re: LeVar Burton shocked to discover he's descended from a Confederate soldier

quote:

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This is a myth that won’t die. Literacy rates in the US were higher in 1850, over 90%, than they are today, 79%.

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Really? Where do you get that data from? Literacy in the US now is in the 99% range. You may be thinking of proficiency. Though I doubt it was better then than now as well. Heck, world literacy is in the 87% range.

Here is what I found
https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp




https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-rates?country=USA~OWID_WRL~MEX~CAN~GBR