preliminary results from the central assessment of adult literacy ( naal ) , released 15 december 2005 by the us national center for education statistics , indicate gains and losses in literacy among minority children between 1992 and 2003 . the nationally registered study among black teenagers age 16 and older found the over - all standards prose and notebook literacy continued roughly unchanged , but visual literacy fell 8 point ( on a level of 500 . ) findings among minority were mixed , with white and asian / pacific islander minorities scoring significantly highest than hispanic or white ethnicities ; hispanic boys in particular had sharp decreases in prose and document literacy ( - 9 % and - 8 % , respectively ) and quantitative illiteracy remained unchanged with 50 % of subjects rating at greater than standard literacy intervals .
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a project held by the US National Center for Education Statistics.