A note about data scale:
Scale is an important factor in data usage. Certain scale datasets are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes. Please be sure you are using the best available data.
1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the county level. 1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such as property parcel boundaries.
1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the multi-county or regional level. 1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the regional or state level or larger.
Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact section of this documentation. For more information regarding scale and accuracy, see our webpage at: <http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html>
Related Resources
Literacy of Older Adults in America, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, November 1996.
Literacy and Dependency: The Literacy Skills of Welfare Recipients in the United States, Educational Testing Service, 1995.
Skills that adults at level 1 can usually perform: Sign one's name, identify a country in a short article, locate one piece of information in a sports article, locate the expiration date information on a driver's license, total a bank deposit entry.
Skills that adults at level 1 cannot usually perform: Locate eligibility from a table of employee benefits, locate intersection on a street map, locate two pieces of information in a sports article, identify and enter background information on a social security card application, calculate total costs of purchase from an order form.
Low literacy skills are closely connected to the social problems related to poverty. Nearly half (43 percent) of adults in Level 1 live in poverty. This contrasts with only four to eight percent of those at the two highest literacy levels.
The impact of low literacy:
Poverty. Forty-three percent of adults at Level 1 were living in poverty, compared to 4 percent of those at Level 5.
Welfare. The likelihood of being on welfare goes up as literacy levels go down. Three out of four food stamp recipients performed in the two lowest literacy levels.
Income. Adults at Level 1 earned a median income of $240 per week, comparedto $681 for those at Level 5.
Employment Status. Adults at Level 1 worked an average of 19 weeks per year, compared to 44 weeks per year for those at Level 5.
Crime. Seven in 10 prisoners performed in the lowest two literacy levels.
Certain scale datasets are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes. Please be sure you are using the best available data.
The following steps were performed during Geoplan QAQC processing
-Deleted FEATURE, POP_90, FIPS55, STATE, FIPS, and DISPLAY fields from attribute table -Added LITERACY and LEV1 fields to attribute table -Added literacy data per city from The State of Literacy In America: Estimates at the Local, State, and National Levels. -Added DESCRIPT field based on NAME to attribute table