From the Director regarding the state of Scioto County...

The 2000 U.S. Census reports:

• 10. percent of persons age 25+ in Scioto County have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher   Compared to 21% in Ohio
• 26 percent of persons age 25+ in Scioto County have not graduated from high school
• 17% of Ohio's adult population have not graduated from high school

According to National Institute for Literacy’s report, State of Literacy in America 1998: Estimates at the Local, State, and National Levels:

• Twenty-four percent of the adult population in Scioto County is reading at Level 1 proficiency, compared to 18 percent in Ohio.
• Twenty-five percent of the adult population in Portsmouth is reading at Level 1 proficiency.

According to the Ohio Literacy Resource Center:

• An adult without a high school diploma earns 42 percent less than an adult with a high school diploma.
• Of adults who scored in Level I on the National Adult Literacy Survey (1992) 41-44 percent were in poverty according to federal poverty guidelines, compared with 4-6 percent of adults who scored in the highest level.
• 75 percent of the nation's prison inmates do not have a high school diploma.
• It is estimated that limited literacy skills cost business and taxpayers $20 billion in lost wages, profits, and productivity annually.
• High school dropouts have an unemployment rate 4 times greater than that of high school graduates.

The LCSC recognizes that these astounding statistics demonstrate that it is imperative that there be increased dialogue throughout the county among leaders to include language like “shared responsibility”, “collaboration”, “adequate funding”, and “lifelong learning”.  This can be accomplished by increased communication and the creation of additional local venues for these discussions.

Scioto County has now engaged leadership from education, and health care and must continue to engage additional leadership and “buy in” from community development, employment services, social services, policy makers at all levels, law enforcement, and business and industry in an effort to address our local literacy problem. This is a problem we all share and that we all must work together to improve.

Literacy is not just an educational matter, it is a workforce preparedness issue, an economic development concern, a health issue, a global competitive headline, an income problem, criminal justice issue, a self development/improvement challenge.

These aspects of our literacy challenge demonstrate that literacy is a key indicator of quality of life. We can conclude that literacy belongs to each of us.

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