News 8 Austin
Austin's Literacy Rate High, But Not 100 Percent
12/15/2005 10:02 AM
By: Valerie Gutierrez

A national study ranked Austin first in Texas in a list of America's Most Literate Cities. It was ranked 16 for cities with a population over 250,000, and the only city in Texas. Seattle was ranked number one.

According to the group Literacy Austin, many people still struggle to read. The nonprofit provides instruction to people 17 years or older who read below the fourth grade level and who have limited proficiency in speaking English.

Linda Calderon is a native Austinite who learned to read two years ago. The grandmother was forced to drop out of school at age 11 to work in a laundry mat.

Now she has a part time job at a bakery and studies part time. She can finally read the recipes, but more importantly, take care of her health and finances.

"I never could know how to do my medicine and stuff like that and put my money and sign my check, and I didn't know how to pay my bills," Calderon said.

Mark Thurman teaches adults how to read at Literacy Austin. He's seen firsthand how it can empower someone.

"If you don't know how to read and write you're not living in a world that you participate in. You're living in someone else's world," he said.

Thurman said many students he tutors did not seek help because of the stigma associated with adult illiteracy.

"They find it abhorrent in this city that people do not know how to read and write …[But] these people are very smart and they have tools that most people don't because they've had to function in an industrial society without the fundamental tools to function," he said.

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