A literate St. Louis - really!
A story ran in the Post-Dispatch over the weekend that touted St Louis as the sixth most literate city in the nation, based on a set of six criteria.
Post-Dispatch Book Editor Jane Henderson wrote in her Saturday story about the study conducted by Central Connecticut State University that we ranked us above such other larger cities including Boston and San Francisco.
The study measurements pertained only to the city and did not include St. Louis County.
According to the study, those six indicators of literacy tracked were: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources calculated per number of residents. In some categories, St. Louis held steady because other cities showed a greater loss in
areas such as newspaper circulation.
Although the city ranked high in literacy, it was ranked lowest in education — 50th out of 69 cities.
What do you think. Is the study off-base, considering it did not take into account the entire region on both sides of the Mississippi River, and the diverse suburban counties that surround St. Louis? Would our ranking have gone up or down if the entire region was included?
Regardless, it’s nice to turn over a new year on positive news such as this.
Pray tell WHO decided the stzndards that were used to determine “literacy”. I’m still laughing.
Lew, is it too late to make that the top news story of the year?
Given the results of a separate survey, does this mean St. Louis also has the most literate, violent criminals?
I doubt that this survey was done correctly; just because you have a lot of libraries and bookstores doesn’t mean people can read! Maybe they go there to sleep! The study also (obviously) did not take into account johnh’s LOI’s who are not only literate but also wealthy bank moguls.
I’m with Robsmyth on this one. The literacy litmus test should somewhere include some criteria to evaluate an individual’s ability to read and write (or even just one or the other!). If I consistently have the radio tuned in to a talk station, does that make me a social commentator? …Or if I live in a city where orchestral music is performed, do I automatically qualify for the next available employment position as an orchestral conductor? If I live downtown near several banks and credit unions, can I quid pro quo consider myself “wealthy”?
Johnh must not have been part of the research study.
Garrison. I confess, I drove across the bridge to St. Louis. I was the only one interviewed, I gave them the standards that would determine literacy. They had planned to use “Nutrition Facts, off a can to determine literacy.
I read the Nutrition Facts and replied, ” Thats from a can of pork and beans, Friends of mine,Garrison and SlamFist have never even seen pork and beans. They are not literate enough to read the instructions on how to use a can operner to get the lid off.”
See how I take care of my friends in St. Louis? See how good I was for St. Louis. Rating # 6 wasn’t bad. If I had spent another 5 minutes wi5h them I think I would have made St. Louis #1.
I have who is a native of St. Louis
Thank goodness St. Louis has you Johnh. Now if you could only get that spellchecker to work, we would certainly rank in the top 5.
Geez Lew…you weren’t taking a backward smack at ESTL were you? Not that anyone ever does THAT!
Some of the most accomplished and educated people I know did not go to traditional schools, but were largely self taught. Perhaps that is why the study results are BLOWING YOUR MINDS! STL areas, including the fav punching bags, are quite cultured in many ways. I am not sure whether I will live long enough to see if the present generation does as well with their self taught lives as earlier generations did. Seems we have dumbed down our expectations of them, and given them too many distractions. With a good knowledge of search engine technics you can do/learn almost anything though.
I MEANT to spell that wrong to take the heat off of JohnH