Thousands of Memphians could be missing out on better jobs. Why that is, and how it's being addressed

Garrett Ferby was the only member of his family who hadn’t graduated from high school and attended college. The 22-year-old had been, as he put it, “a bit of a knucklehead” as a teenager, which had prevented him from initially crossing the finish line and earning his diploma.

But he wanted to complete high school and pursue a postsecondary degree. He wanted to make his grandmother and his mother ― a high school English teacher ― proud.

“I just wanted my grandmother to know that I really appreciated her for all she put into me going to school, and my mother as well,” Ferby said.

Like Ferby, Sandra Wicks hoped to reignite her academic career by receiving her high school diploma and entering the realm of higher education. After originally dropping out of high school as a teenager, she had tried to return twice but had struggled to juggle class and work and quit. Time had flown by, and she had reached her mid-fifties, but the desire to finish school hadn’t faded. Her mother had always pushed her to go back; and while she had managed to obtain good jobs, she knew that continuing her education could lead to better ones.

Both Ferby and Wicks started looking for places where they could complete high school. And though the two were separated in age by over 30 years, they ended up at the same place: The Excel Center, a local organization owned by Goodwill that provides adults with a free high school education.

The coursework wasn’t always easy; Ferby and Wicks found chemistry to be a particularly challenging subject. But the two persisted and received immense support from the teachers and staffers at The Excel Center. And in November, they graduated and received their diplomas during a ceremony at the Orpheum.

Ferby’s mother and grandmother were in attendance, as was Wicks’ 82-year-old mother.

“She was very proud of me,” Wicks said. “I was very happy she was able to be at the graduation.”

With their time at the Excel Center complete, Ferby and Wicks now have plans to continue their educations and eventually earn bachelor’s degrees. But by completing high school and receiving their diplomas, they’ve already helped combat a significant problem in Memphis ― they’ve lowered the vast number of local adults in need of academic remediation.

'A generational implication'

When people talk about improving education to alleviate poverty, they often tend to focus on early childhood, which can give students a strong start in school and propel them toward future academic success. To Jared Barnett, CEO of the research nonprofit Slingshot Memphis, this makes sense.

“You’ve got to focus on early childhood,” he said. “That's where I think the long-term solution comes from.”

But Barnett doesn’t see this as a cure-all, as many of the children struggling in school have parents who lack important literacy and numeracy skills, which can make succeeding in school more difficult.

“There’s a generational implication to this,” he said. “If we're trying to help children read, and they live in a home where the parents aren't literate, or their aunt or their grandparents are not literate, their probability of reading at level drops dramatically.”

A parent’s low reading level can also affect their own quality of life. According to Slingshot’s research, there are about 100,000 Memphians experiencing poverty that need academic remediation. And without it, receiving and retaining a living-wage job is challenging.

“If people are struggling with basic literacy and numeracy, their professional pathways are damned,” Barnett said. “There's only so far you can get without being able to read or do math at a sufficient level… I hear people say, ‘Oh, people just need to work harder or bootstrap themselves.' But without a sufficient education, you can’t help yourself, because you’re not able to read or write at a level that enables you to do so.”

Barnett gave the example of a man who was hired for a warehouse-level position at a Memphis-based chemical company. For the first six months or so, he performed well. But over time, his supervisors realized he didn’t know how to read, which presented a significant issue. The various chemicals he and his team worked with had different safety requirements and operating procedures, and he didn’t have a way to discern what they were.

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“They ended up letting this gentleman go, even though he had been doing well, because he was a safety risk,” Barnett explained. “[His reading level] stopped his ability to work at that company.”

And low reading and numeracy levels have prevented many people from earning degrees that can lead to comfortable incomes. Career and technical education degrees and credentials have the potential to provide a way out of poverty. But if prospective students lack fundamental academic skills, these programs aren’t readily accessible.

A high school diploma doesn’t always guarantee someone is ready for a postsecondary education, either. In 2016, 91% of freshmen at Southwest Tennessee Community College qualified for learning support ― which, according to Barnett, meant about nine out of 10 students in the school weren’t ready to dive into their associate degree without some sort of additional academic help.

The number of grown-ups in need of academic remediation also doesn’t seem to be getting smaller. If anything, it’s growing.

Difficulty meeting the need

Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ average composite ACT score, though improved, stood at 16.4 in the 2022-23 academic year, with 75.2% of students scoring below 19. The district’s graduation rate was 81.5% last year ― a notch above the 80.1% it recorded in 2021-22, but significantly behind the statewide average of 90.6%. And according to Slingshot’s research, about two out of every 10 high school freshmen don’t receive a high school diploma within four years.

“Unfortunately, we're actually putting more people into this population of needing academic remediation, than we're taking out every year,” Barnett said.

There are organizations looking to lower the number of adults needing it by providing them with an education. The Excel Center gives students the chance to earn not just a diploma but an array of credentials. The nonprofit HopeWorks also provides avenues to high school equivalency degrees, as well as English language courses. And Literacy Mid-South, another nonprofit, offers an adult learning program, which provides tutoring for people who want to improve their reading, writing, and digital literacy skills, and non-native English speakers who want to improve their English skills.

But with the number of adults needing academic remediation around 100,000 and rising, these groups don’t necessarily have the capacity to reach everyone who could benefit from their programs.

Literacy-Mid-South, for example, relies on volunteers to tutor participants in its adult learning program. And while Stacy Early, the organization’s adult program director, noted that it never turns people away, it does rely on volunteers to be tutors for its adult learning program ― which means the number of people it can work with at one time is limited. Right now, it has about 85 volunteers working in its adult program, around 100 people receiving tutoring, and another 25 or so on its waiting list.

“We're able to serve, as a community, just a small percentage of this population [needing academic remediation],” Barnett said. “If you think of it as a bathtub, the drain is really narrow right, in terms of helping people get out of that tub.”

This, of course, begs a question: Why are there so many people in the tub to begin with?

Literacy, poverty linked

Often, it’s related, at least in part, to poverty. According to the 2023 Memphis Poverty Fact Sheet, the poverty rate in Memphis stood at 21.4% in 2022, while the child poverty rate was 32.7%. Economically disadvantaged students made up 60.8% of MSCS’ graduating class last year, and they graduated at a rate of 79.7%, compared to a rate of 84.4% recorded for non-economically disadvantaged students.

“There's definitely a correlation,” between poverty and the large number of people needing academic remediation, Barnett said. “When you are in households that are low income, there's just less resources.”

And at the same time, the people needing that remediation have a harder time rising out of poverty.

“I definitely think the lack of literacy and numeracy leads to people either staying in poverty or going into poverty,” he said. “If we want to improve employment pathways and employment outcomes in the city, this is a barrier that I think gets overlooked, and we don't realize how severe it is.”

Barnett believes there needs to be more opportunities and programs for adults needing academic remediation. And in the meantime, organizations like The Excel Center will continue to try and support their current students, who often face significant challenges.

Candis Dawson-Taylor, director at The Excel Center, has seen the average age of students enrolling in the program decrease. When she joined the organization in 2015, it was 37. Now, it’s about 20 to 21, and 53% of students must start with a literacy remediation course. Though The Excel Center is offering high school courses, many students enter reading at a middle school level.

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“If your transcript says that you need English 11, but you're reading at a sixth-grade reading level, and I put you in English 11, in 36 days, you're probably going to fail the class,” Dawson-Taylor said. “So, we offer those supportive classes to ensure that when they do get into their core classes, they're able to be successful.”

The program also offers students free childcare, accelerated courses, certified life coaches, and transportation assistance. The goal is to remove any barriers that could prevent people from enrolling.

And for any adult who wants to return to school and earn their diploma, Ferby, the 22-year-old who graduated in November, has some advice.

“I’m like Nike on that," he said. "Just do it.”

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Mid-South nonprofits are working to address adult literacy gaps in Memphis