SMITH COUNTY, Texas — Illiteracy is an issue often forgotten by those who are not directly impacted by it. However, the reality is that 51% of adults in Texas currently read at or below an 8th grade level. Of that, 23% are reading below a 5th grade level.
“There’s a large number of adults, most people are surprised, who are really lagging behind educationally,” Nancy Crawford, Executive Director of the Literacy Council of Tyler, said.
Locally, the statistics are even more alarming. In Smith County, 61% of adults read below an 8th grade level. In recent years, the rates have increased.
These individuals are among the 44 million American adults who cannot read a food label or a simple story to a child. This can also have implications in the workforce, health systems, school reform and other areas in someones daily life.
“It’s a problem Texas Legislature and many others have been working on so it’s not something made up, it’s a legitimate problem,” Crawford said. “The truth is, not everybody gets to grow up like I did and be secure in their education and in their family. That’s just a hard-core fact.”
Crawford works each day with individuals who are inhibited by their lack of education. Whether it be in reading, writing or mathematics.
“Of all the different students that I’ve met, it’s always been so many different things. Moving around a lot as a child, parents who were drug-addicted," Crawford said. Being new to the country is a huge one, and every time you think you’ve heard every possible reason, you’ll hear another one.”
When it opened in 1990, the Literacy Council of Tyler had 30 students enrolled. Now, 2,000 students a year benefit from its services.
“We’ve been at this for 25 years and now it’s undecided. Hispanics are our largest population,” Crawford said. “They’re well over 60% of who we serve. Every year, that’s gotten higher. The other common factor among all of them is high unemployment and low wages.”
It has been years since Abygayl Alvarez was a LCOT student but due to the impact it has had on her life, she now serves as an advocate for its mission to improve the lives of individuals and their through educational services.
“The instructor always knows what they’re getting themselves into with a student, so they know their highs and lows and what they need to study,” Alvarez said. “Math ironically has always been and I feel will always be my nemesis.”
At one point, Alvarez identified as an 8th grade dropout who struggled with getting back on track in obtaining an education. She would later get married and have something, something she said motivated both she and her husband to “break the cycle."
“My husband and I knew we were going to have to do something because statistics show us that your children are going to follow in your footsteps," Alvarez said. "And that was one thing that I wasn’t going to stand for.”
Around 1998, she enrolled at LCOT, hoping to obtain her GED.
"It was a feeling, an immediate feeling of having conquered something I've always been extremely intimidated by and that's math," Alvarez said.
Alvarez now works as a community health worker and a hypertension instructor. She is also in the last stretch of reaching another goal, obtaining a master’s degree.
"You can wish all you want to be greater, to do better but if you don't convert that wish into want and put that want into action, it's going to remain a wish,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez is one of LCOT’s many success stories. The community-based organization exists primarily for adults because its founders believed that everyone should have an educational opportunity no matter the age, ethnicity or economic status.
The services offered at LCOT are at no cost to its students. Funding comes from government grants, private foundations, and local donations.