Facts
- One out of every five residents of Broome and Tioga Counties has a literacy issue that negatively impacts his or her life.
- Fourteen percent of our adult population don’t read well enough to understand a newspaper story written at an fifth grade level—or to fill out a job application properly.
- The health care system in the US spends an additional $106-$238 billion on costs associated with patient medication/ self-care mistakes caused by low levels of literacy.
- Low levels of literacy cost the US $225 billion each year in reduced workplace productivity and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment.
- In 2010, 75% of all students entering community college in NYS needed remedial help with basic reading skills to have increased academic success.
- More than 60% of all adult state and federal inmates are functionally illiterate; if the inmate is a juvenile, that figure rises to 85%. Inmates have a 16% recidivism rate if they receive literacy assistance, as opposed to 70% who remain illiterate. The United States Department of Justice has said, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and other crime is welded to reading failure.”
- Ninety percent of welfare recipients are high school dropouts with sub-par literacy.
- If a teenage girl has a reading level at or below 2nd grade, she is six times more likely to have an unplanned birth during her adolescence than her literate peers.
- A child who grows up in a home with at least one illiterate parent is twice as likely to be illiterate as an adult. According to the National Center for Family Literacy, “Low family income and a mother’s lack of education are the two biggest risk factors that hamper a child’s early learning and development.”
- Literacy Volunteers of Broome/Tioga Co. Inc. is the only local organization providing free reading and math help for adults who test at or below an elementary level. Our services also include help to individuals over 16 seeking to pass a High School equivalency exam or English lessons for speakers of other languages.
Kristen Gordon-Pier
Executive Director
Chip Carlin
Development Coordinator
Ann Marie Carmon
Adult Education Program Manager
Hnin Aung
Adult Education Program Coordinator
Nadia Rousseau Ganthier
ESL Education Program Coordinator
Rebecca Sheriff
Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator
Jim DeVona
Tioga Education Lab Coordinator
