Whatever the figure, the question naturally arises what processes and practices in schools and in society at large produce these results. A number of school processes are now commonly identified. Many school systems, from the 1960s, adopted a general practice of "automatic promotion," pushing children through the school grades regardless of their learning. It is now often recognized that practices of "ability tracking" or "streaming" end the development of literacy skills for some students; drop-out rates are known to be markedly high for students in "special education" programs, and for those in the lowest streams of secondary school. It is now recognized in a general way that children from working class, poor, and linguistic minority families often enter schools with less of the kind of language and literacy experience that schools are set up to build on; thus schools need to change their ways of working to build on the experience that all students bring. And it is seen that for many students who are marginally successful (who are "at risk," to use the current jargon) a critical period occurs around grade 8, when many become disaffected from schooling. These practices and processes are increasingly viewed critically. Across the country there are efforts to improve elementary education and to reduce secondary school drop-out rates. Plans include expanding kindergarten programs; focusing elementary school curricula on literacy, and analytical and communication skills; delaying the commencement of secondary school streaming; and reducing drop out rates through the early identification of "at-risk" students, provision of counselling services, and "mentoring" to encourage school completion.

Such measures are valuable. Their results should be documented and their adequacy debated. It is important, however, not to take too sanguine a view of current reforms. There is bound to be resistance to the changes that would ensure that the schools effectively enable all children to develop literacy. More intensive teaching for "at risk" students means higher school funding, which clashes with budget restraint. Eliminating "streaming" means overcoming the resistance of parents whose children benefit from such arrangements. Standard school curricula are arguably not fit for poor and working class children,¹⁹⁰ but changing that — incorporating into curricula class, gender and race perspectives on knowledge — would lend a "political" character to education that would certainly be contentious. School breakfast and lunch programs imply a recognition that social assistance and minimum wage levels are not adequate to support families.

As this last point suggests, very broad economic processes and policies bear on people's opportunities to use, and thus to sustain or develop, literacy. From an adult literacy perspective, it is obvious that literacy and numeracy learning is effectively curtailed by the denial of children's rights to be physically and emotionally prepared to learn, most acutely by hunger. Poor families also have difficulties in trying to supplement the schools' provision of learning materials and teaching work. People struggling to survive under social assistance and minimum wage rates that do not insure an adequate living may lack the time or the presence of mind to use literacy in their leisure, or to improve their employability, or to strengthen their communities.

The numbers of poor children, and of single-parent (usually mother-headed) families in poverty, are growing. Especially in the recession, economic and other forms of social distress are expanding and intensifying. But for most governments, it is not a goal of policy to eradicate poverty.¹⁹¹ Even those governments that might make it a goal can scarcely find the means to begin. Adult literacy advocates are natural allies of those struggling to change these conditions of poverty.