and understand the whole spectrum of printed materials that one is likely to encounter in daily life. ... As one member of our committee has pointed out, our national educational policy is that every child is expected to complete at least the twelfth grade, we ought then to expect every child to attain twelfth-grade literacy." While large percentages of America's adults fail to meet the criterion set forth by the Committee on Reading, what concerned the committees who guided the NALS and who advised ETS and NCES on reporting the results was not just the fact that large percentages of adults were found to have limited skills but that the association between skills and opportunities in America is powerful and growing. The NALS data base allows us to examine the association between demonstrated skills on the three literacy scales (prose, document and quantitative literacy) and a wide array of labor-market variables that include employment status, weeks worked, occupation, and income, as well as social outcomes and participation in educational/training programs of various types. In fact, section two of the report Adult Literacy in America published in 1993 was devoted to showing the connection between adult literacy skills as measured in NALS and social and economic outcomes in our society. Collectively, what these data suggest is that literacy has become a currency in our society. Just as adults with little money have difficulty meeting their basic needs, those with limited literacy skills are likely to find it more challenging to achieve their goals, whether these involve seeking or advancing in a job, consumer decision making, pursuing educational opportunities, participating actively in civic affairs or other aspects of their lives. On the quantitative scale, for example, 44 percent of adults in Level 1 reported living in or near poverty as defined by 1991 poverty criteria. The percentage of adults with poverty or near poverty incomes dropped in half, to 22 percent, for those adults in Level 2 on the scale. The percentages continued to decrease significantly for each successive level on the quantitative scale. Another way to look at the results is that someone in Level 1 was 11 times more likely than someone in Level 5 to be living in or near poverty and about six times more likely as someone demonstrating skills associated with Level 4. Similarly, on each of the literacy scales, more than 50 percent of the adults who demonstrated proficiencies in Level 1 were out of the labor force - that is, not employed and not looking for work - compared with only 10 percent to 18 percent of the adults who performed in each of the two highest literacy levels. In addition, individuals scoring in Levels 3, 4 or 5 worked more weeks per year than those in Level 2, who, in turn, worked more weeks during the previous 12 months than those in Level 1. Those 40 million adults who performed in Level 1 on each of the three literacy scales worked, on average, only about 19 weeks while those in the three highest levels reported working about twice that amount - between 34 and 44 weeks. Not surprisingly, weekly and annual earnings were also associated with their literacy proficiencies. It is important to keep in mind that the distribution of literacy skills found in the NALS and the relationships of these skills with social, educational and economic outcomes are unaffected by the choice of a response probability. The use of a response probability was intended only to help guide interpretation of what it means to be at various points along a scale. It does not have an impact on how well people perform tasks, the underlying distribution of skill or the validity of the data. As Thomas Jefferson noted more than 200 hundred years ago, literacy and education are fundamental to our democracy and its future. While I wouldn't argue or even suggest that every adult needs to perform in the two highest of the five defined levels of literacy, the results of the NALS survey do suggest that the existing level of literacy skills for far too many of our adults is below that which is needed for personal economic advancement, access to higher skilled and higher paying jobs, and full participation in our increasingly complex society. And, while our society won't collapse tomorrow from the distribution of skills we currently have in America, we may find ourselves falling behind in international competitiveness in the future. And our society is almost certain to become more divided along social and economic lines. Those with below average skills cannot hope to earn above- average wages in an increasingly global economy. Moreover, as information and technology continue to grow and increase in importance, and as our economic competitors continue to invest in human capital, even those adults in this country with average skills may experience increased difficulty in the future labor market and in understanding the many complex issues facing our society. The debate over which response probability to use to guide interpretation of large-scale assessments such as NALS is partly a technical and partly a political issue. It is likely that the discussion will continue as we seek better ways to present complex data and information to the American public, especially as more national and international assessments become available. Yet, we shouldn't allow this debate to overshadow the serious dangers that lay before us. We must find ways of reducing the high degree of inequality in skills that currently exists within our population and in raising the overall level of literacy among our citizens. The need for understanding this challenge is evident and the time to act is now! Irwin S. Kirsch Director, Center for Global Assessment Educational Testing Service ------_=_NextPart_001_01C1154C.F1AC1910 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; = charset=3Diso-8859-1"> <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version = 5.5.2653.12"> <TITLE>RE: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:535] RE: Washington Post Article on the = NALS</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>The following is forwarded at the request of = Statistics Canada.</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>July 25, 2001</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Letters to the Editor</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>The Washington Post</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>1150 15th Street Northwest</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Washington, DC</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>20071</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Dear Sir/Madam:</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>I am writing in reference to Jay Mathews article = Adult Literacy, Rewritten published in the July 16, 2001 edition of the = Washington Post. </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Specifically, I want to take exception with the = statement that the results of the original National Adult Literacy = Survey were wrong. The comments attributed to Messrs. Kolstad and = Sticht reveal a profound misunderstanding of the aims of the study and = leave the mistaken impression that the methods employed to profile and = report the literacy proficiency of American adults were flawed. = Nothing could be farther from the truth. </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>The NALS study was not about illiteracy and the = authors of Adult Literacy in America went to great pains to avoid using = the term. </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>The 80% response probability applied in the NALS = study reflects the study's desire to provide US employers and policy = makers with an objective assessment of what US citizens and workers can = reliably read. Kolstad's argument implies that American employers would = be content with employees who only understand half of what they read. = </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>22 of the world's most economically advanced nations = have paid the NALS study the highest form of compliment by replicating = the study, including adopting the 80% response probability. = </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Data from these studies, published by the OECD in = Literacy in the Information Age: Final Report of the International = Adult Literacy Survey, reveal that reading skill plays an important = role in advanced economies, affording workers with higher skill better = access to jobs and higher wages. All the evidence suggests that = the economic importance of reading will increase as jobs become = increasingly knowledge and information intense.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>In many countries the study's results have = precipitated quite dramatic public investments in programs aimed at = equipping citizens with the tools needed to compete in the global = economy. It is ironic that the nation that had the skill and = foresight to field the NALS study in the first place should be the one = to benefit the least from the rich understanding of literacy skill that = these methods provide.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Yours sincerely,</FONT> </P> <BR> <BR> <BR> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>T. Scott Murray</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Director General</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Institutions and Social Statistics</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Statistics Canada</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Tel: (613) 951-9035</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>e-mail: scott.murray@statcan.ca</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>-----Original Message-----</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>From: Johnson, Alice </FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 11:50 AM</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>To: 'nifl-povracelit@nifl.gov'; Multiple recipients = of list</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Subject: RE: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:535] RE: Washington = Post Article on the</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>NALS</FONT> </P> <BR> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>I've been asked by ETS to post Irwin Kirsch's = response to the Post article, which follows:</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>If You Are Literate You Have a 50/50 Chance of = Reading This!</FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>In an article titled Adult Illiteracy, Rewritten, = Washington Post reporter and columnist Jay Mathews draws our attention = to a 1992 literacy assessment of America's adults conducted by = Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the U.S. Department of = Education.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>In his article, Mathews cites information that = questions whether the results from that study, the National Adult = Literacy Survey (NALS), present an overly pessimistic view of literacy = in America. He quotes the study as showing that 20 percent of = America's adults are illiterate and nearly half read poorly. The = views expressed in Mr. Mathews's article come from a reassessment of = the survey by Andy Kolstad, who managed the original study for the = National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Department = of Education. Mathews quotes Kolstad as saying that "the study used the = wrong response probability" and, therefore, exaggerated the severity of = the problem. For instance, Mathews writes "among the people = judged to be illiterate, 70 percent say they read a newspaper once a = week." He then quotes Kolstad as saying, "This is not = illiteracy."</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>As the one who directed this survey for ETS, I feel = it is important to point out the mischaracterization of the study made = in this recent article and to place the interpretation of the data into = a broader - and therefore correct -- context. First, the study = never reported that 20 percent of the adult population was = illiterate. What was reported is that approximately 20 percent or = some 40 million adults performed in the lowest of 5 defined literacy = levels. The report, Adult Literacy in America, went on to say = that although adults in this level displayed limited skills, their = characteristics are diverse. Quoting from the report, "Many = adults in this level performed single, routine tasks involving brief = and uncomplicated texts and documents. For example, they were = able to total an entry form on a deposit slip, locate the time or place = of a meeting on a form, and identify a piece of information in a brief = news article." Only some 5 percent were unable to perform any of = these tasks. </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Kolstad is quoted in the article as saying that the = study used a response probability standard of 80 percent for = characterizing whether or not someone was judged to be proficient with = a given type of task and that this was too high. He believes a = standard of 50 percent would make more sense. Furthermore, he = says that using this standard would reduce the percentage falling in = Level 1 from approximately 20 percent to 9 percent.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>There are two major problems with the argument put = forth by Kolstad. First, changing the response probability from = 80 percent to 50 percent also lowers the standard for literacy to what = many think is an unacceptable level. The 50 percent criterion he = suggests is the point at which the least is known about whether an = individual can or cannot perform a single task or type of task. = No other national or international survey uses this 50 percent = criterion to judge proficiency. The 80 percent criterion was = drawn from the education literature on mastery learning to reflect a = level of performance at which someone is judged to be proficient or = competent. Lowering that standard to 50 percent in this case = would mean that an adult at a given level of proficiency would be = expected to perform tasks at that level with 50 percent accuracy - = hardly a standard we should accept as indicating someone is proficient = at something. Would you want to go to a restaurant that filled your = order correctly 50 percent of the time or visit a dentist that fixed = the correct tooth 50 percent of the time? How many employers would want = to hire someone knowing they had a 50/50 chance of performing tasks = correctly?</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Second, and more important, the argument over which = response probability to use masks the real issue of how literacy is = distributed in America and how it relates to social, educational and = economic outcomes in our society. Here the data from this survey = are clear because the selection of the response probability, whether it = is 80 percent, 50 percent, or somewhere in between has nothing to do = with the underlying distribution of literacy skills. As Kolstad = points out in his report that is referenced in the news story, the = "true literacy proficiencies of the population remain as reported. ... = The response probability convention influences how the results are = interpreted not how well adults perform on the assessment."</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>How well did adults perform on the assessment? = </FONT> </P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Since years of schooling completed is the single best = predictor of literacy skills, one way to answer this question is to = look at the distribution of skills by levels of educational = attainment. Those judged to be in Level 1 on the survey had = literacy proficiencies that were defined at or below 225 on a 500-point = scale. The 40 million adults in this level demonstrated = proficiencies that were below the average performance of adults who had = not earned their high school diploma or GED. The average = performance on the prose literacy scale for adults with 9-12 years of = schooling but no diploma was 231. This is far below the = average performance of those adults who terminated their education with = a high school diploma or GED (270 and 268, respectively). </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>This comparison is important because most states in = America identify people who are in need of adult education services as = those who are 16 years of age and older and who have not earned their = high school diploma or GED. As stated in the 1975 book Toward a = Literate Society: The Report of the Committee on Reading of the = National Academy of Education, "We take the position that the 'reading = problem' in the United States should not be stated as one of teaching = people to read at the level of minimum literacy, but rather as one of = ensuring that every person arriving at adulthood will be able to read = and understand the whole spectrum of printed materials that one is = likely to encounter in daily life. ... As one member of our committee = has pointed out, our national educational policy is that every child is = expected to complete at least the twelfth grade, we ought then to = expect every child to attain twelfth-grade literacy."</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>While large percentages of America's adults fail to = meet the criterion set forth by the Committee on Reading, what = concerned the committees who guided the NALS and who advised ETS and = NCES on reporting the results was not just the fact that large = percentages of adults were found to have limited skills but that the = association between skills and opportunities in America is powerful and = growing. The NALS data base allows us to examine the association = between demonstrated skills on the three literacy scales (prose, = document and quantitative literacy) and a wide array of labor-market = variables that include employment status, weeks worked, occupation, and = income, as well as social outcomes and participation in = educational/training programs of various types. In fact, = section two of the report Adult Literacy in America published in 1993 = was devoted to showing the connection between adult literacy skills as = measured in NALS and social and economic outcomes in our = society.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Collectively, what these data suggest is that = literacy has become a currency in our society. Just as adults = with little money have difficulty meeting their basic needs, those with = limited literacy skills are likely to find it more challenging to = achieve their goals, whether these involve seeking or advancing in a = job, consumer decision making, pursuing educational opportunities, = participating actively in civic affairs or other aspects of their = lives. On the quantitative scale, for example, 44 percent of = adults in Level 1 reported living in or near poverty as defined by 1991 = poverty criteria. The percentage of adults with poverty or near = poverty incomes dropped in half, to 22 percent, for those adults in = Level 2 on the scale. The percentages continued to decrease = significantly for each successive level on the quantitative = scale. Another way to look at the results is that someone in = Level 1 was 11 times more likely than someone in Level 5 to be living = in or near poverty and about six times more likely as someone = demonstrating skills associated with Level 4.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Similarly, on each of the literacy scales, more than = 50 percent of the adults who demonstrated proficiencies in Level 1 were = out of the labor force - that is, not employed and not looking for work = - compared with only 10 percent to 18 percent of the adults who = performed in each of the two highest literacy levels. In = addition, individuals scoring in Levels 3, 4 or 5 worked more weeks per = year than those in Level 2, who, in turn, worked more weeks during the = previous 12 months than those in Level 1. Those 40 million adults = who performed in Level 1 on each of the three literacy scales worked, = on average, only about 19 weeks while those in the three highest levels = reported working about twice that amount - between 34 and 44 = weeks. Not surprisingly, weekly and annual earnings were also = associated with their literacy proficiencies. </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>It is important to keep in mind that the distribution = of literacy skills found in the NALS and the relationships of these = skills with social, educational and economic outcomes are unaffected by = the choice of a response probability. The use of a response = probability was intended only to help guide interpretation of what it = means to be at various points along a scale. It does not have an = impact on how well people perform tasks, the underlying distribution of = skill or the validity of the data.</FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>As Thomas Jefferson noted more than 200 hundred years = ago, literacy and education are fundamental to our democracy and its = future. While I wouldn't argue or even suggest that every adult = needs to perform in the two highest of the five defined levels of = literacy, the results of the NALS survey do suggest that the existing = level of literacy skills for far too many of our adults is below that = which is needed for personal economic advancement, access to higher = skilled and higher paying jobs, and full participation in our = increasingly complex society. And, while our society won't = collapse tomorrow from the distribution of skills we currently have in = America, we may find ourselves falling behind in international = competitiveness in the future. And our society is almost certain to = become more divided along social and economic lines. Those with = below average skills cannot hope to earn above- average wages in an = increasingly global economy. Moreover, as information and = technology continue to grow and increase in importance, and as our = economic competitors continue to invest in human capital, even those = adults in this country with average skills may experience increased = difficulty in the future labor market and in understanding the many = complex issues facing our society. </FONT></P> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>The debate over which response probability to use to = guide interpretation of large-scale assessments such as NALS is partly = a technical and partly a political issue. It is likely that the = discussion will continue as we seek better ways to present complex data = and information to the American public, especially as more national and = international assessments become available. Yet, we shouldn't = allow this debate to overshadow the serious dangers that lay before = us. We must find ways of reducing the high degree of inequality = in skills that currently exists within our population and in raising = the overall level of literacy among our citizens. The need for = understanding this challenge is evident and the time to act is = now! </FONT></P> <BR> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Irwin S. Kirsch </FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Director, Center for Global Assessment </FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Educational Testing Service</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2> </FONT> </P> </BODY> </HTML> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C1154C.F1AC1910--
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