Literacy Tied to Life Expectancy: Solutions Need Communities and Schools

According to the American Medical Association (AMA), more than 50% of the time, patients with chronic diseases do not take medications that they know to be life-saving. Read that again. Patients have been to the doctor, were prescribed medications, and got them from the pharmacy. But then they get home and do not take the medicine.

Even though the technical steps needed to get the medication to the patient happen successfully, the positive health outcomes that they are designed to accomplish don’t happen more than half the time. Why? AMA has uncovered a variety of reasons: fear, lack of trust, misunderstanding, cost, complexity, worry, depression (AMA, 2023).

How might we transfer learning from the medical setting to the current statewide focus on literacy? What is the equivalent to the technical steps of getting medication to patients and what equivalent outcomes are we aiming for? 

Just as we know that for the patient to take the medicine, they must first have the medicine, first we must ensure the technical steps outlined in HB538, the legislation passed in Spring 2023 are effectively implemented. 

We must go beyond the technical steps outlined in the legislation and plan for this change as the adaptive cultural shift that it is for communities - not just schools - if our hope is for young people to develop meaningful literacy skills, defined by the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies as being able to use “written text to participate in society, achieve one's goals and develop one's knowledge and potential.” (USA Facts, 2023).

Some might say the stakes aren’t as high with literacy as they are in the case of  life-saving medication. But we know low literacy is linked to low income, poor health outcomes, and most powerfully, diminished life expectancy, with one 2018 UK study estimating that low literacy cuts life expectancy by a jaw-dropping average of 26.1 years (Gilbert et al., 2018). 

What would it mean to approach this work as leading community-wide change rather than thinking of the work as belonging to schools alone to complete required actions in the legislation? Leading change toward community-wide literacy must:

• Meaningfully involve the people needed for long-term success in defining the need and vision for change within local communities - this is not limited to education leaders, teachers and parents. It includes leaders in the business, economic development, faith, and civic communities as well as government and most of all, students themselves. All these voices share common interests in the long-term benefits that will accrue to communities when more citizens have robust literacy skills. Their sustained action and commitment are required well beyond the early hype stage for success.
• Make “Cultivate Trust” the bedrock goal of any plan for change, allocating substantial time to building meaningful personal connections across people responsible for community success in raising literacy rates. Transparently measure the emergence of trust throughout the process and take intentional action to repair trust when it is damaged. 
• Build community structures for monitoring and celebrating progress, thoughtfully distributing responsibility and rewards for critical action steps in realistic alignment with locus of responsibility and distribution of resources. 
• Plan for grief and loss. All change requires leaving an old way behind. Even if we believe a new way is better, we still experience grief in adopting a new way of doing things. Anticipating that these feelings are expected and normal, and putting in place supports for when those feelings crop up, is a difference-making practice for success.

Despite the fact that change leadership is among the most complex leadership responsibilities, relatively little time is devoted in conventional leadership preparation to helping leaders grow the muscle needed to be successful. Drawing on our twenty-three-year track record working with leaders across Georgia schools, GLISI has been a safe haven for leaders to practice and grow these dispositions and leadership practices with coaching and feedback. Our residential team-based model of leadership development has been an effective vehicle for cross-community teams of leaders to grow these skills together while building a common vision, plan, measures, and processes for monitoring success and course-correcting bumps in the road. Whether or not in partnership with a leadership development and technical assistance partner like GLISI, the work toward a future Georgia in which we have eradicated low literacy will demand cross-community work and commitment to leading change far beyond checking off the requirements in HB538.