County faces illiteracy rates higher than the state average
Tulare County could easily be called the land of milk and honey.
Literally.
The county touts itself as the No. 1 dairy county in the state and nation with annual milk production exceeding $1.8 billion in 2012 — when it also pumped out a total of 10,240,000 pounds of honey.
What this agriculturally rich land isn't so abundant in is resources that push for educational attainment among residents.
In Tulare County, 32 percent of residents were illiterate in 2003 when the California average was 23 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Department of Education. And in 2008, the County of Tulare put the adult functional illiteracy rate in the county at 41 percent
"When you talk about why people don't read or what's going on in Tulare County, it's a lack of educational attainment and a lack of success," said Tulare County Librarian Jeff Scott. "You go to school, you go to college and that's your way. But that's so foreign to a lot of the communities here because they're not finishing school. They're not being successful in that way. There's a lot of rural poverty. They don't value that. And a lot of that comes from the generations going back to working in the fields."
Is this rural landscape that relies heavily on low-skilled workers responsible for low educational attainment and a high illiteracy rate in the county?
Few bookstores dot the Tulare County landscape and no public four-year universities are in its borders.
In 1989, when University of California regents wanted to add three campuses to the public university system, a Tulare County University of California Task Force ultimately failed at attracting the regents to Visalia with a land donation of 2,000 acres.
Scott said the fact of high illiteracy rates in the county is evidenced in how much the Tulare County Library — with a total of 15 branches — spends for library services per person.
While the average county library spends $20 to $25 per person served by the library each year, he said, the Tulare County system spends only $10 per person.
"It's a lot of this area — it's like a third world country," Scott said.
Stark numbers
And for the 2010-11 fiscal year, when the average library patron within California visited a county library an average of 4.41 times within the year, Tulare County's patrons only stopped by their county libraries 1.25 times within the same year, according to the California State Library. The St. Helena Public Library topped the chart, receiving 25.02 visits per visitor that year.
The high illiteracy rate heavily impacts the county workforce, said Adam Peck, executive director of the Workforce Investment Board of Tulare County.
The director of the government-funded board, which invests in workforce training and education, said illiteracy has an affect on the employers that sweep into the region.
"It affects employers that offer quality jobs," he said. "If we could help the illiteracy rate, those who need a skilled workforce would make the decision to come to Tulare County."
And Eric Coyne of the Tulare County Economic Development Office agrees.
Certain job sectors don't flock to the area because of the illiteracy rate and skill sets of the population and because the largely represented skill sets don't fit the sectors' needs, Coyne said.
"How would eBay or Google come here when they're all about literacy?" he said. "Illiteracy limits the sectors we go after. Distribution of goods? No problem, that's [Tulare County's] sector. Food packaging? No problem."
Tulare County's workforce is talented in its skill sets and touts a very low turnover rate in the county sectors, Coyne said, but only so many people can pick crops. He said with literacy and advanced education, workers could progress to selling fruit on a local or even an international level.
"With literacy comes a better quality of life," he said. "You can improve your wardrobe, move into a bigger house or apartment and that money rolls into the economy and keeps other people working."
Education improves quality of life
In Tulare County, those without a high school diploma earned $15,000 annually in 2003, when the average worker in the state without a high school diploma brought in a median of $18,451 annually the same year. A high school diploma raised wages in Tulare County by over $10,000 and increased up to $52,534 for those with bachelor's degrees.
Kalash Rana of Tulare can attest to the struggles of being illiterate in the English language.
The 41-year-old mother of two moved over a year ago from India to the Central Valley in search of educational opportunity for her children.
She is fluent in Hindi, but finds herself struggling in the United States because she speaks no English.
Unable to read, Rana is also unable to apply for a driver's license and has to rely on her family to get around. She also would like to get a job but can't out job applications.
She is proud her daughter just graduated from Tulare Union High School and her son is studying at College of the Sequoias, and she is glad her family is helping her in the search for a job and in filling out applications she is unable to understand.
Every day though, Rana works at learning English and in gaining literacy. She knows once she does, life will become easier.
Fighting illiteracy
Three days each week she spends at the Tulare Branch's Read to Succeed — a program that strengthens the community by teaching literacy and other educational components to mostly adult students.
Inside the small program house on West Tulare Avenue, Rana works at reading stories to trained Read to Succeed volunteers. On Wednesday, she worked at reading a book of short stories to a volunteer.
"It's hard but I am hardworking, so it's not hard," she said. "English is very important."
Kim Torrez, director of Tulare's Read to Succeed, said Rana is well on her way to learning the language and that with her dedication, she will soon have a job and driver's license. She said not all those who are illiterate are fortunate enough to have the support Rana has.
"Can you imagine if you come here and don't know the language? You can't direct your kids to help you get a job," Torrez said. "Imagine if you don't have that support that Kalash has. She's lucky, she has a very supportive family that offers transportation and brings her back and fourth to the literacy program. Most people that come through these doors don't have that. Imagine, it's 107 degrees outside and we have moms pushing their babies in strollers to come to our literacy class."
The Tulare program has worked with more than 70 adults with literacy within the last year.
It used to be part of the Tulare Public Library, but due to funding issues, the program was at risk of closing at the library. The county was unwilling, though, to let the program close its doors.
The county stepped up and took over the program as they realized it was a valuable resource in the community, and it now operates under the Tulare County Library.
The director of the Success in Reading, Math and Music Tutoring Center, Jana Meyerstein, also works at teaching literacy to all ages.
Her program works with roughly 400 people with their literacy skills each year, with many of them being adults, Meyerstein said.
With each student she works with, Meyerstein sees the detriments of illiteracy.
"They come up to a brick wall every day because of their inability to read," she said.
Tulare County's illiteracy rate jumped from 32 percent in 2003 to 41 percent in 2008.
The county disconnect to reading can also be seen by the average amount of visits per library patron in the 2010-11 fiscal year. Tulare County's visits per person averaged at 1.25. The state average per county or city library system was 4.41.
Library — Visits Per Capita
El Centro — 0.32
Imperial County — 0.80
Kern County — 1.10
Tulare County — 1.25
Kings County — 1.26
Colton — 1.34
Santa Ana — 1.87
Long Beach — 2.95
San Bernardino County — 3.55
Porterville — 3.69
Los Angeles County — 3.71
Contra Costa County — 4.31
Santa Cruz City-County — 4.48
Santa Barbara — 4.58
San Jose — 7.07
San Francisco — 8.66
Arcadia — 9.91
Palo Alto — 11.96
Cerritos — 21.69
Carmel — 26.24
According to California State Library