March 2006
The Silent Epidemic

A report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D.Hart Research Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
By:John M.Bridgeland, John J.DiIulio, Jr. Karen Burke Morison

The central message of this report is that while some students drop out because of significant academic challenges, most dropouts are students who could have, and believe they could have, succeeded in school. This survey of young people who left high school without graduating suggests that, despite career aspirations that require education beyond high school and a majority having grades of a C or better, circumstances in students' lives and an inadequate response to those circumstances from the schools led to dropping out. While reasons vary, the general categories remain the same, whether in inner city Los Angeles or suburban Nebraska.

January, 2006
National Assessment of Adult Literacy

Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) is a nationally representative assessment of literacy among adults (age 16 and older) residing in households and prisons in the United States. It is the first assessment of the nation's progress in adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).

NAAL measures the three types of literacy that were measured in 1992 One important goal of the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) is to provide information on changes in adult literacy performance since 1992. Accordingly, the 2003 NAAL provides scores for the same three literacy areas-prose, document, and quantitative-that were examined in the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).In order to provide trend data on adult literacy in the future, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) plans to conduct assessments of adult literacy periodically.

January, 2006
The Literacy of America's College Students

By: American Institutes for Research
Justin D. Baer
Andrea L. cook
Stephane Baldi

Although the average literacy of college students on all scales was higher than the literacy of America's adults, the results indicate that students in 2- ad 4-year institutions struggle most with quantitative literacy. Nearly 20 percent of students in 4-year colleges had Basic quantitative literacy, compared with 6 percent with Basic prose literacy and 5 percent with Basic document literacy. The performance of students in 2-year institutions was also troubling. Approximately 30 percent had Basic quantitiave literacy, which was not significantly different from the percentage of adults in the nation with Basic quantitative literacy.

September, 2003
The Effect of Earning a GED on Recidivism Rates

Nuttall, John
Correctional Education Association
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

This study presents data comparing recidivism rates of inmates who earned their GED (General Equivalency Diploma) while incarcerated in the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) with inmates who were released from the Department with no degree. Previous research has suggested that correctional education has a positive effect on recidivism rates of offenders. This study compares the recidivism rate of inmates who earned a GED while incarcerated with two other groups: 1) inmates who already had a high school diploma or GED upon their admission to the Department, and 2) inmates who failed to earn a GED while incarcerated. Additionally, this comparison is made for inmates who were under age 21 at the time of their release and for those who were 21 or older at the time of their release. The findings indicate that those inmates who earned a GED while incarcerated returned to custody within three years at a significantly lower rate than offenders who did not earn a GED while incarcerated. The relationship between GED attainment and return-to-custody is particularly strong among offenders who were under age 21 at release.