The pretend degree

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next: a literacy crisis.

Globally, reading scores are hitting record lows. Up to two-thirds of students who don’t learn to read by fourth grade will be in jail or on welfare as adults.

NICK EICHER, HOST: But many students don’t even realize they’re behind. And some make it all the way to university before facing the consequences of a failed education.

WORLD’s Lauren Smyth has the story.

LAUREN SMYTH: John Wininger learned the alphabet last June.

HOPE FOR LAKE LAFAYETTE TEACHER: Alright, so you’re going to start, John.

JOHN WININGER: Okay. 

TEACHER: No! Come on. Be serious.

JOHN WININGER: Okay. “What do you think it would be like …?”

He’s taking adult literacy classes at the Hope of Lake Lafayette Church in Missouri.

JOHN WININGER: I was in a foster home, and they had classes, and I didn't understand. They did the testing on me, and they said I was in a fourth-grader level.

Wininger eventually dropped out of school. But other students make it all the way to college and beyond without a solid grasp of language.

DOUG ALLEN: They wouldn’t know an adjective if it kicked them in the rear end.

That’s Economist Doug Allen… talking about his students at Simon Fraser University, one of Canada’s top schools. He teaches a writing class for fourth-year students, but says most can’t really read.

ALLEN: And they’re just guessing at a third of the other words in a sentence in a technical book.

Last semester, he gave a short quiz with questions like, “What does ‘colloquial’ mean?” and “What is the difference between ‘alternate’ and ‘alternative’?”

Most of the students failed. So Allen gave them a few weeks to study and retake the quiz. More than half got zeroes again.

ALLEN: The difference is 20, 30 years ago it was 5% of the class. Now it's 60.

In another class, 30 of his 300 students handed in blank midterm exams.

ALLEN: One kid said—and this kind of shocked me—he goes, Well, I participated. I go, You put your name on the exam, and you thought that was participation? And he said, Yeah.

Allen says the problem starts in the home, where fewer parents are teaching their kids to read and learn on their own.

ALLEN: I just had a student in my office here not 20 minutes ago. He hasn't read a book since grade six.

Parental involvement in those early years is the most important indicator of a student’s literacy later in life. By college, Allen says, it’s too late.

ALLEN: It's not like the ones that are literate are doing great; they're just sort of functionally literate. But at least I can work with that…. It's impossible for me to teach somebody how to read.

The university where Allen teaches is funded on a per-student basis. He’s concerned that incentivizes admitting and passing as many students as possible. Allen says administrators have called him in after he’s given failing grades.

ALLEN: I talk to the administrator and say, Are you telling me that we're going to give somebody credit for this course that got 7% overall?

Allen says many students don’t like it either. They think he’s being unfair and don’t understand why he won’t just let them pass.

ALLEN: There's got to be some meaning to this, and the meaning can't be pretending. You know, you're going to pretend to learn, I'll give you a pretend grade, and you'll cross the stage and get a pretend degree. That just can't be right.

But there’s always at least one who’s grateful to be held back.

ALLEN: I show them, you know, there is just no pathway out. I mean, by the time you've accumulated zero on 60% of the course, there's just no hope. But the reaction has always been, I know I'm going to fail, but I'm actually learning a lot.

Many students never get that opportunity to fail and try again. Instead, they may slip through with passing grades, and graduate or drop out without learning basic skills. In America, more than half of adults now read at below a sixth-grade level, and would have trouble reading a prescription drug label.

John Wininger is one of them. His adult daughter, Trinnie, sits next to him at the church reading class. They’re learning to read together with the same children’s book. Soon, John hopes he’ll be able to read the Bible for the first time.

HOPE FOR LAKE LAFAYETTE TEACHER: Are you on the B, John? Show where B’s at.

JOHN WININGER: It’s right down here. B?

TEACHER: Yes.

A million Americans are enrolled in adult basic education classes, like the one at John’s church. Most of those programs have long waitlists of people still hoping to get the help they need.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Smyth.

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