FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY DOCUMENTATION

TITLE: FLORIDA COUNTIES, LEVEL 1 LITERACY RATES

Geodataset Name:       LITERACY_COUNTY
Geodataset Type:       SHAPEFILE
Geodataset Feature:    POLYGON
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
This dataset contains Level 1 Literacy Rates for Florida Counties with adult populations of at least 5,000. Literacy level 1 is the lowest literacy level. Adults in this category can perform simple tasks with text and documents, but display difficulty using certain reading, writing, and computational skills considered necessary for functioning in everyday life.
DATA SOURCE(S):                    National Institute for Literacy
SCALE OF ORIGINAL SOURCE MAPS:     1:100,000
DATE OF AUTOMATION OF SOURCE:      2004
GEODATASET EXTENT:                 State of Florida

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES:

Datafile Name: LITERACY_COUNTY.DBF
ITEM NAME WIDTH TYPE N. DECIMAL DEGREES
FID
4 OID ---
Shape
0 Geometry ---
FIPS
5 String ---
NAME
20 String ---
LITERACY
5 String ---
LEV1
5 Number 2
DESCRIPT
20 String ---
FGDLAQDATE
8 Date ---
UPDATE_DAY
8 Date ---
AUTOID
4 Number ---

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES CODES AND VALUES:

Item
Item Description
FID Internal feature number.

Shape Feature geometry.

FIPS Federal Information Processing Standards Codes. Unique county code used by Census Bureau.

NAME County name. For the county names that contain a period, the period is removed.

LITERACY Percentage of the adult population (age 16 or older) in the county that is at literacy level 1. Literacy level 1 is the lowest literacy level. Adults in this category can perform simple tasks with text and documents, but display difficulty using certain reading, writing, and computational skills considered necessary for functioning in everyday life. (The percentages in this field are stored as characters with % symbols for display purposes. Percentages in LEV1 field are stored as numeric).

LEV1 Percentage of the adult population (age 16 or older) in the city that is at literacy level 1. Literacy level 1 is the lowest literacy level. Adults in this category can perform simple tasks with text and documents, but display difficulty using certain reading, writing, and computational skills considered necessary for functioning in everyday life. (The percentages in this field are stored as numbers, the LITERACY field contains percentages stored as characters for display purpose).

DESCRIPT Based on NAME field

FGDLAQDATE The date FGDL acquired the Literacy Rate information from the source.

UPDATE_DAY The last time the National Institute for Literacy data was updated

AUTOID Geoplan Center internal feature number

USER NOTES:
GeoPlan relied on the integrity of the attribute information within the original data.
Percentage of the adult population (age 16 or older) in the city that 
is at literacy level 1. Literacy level 1 is the lowest literacy level. 
Adults in this category can perform simple tasks with text and documents, 
but display difficulty using certain reading, writing, and computational 
skills considered necessary for functioning in everyday life.

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.

A note concerning data scale:

Scale is an important factor in data usage. Certain scale 
datasetsare 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.

1:250000 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 analyses. Every 
effort has been made to supply the user with data 
documentation. For additional information, see the 
References sectionand the Data Source Contact section of 
this documentation. For more information regarding scale 
and accuracy, see our web pages at:

http://www.geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html

REFERENCES:
National Institute For Literacy. (1998)
	The State of Literacy In America: Estimates at the Local, 
	State, and National Levels. Florida, Municipalities.
	http://www.nifl.gov

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.

DATA LINEAGE SUMMARY:
The FGDL cntbnd shapefile was dissolved based on name and then compared
against data from the National Institute For Literacy. Cities not in the 
Literacy study were removed. Literacy data was then added to each remaining city.

The following steps were performed during Geoplan QAQC processing

-Dissolved FGDL cntbnd shapefile based on NAME
-Deleted AREA, PERIMETER, and FGDLCODE 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
Process Date: 2004

MAP PROJECTION PARAMETERS:

Projection                          ALBERS
Datum                               HPGN
Units                               METERS
Spheroid                            GRS1980
1st Standard Parallel               24  0  0.000
2nd Standard Parallel               31 30  0.000
Central Meridian                   -84 00  0.000
Latitude of Projection's Origin     24  0  0.000
False Easting (meters)              400000.00000
False Northing (meters)             0.00000

DATA SOURCE CONTACT (S):

Name:
Abbr. Name:
Address:


Phone:

Web site:
E-mail:
Contact Person:
         Phone:
        E-mail:
National Institute For Literacy
NIFL
800 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, DC
20006-2712
(800) 228-8813

http://www.nifl.gov

FGDL CONTACT:
Name:                   FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY
Abbr. Name:             FGDL
Address:                Florida Geographic Data Library
                        431 Architecture Building
                        PO Box 115706
                        Gainesville, FL  32611-5706
Web site:               http://www.fgdl.org

Contact FGDL: 

      Technical Support:	        http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfeed.html
      FGDL Frequently Asked Questions:  http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfaq.html
      FGDL Mailing Lists:		http://www.fgdl.org/fgdl-l.html
      For FGDL Software:                http://www.fgdl.org/software.html