Seeds of Literacy, a Cleveland nonprofit that provides free, personalized education to empower adults, claims on its website that 66% of adults in the city are dealing with “low levels of literacy.” Elsewhere on the website, they are described as “functionally illiterate.”
During a November 2024 Cleveland City Council meeting, Councilmember Kris Harsh called the statistic an “absurdity” based on “frankly, racist statistical analysis” from a 2004 study out of Case Western Reserve University.
“Essentially what this report does is it calls black folks in Cleveland the functionally illiterate, all of them," Harsh said. "It's absolutely absurd.”
Seeds of Literacy in a statement argued the study provides the best city- and neighborhood-level data available to describe adult literacy in Cleveland. While acknowledging the study is based on old data, spokesperson Katie Kucera said in a written statement, “time spent debating the study is time better spent on addressing critical literacy issues.”
Robert Fischer, director of CWRU’s Center on Poverty and Community Development, said the study is not racist; he said race is a factor that should be examined when looking at adult literacy, just as much as other factors like poverty, somebody’s background as a non-English speaker or their employment and education history.
"I don't think it's fair to call it racist when we in every other whether it's infant mortality or poverty or obesity, we talk about racial differences as a priority for understanding how social concerns are differentially impacting different parts of our of our community," he said.
Still, he took issue with Seeds of Literacy using the term “functionally illiterate,” a term which the study doesn’t use.
“I'll just say for the record, saying that 66% of Cleveland's population is 'functionally illiterate' is false, is misleading, and it should not be repeated,” he said.
What does the 2004 study say?
The 2004 CWRU study tries to provide an accurate estimate of how many adults in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County struggle with low levels of literacy.
It looks at data from a 1992 U.S. Department of Education-commissioned survey of 13,600 people aged 16 or older nationally and a state-level survey of 1,000 adults from 12 states, including Ohio. It also uses a research model developed in the 1990s as a way to “predict” the literacy of adults based on “aggregate characteristics:” educational attainment, race, ability to speak English, immigrant status, weeks worked, occupation and labor force status.
The study looks at how those groups scored nationally and infers what Cleveland's literacy rates would look like, assuming those groups would score the same on the test.
Using that data, the study suggested 69% of Clevelanders (adjusted to 66% based off 2005-2007 Census data that Seeds of Literacy examined) were at the two lowest levels of five when it comes to literacy.
“These are very basic skills that do not require comprehension of text, or deep understanding of mathematical concepts,” Seeds of Literacy wrote in a document explaining the two lowest levels of literacy. “Level 3 proficiency is what postsecondary institutions and employers consider to be a minimum requirement for admission and employment.”
The study also suggests Cleveland had the lowest literacy rates of all other large Ohio cities, and that rates of literacy were far higher in the rest of Cuyahoga County.
Criticism, and what other data shows
Marty Ropog, director of the Ohio Literacy Resource Center, a grant-funded center based at Kent State University, said the Cleveland study should be taken with a grain of salt since it’s using old, “synthetic" data, looking at national statistics to infer a smaller population.
“Many other factors come into play in states, regions, counties that make synthetic estimates tricky,” she said.
Regardless, national and county-wide data is made regularly available on adult literacy through assessments of the adult population in the U.S., through the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.
That data shows 21% of adults in Cuyahoga County scored at or below the lowest level of literacy in 2020, in a category described as "at risk" on the website of the local nonprofit, The Literacy Cooperative. Another 33% in Cuyahoga County scored at the second lowest level of literacy, described as "nearing proficient." Cuyahoga County's adult literacy levels are similar to Ohio's according to the PIAAC. The program has a detailed method for how it defines those lowest levels of literacy.
Robert Fischer at the Center on Poverty and Community Development said it's misleading to call people at the first two levels of literacy "functionally illiterate."
"Based on the the data that we reported, there were 29% of folks (in Cleveland) at level one," he said. "Those those folks are clearly the most at risk. But only a tiny number of those folks would be match that term, 'functionally illiterate.'"
Ropog agreed that the term isn't "quantifiable" because most people have "at least some level of literacy."
Seeds of Literacy spokesperson Katie Kucera argued it's a question of semantics.
"But debating terminology – 'functional illiteracy' and 'low levels of literacy' – minimizes the struggles of those affected and silences critical conversations. Whether you label it functional illiteracy or low literacy, the issue is the same: adults in our community with low literacy skills may be surviving (functioning), but they are not thriving," she said.
Kucera said a "widespread, well-funded new study" is needed of the literacy issue in Cleveland to provide city- and neighborhood-level specifics.
"Members of our community are left behind in areas ranging from employment opportunities to healthcare access because they don’t have proficient literacy skills," she said. "Literacy, in this context, involves much more than just reading—it includes comprehension, numeracy, the ability to navigate through misinformation, and more."
