The number of 16-to-24 year olds reading at the lowest literacy levels increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, according to from the National Center for Education Statistics in partnership with the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies. 

In 2023, a total of about five million young adults, equivalent to the population of Alabama, could understand the basic meaning of short texts but could not analyze long reading materials, according to further analysis by the American Institute of Research.

The is in line with an unprecedented decline in the literacy rate among all adults in the same six-year period. 

But even more troubling is the AIR researchers’ finding that while the percentage of young adults with high school diplomas increased from 50% to 55% between 2017 and 2023, that group also saw the largest decrease in scores on tests measuring literacy skills compared to older adults with diplomas. 

“We know that over 20% of (young adults) that get their high school diploma do not have the skills commensurate with that,” said Sharon Bonney, chief executive officer of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education, a national adult education nonprofit. “So, when we have this ‘’ agenda, but people can’t read, write, speak the language or do math, they can’t get good jobs and better jobs. They can’t be skilled up.”  

Education experts in functional illiteracy in part on poverty and housing instability, a growing population of students with high needs and the pandemic shutdown of schools, which affected some of those in the 16 to 24 year old group. Many adult education programs were also shuttered during the pandemic.

But researchers also believe the data may point to more troubling trends among young adults: students increasingly passed through their school years without acquiring needed skills, a disconnect with curriculum — and a changing standard of what level of literacy is needed now that technology can provide information without most people having to think twice about it. 

“When you talk about literacy, what are we talking about? Is it reading, writing, filling out forms? Or really understanding and critically questioning what it is we’re consuming?” said Limor Pinhasi-Vittorio, professor and department chair of counseling, leadership, literacy and special education at  Lehman College in the Bronx. Because the latter “for sure is gone for the majority of the adult population.”

Adult literacy levels are measured through a test where individuals score on a zero to 500 point system. The scores are then grouped on a scale of one to five. Readers at level one and below only understand basic, and explicit, short texts such as reading a menu at a restaurant. At the highest literacy level it includes the ability to critically evaluate, infer and dissect complex ideas in written material. 

‘They’re pushed through’

Most efforts to improve literacy have centered on early intervention before third grade, as a student’s reading level at that age is viewed as of their future success. 

have implemented legislation for evidence-based reading instruction. Initial K-3 efforts appear promising, including in Indiana where test scores show younger students making gains and bouncing back from the pandemic. But, there’s still concern about older students who were in the early grades during the pandemic and may not have gotten help and are still struggling. 

“The most effective literacy instruction is still one-on-one or small group instruction, and that’s very difficult to do at scale in the K-12 system,” said Andrew Roberts, president of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. “So if you have some of those background skills, you’re able to get where you need to get, but if you’re struggling, …  that’s where we see people really fall off that cliff.”

Curriculum changes from a “learning to read” model after third grade to “reading to learn” through high school, many experts said, and if a student is behind from the beginning, it’s almost impossible to catch up.

The numbers by show the results can be devastating.  

For example, in Star County in southern Texas and Adams County in central Washington state, more than 80% of high school graduates are reading at level one or below. In countless other counties across the country, the level one literacy rate for high school graduates is higher than 60%.

“In high schools, oftentimes [students] do get pushed along,” Bonney said. “If we’re seeing in one county that [functional illiteracy is] super high, then to me, that says that the school system has a real issue – like why are they pushing students along that don’t have skills?” 

Some literacy advocates believe that passing a student through grades can be part of a more intentional effort to , but there’s also a belief that it’s a product of strained classrooms and a student’s ability to fly under the radar.

“Every couple decades, we’re changing the style of teaching but the problem is the same,” Pinhasi-Vittorio said. “I’m not only talking about money, but populations that have the resources … to help the students, they will be able to. But, in areas that they don’t, they’re falling between the cracks.”

When students fall between the cracks, they also get resourceful, Roberts added. 

“They find ways to hide the fact that they don’t read that strongly. … We find adults who have gotten into their 30s and struggle with reading, and people close to them don’t even fully know,” Roberts said. “There’s a lot of coping mechanisms that allow people to get by, maybe not getting by with As on their report card, but getting by enough that they’re passing through the system — friends doing homework for them — all these types of things.”

How literacy is changing 

Researchers view literacy as a spectrum that goes beyond knowing the basic skills of reading and writing. After students grasp foundational reading skills, the next levels of literacy develop through practice — which some kids aren’t getting because they don’t connect to their lessons. Easy access to online sources and AI also means they don’t really have to engage with the written word deeply anymore. 

Pinhasi-Vittorio recalls when she was in school, she had to read through a set of Britannica Encyclopedias for research papers. Now, however, “you don’t even need to read and write.”

“You can just read it to the computer or the phone and the phone will write it down,” Pinhasi-Vittorio said, adding that technology has changed the way students process information. 

Students take what they get from internet searches at surface level without disseminating it. “My concern is that we are skipping one step,” Pinhasi-Vittorio said. “The teaching needs to be different.… We need to build attention with students which we didn’t have to do before.”

Rebuilding student interest into their lessons is part of the issue.

“A lot of the low functioning literacy is stemming from connectivity,” she said. Students don’t deep dive into topics they don’t care about. They stop paying attention and don’t connect to their reading when they think what they’re learning in the classroom doesn’t have any “relevancy to their lives.”

Literacy skills can often be concentrated in topics that a student cares about or areas that play a role outside of school. For example, a student could be “very literate” in a church environment and able to dissect the Bible, but struggle when it’s a text in the classroom, said Rachael Gabriel, a literacy professor at the University of Connecticut.

“For kids graduating from high school, I think there are some texts that they have trouble with, and I think there are a lot of texts that they can read that we don’t care about,” Gabriel said. “Their literacy is very likely to extend far beyond what is tested, and it may or may not show up well on the way that we’ve been testing literacy for a long time.”

So by better adapting curricula and testing in a way that mirrors a student’s background and interests, measured literacy levels will improve, Gabriel argued.

“I think the goal is just awareness and flexibility of how texts are changing across all the different contexts, where they want to be powerfully literate, where they want to be able to create and critique and participate,” she said. “It is important to teach skills explicitly, and if we teach them in a context that is relevant and engaging and has a real purpose in the world, kids learn faster and better.”

Researchers acknowledge the importance of having a baseline for literacy skills that all students should have, but how it is measured, can continue to improve.

“Literacy skills are really foundational building blocks for learning everything more complex,” said Marco Paccagnella, an analyst at Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development which manages the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. But, many assessments were “designed and conceptualized 10 years ago.”

“The tasks that are part of the assessments mostly reflect the demands on people back in the days. There’s always a tension between adapting the assessment based on what is required of people at a particular moment in time,” Paccagnella said. “So, yes, you can say people are less able to engage with longer texts and difficult texts, but that’s maybe also because they don’t really need to now because the way we consume written information has fundamentally changed.”

The push is already being put into action as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which was last changed in 2004, is expected to roll out to better measure literacy in different subject areas and disaggregate data further based on student background.

A belief that the worst is yet to come

The growth in low-literate adults wasn’t a surprise to many who have tracked reading levels throughout the years or who have worked with adult education programs. In fact, they expect the problem to get worse in upcoming years.

Federal funding for adult education, which had already been stagnant for over two decades, has played a major role in the fact that less than 3% of those who need the programs actually received services, ProPublica in 2022. Many programs have months long waitlists. 

“From 23-24, we saw 415,000 people-plus who could demonstrate additional achievement gains in literacy through outside programming. We saw over 80,000 people get their high school equivalency degree through adult programming,” Roberts said. “There are paths, but the funding level is just really low, and you’re not able to meet up the demand. It’s like a big spigot coming in and you’re kind of a small spigot going out with the people you’re able to serve.”

The programs are in further jeopardy after a recent proposal from the Trump administration called to end all federal funding for adult education programs with a $0 line item in the . 

“If kids are coming or graduating from high school with low reading skills and they don’t have access to educational opportunities as an adult to address those low skills,” said Todd Evans, senior director of programs at advocacy and literacy training nonprofit ProLiteracy, “that number will just keep growing and growing and growing.”

Admittedly, I was on the fast track toward becoming one of the or NEETs – youth between the ages 16 to 24 who are “not in education, employment, or training” – who live here in southern Nevada. I was on the verge of becoming a statistic. 

Across the country, , , were considered NEETs. Alarmingly, this propensity to disconnect seems to afflict boys more than girls. , the share of young men aged 18 to 24 who were NEETs increased from 4% to 8%. In my home state of Nevada, the percentage is 19%, the second highest in the country. Moreover, as a male in Nevada, I was 15% more likely to drop out than my sisters. 

Not surprisingly, outcomes for NEETS are troubling. About without a high school diploma are either incarcerated or on parole at any given time. Among African American males, the proportion is closer to 30%. Lower educational attainment is associated with isolation, loneliness, and addiction. 

The trajectory that I had been moving along for those first two years pivoted sharply after I landed my first job. The summer following my sophomore year, I told my parents that I wanted to work. Knowing that I was on the verge of dropping out or failing out of school, my parents were desperate. A grand bargain was struck: I could work as long as I stayed on top of my schoolwork. 

Not only did I stay on top of my schoolwork – I outperformed. Throughout my junior year and beyond, I worked at least 20 hours a week while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average and an above average course load.

Having a job was rewarding and valuable on several fronts. First, my job helped me connect what I was learning in the classroom to the real world. I am applying my health science knowledge to my work as a lifeguard. Additionally, I have invested most of my wages, which has helped me understand the importance of mathematical concepts, such as compounded interest, that previously seemed so irrelevant. Second, my work — both as a lifeguard and an internship with the county government — is teaching me important durable skills: like showing up on time (even when I’m tired), being responsible, and working with people with whom I have nothing in common. 

Finally, my employment has given me confidence and purpose and helped me realize that “” — taken from “Invictus,” a poem by William Ernest Henley that I memorized in fifth grade.

My experience is not unique. Research indicates that students who work and participate in internships, apprenticeships, and employment have better outcomes. One reported that the “evidence to date indicates that summer youth employment programs have the potential to reduce delinquent behavior, enhance academic aspirations and performance, and improve social and emotional development.” 

Youth employment programs are associated with “, who saw improvements in their sense of belonging, ability to contribute to their communities, and conflict resolution skills.”  A found that “private sector job experience significantly increases attendance, reduces course failures, and raises proficiency on statewide exams. Participants are more likely to take the SAT and enroll in college with a shift from two-year to four-year institutions.”  

According to the , “Expanding employment opportunities for opportunity youth — including through proven year-round and summer job training programs — can help improve work readiness, expand professional networks, boost earnings, and reduce interaction with the criminal justice system.” The potential cost of not helping a disconnected youth at $13,900 annually. 

While I have meaningful employment, my experience feels like an outlier, especially among my African American peers. Many friends have been looking for jobs and internships for months without success. Workforce development experts have confirmed my observation—noting that internships and jobs are rare. 

As �鶹��Ʒ has reported, at most 5% of students have the chance for the gold standard of work experiences: apprenticeships or internships.  As of , the U.S. unemployment rate among youth ages 16 to 24 was 10.5%, significantly higher than the national rate of 4.3%. Among African American youth, the rate was over 14%. 

Given the benefits of youth employment and the association with lower crime rates, governments and political leaders should do more to offer incentives to businesses to provide internships and job opportunities. Currently, only a handful of states provide programs to encourage businesses to hire young people. 

In , the state provides an “Experiential Learning Tax Credit Program,” which offers a $2,000 tax credit for every apprentice, pre-apprentice, or student intern that a business employs. has a Work-Based Learning Tax Credit that offers businesses a $2,500 credit if they hire a youth. Earlier this year, there was a to provide $15 million to support NEETs in Nevada. Sadly, the bill didn’t even get a hearing. 

While barriers remain, such as transportation or student schedules,  some states are getting creative to address these. For example, Indiana has that grant students funds to cover the cost of getting to work, and have rolled out more flexible school schedules in some schools so that students can work at an apprenticeship, job, or internship. 

There are millions of young people — especially young boys like me — who are wandering, feeling disconnected, and facing significant barriers. College is expensive. Jobs are hard to come by. There are fewer organized ways to engage. 

As such, opportunities to work and learn – in the form of internships, apprenticeships, and employment opportunities – are the best vehicles to help youth learn about and connect to their interests, and from that, build confidence to explore and connect to their community.  Increasing job opportunities for young people is a proposition that will benefit the entire community. 

When the Dalio Foundation released a report last October about  it said it was just the start of the work to come.

Months later, the , a 15-person group made up mainly of town mayors tasked with coming up with strategies to tackle the problem, is still developing a strategy — and doesn’t have a cost estimate for its efforts.

Still, the group says its “North Star” goal is to get 60,000 at-risk and disconnected youth back on track within the next 10 years.

The first step was bringing awareness to the issue of the growing number of Connecticut youth, from ages 14 to 26, who were judged to be disconnected or at risk of being disconnected from school or employment, based on factors such as chronic absenteeism, behavioral issues, and leaving school without a degree or other path to employment.

The 119K Commission said it plans to release a detailed strategy in October but did not provide further details at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

“This is a process that you have to really get your arms around the scope to make sure that the strategy that you put out will truly move the needle and answer that question of, ‘What would it look like to reduce this population by 60,000?’” Joe DeLong, a commission co-chair and executive director and CEO of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, told The Connecticut Mirror. “It’s such an important measure because there are probably going to be a series of things that we would really like to happen to this strategy that ultimately may not make the cut because, as you put it through those filters, it doesn’t meet that goal.”

DeLong said some initiatives — such as partnerships to work on curriculum changes to keep students better engaged, more community centers for extracurricular programs or more organizations offering wraparound services for struggling students — are being analyzed, but there wasn’t anything set in stone yet.

“The one concept I think that the whole commission has coalesced around from the beginning is that we have to create this young-person, student-centered model in terms of their needs,” DeLong said.

That effort has begun with a listening tour with months of roundtables with youth from Waterbury, Stamford and Bridgeport so far.

Two more meetings are planned in Stratford and Hartford, which would total 200 youth involved in “representing a mix of young people from at risk, to modernly disconnected, to severely disconnected, different ages, genders and race,” and their perspectives, said Josh Brown, a co-chairperson from , a Stamford-based nonprofit that works with disconnected and disengaged youth.

“There are many insights, but there’s six big lessons that we have learned from our young people. One [is that] these young people have dreams, just like all young people. Some of them want to be doctors, real estate professionals, lawyers, entrepreneurs, photographers, police officers and even educators,” Brown said. “Two [is that] charting a path to achieve their goals and dreams is often based on Google. If they’re lucky enough, they’ll have a family friend or somebody that also has experience and go to them as well, but with that being said, in most cases, these young people have to be very self sufficient.”

Students also said youth programs and resources are hard to navigate and that high school can feel like an obstacle when they can’t find transportation to campus, may have to take care of siblings or curriculum may not fit their interests.

“One thing is clear and common: we all heard they’re bored,” Brown said.

Young people lack a sense of community and “there’s scarce access to recreation,” Brown added. “They have cited a wide range of wishes, ranging from questions on how to access nature walks, going to the library on the weekend, or common comments that are limited opportunities — either because they don’t have the money, or … they just don’t know about it,” including weekend activities or sport leagues.

The insight from the community so far has led to four “emerging strategic pillars”: coalition, coordination, conditions and capacity, said Andrew Ferguson, a co-chairperson for Dalio Education, a grant foundation that engages with public school communities and provides funding to several nonprofits.

“These four things are building on some existing efforts in Connecticut, but they’re also helping to build out a lot that doesn’t exist yet,” Ferguson said.

DeLong said more “really deep dives” are needed in the next three months as they finalize their strategic plan.

“There’s areas that we all think are really, really important, but they they need to wait to be explored at a later time, because they won’t be part of this initial strategy that meets the mission,” DeLong said. “[There’s] such a wide and important variety of areas [youth need help in] that go from housing and homelessness to food insecurity to trauma. … We need something that defines actions going forward.”

Editor’s Note: The CT Mirror is a grantee of the Dalio Foundation.

Now, dozens of young adults in Brooklyn have moved into their own apartments or been able to provide health care for their children as they jumpstart sustainable careers as computer scientists, carpenters, health care and IT technicians, education specialists and chefs.

Paid $500 to participate in a six-week ‘13th grade’ Alumni Lab, Bushwick’s Math, Engineering, and Science Academy Charter High School grads are showing the country a model for engaging disconnected youth, those unemployed and not attending college.

“Life has not gone as they were led to believe it would,” said MESA’s co-executive director and co-founder Arthur Samuels. “…You have all of these kids who are not tethered to any institution, but the institution that they are tethered to is their high school. We need to leverage that relationship.” 

“We create this artificial bright line that happens on the day of graduation: June 23, you’re our kid. June 24, we give you a diploma and you’re someone else’s problem,” he added. 

The population of disconnected or opportunity youth under 25 is growing in several states including , and , each home to at least 100,000 respectively. Including teenagers who’ve dropped out of high school, nearly 15% of ’s young people are in the same position.

The counts underestimate just how many young people are struggling post-graduation. According to the those who are working under age 25 make up 44% of people at or below federal minimum wage, often without benefits. 

in New York City’s workforce programs designed for unemployed youth are unfilled because of recruitment and retention challenges. 

Yet MESA’s workshop and coaching alumni lab is near full capacity, this spring wrapping up their third cohort in its inaugural year, with 71% of 42 young adults matriculating back to college or into a free workforce development program. About 25 students participated in the 2021-22 school year in a one-one, case management model. 

Alumni say workshops feel welcoming and family-like. During one April session, a four month old napped in a stroller next to her mother. The cohort goes for lunch regularly, chatting about internship possibilities or recent TV obsessions. All sessions are taught by former MESA teachers, far from judgemental strangers.

Beyond technical resume writing and interview support, biweekly 90-minute sessions explore growth mindset, self-awareness and making goals — skills that help young people, particularly alumni of color, work through feelings of inadequacy, shame, or feeling like an imposter. 

“It requires a real vulnerability,” Samuels said. “…I think they’re willing to do that because of the relationships.”

Launched three years ago as school leaders encountered more and more alumni who appeared to be working low wage jobs or dropping out of degree programs to make ends meet, the model is expanding. Other Brooklyn principals have identified the urgent need to support alumni, particularly those in the pandemic generation.

MESA has formally partnered with the High School for Fashion Industries for next school year; at least two other schools are in talks as well. The partnerships would enable MESA to serve 100 students in their north Brooklyn campus next school year, in the heart of a large Latino community. 

While a high school’s success is often sized up by its graduation rate, co-executive director and co-founder Pagee Cheung believes metrics from alumni’s post-secondary lives should serve as a wake up call. 

“The goal is beyond just graduation numbers — how are they surviving once they leave?” said Cheung. “There’s a vacuum in accountability and responsibility.” 

‘I’d still be lost’ 

Five years after graduating, Jackie, a young mother, sat intensely focused at a full table in her alma mater’s media library. She and Eduardo, who graduated in 2020 into an uncertain world, shared a table as they decided their top three work programs from a packet of options.

Without MESA, Eduardo said he’d be scouring the internet for programs that he felt met his interests, without much understanding of financial literacy or what made a high-quality program.

“It would be a waste of my time,” he told �鶹��Ʒ. 

And time is of the essence — his younger brother recently graduated from MESA as well; his younger siblings still have a few years left in school. He knows that this age is also when some peers start contributing to retirement.

“I want [my siblings] to chase what they want to do without restrictions,” said Eduardo, whose last name has been withheld for privacy. “With my financial stability, I might be able to help them get to theirs, and just create this long line of financial stability.”

Starting in 2023, participants were compensated $500 for attending two 90-minute workshops for six weeks.

“If they’re cutting back on their hours at Footlocker [to attend], that’s a hard ask,” Samuels explained. “Forgoing income in the short term might mean getting evicted or missing meals. Having the ability to offset some of that lost income through stipends made a huge difference.” 

Beyond financial obstacles, there are often mental barriers that prevent young people from being able to participate in similar programs. 

“For many of them, there’s this shame and guilt attached to not being where they should be or comparing themselves to others,” Cheung said. 

Participants also described a sort of imposter syndrome when they are accepted into a workforce or degree program, that they’re not deserving of the opportunity. 

“The conditioning has been, this probably isn’t going to work out for you anyway. When there is an obstacle, it confirms that thought process,” Samuels said, adding that they are encouraging a “mindset that I am entitled to have a career that is financially sustainable and personally satisfying. I can advocate for that and there are people who are able to help me.” 

Creating a network of peers was essential: instead of individual counseling, MESA offers cohorts that go through workshops as a group.

In leading workshops, MESA teachers emphasize trial and error to counter the narrative that young people have to know exactly what they want to do by 20. A former student who wanted to become a firefighter, for example, was coached to try out a common exercise regimen, then decided he couldn’t sustain that for years. 

When second cohort alum Luis Rodriguez first graduated alongside Eduardo in 2020, he followed the path he always imagined: pursuing college sports. But when the pandemic halted athletics and he didn’t feel the quality of education at Buffalo State was “as good as I thought it would be,” he left. 

Rodriguez worked at various factories and warehouses in Pennsylvania and New York before he heard about MESA’s workshops from a friend. He didn’t hesitate to get involved, wanting to figure out a new path instead of working nonstop. 

But it wasn’t until MESA’s alumni program presented culinary arts as a career possibility and a former coach pushed him that he seriously considered it.

“I just be in my head so much… What if I take this path and it doesn’t work out, then I have to start all over? It took me a while to realize that sometimes that’s just what happens. It’s not a bad thing,” he said. 

MESA’s position as a high school that has kept strong relationships with alumni and their families for years makes it uniquely positioned to push participants when they start to doubt themselves, or advocate on their behalf.

In late April, Rodriguez finished his first shift at a Mexican fusion restaurant in Astoria, a new culinary placement through the . 

“I would still be at a warehouse job, honestly, if I didn’t find this workshop. And still be lost.”  

]]>